Which jobs are most likely to be replaced by AI as new Channel 4 show tests theory

Amongst growing fears that AI will replace jobs on a wide scale, Channel 4 will release a new documentary tonight which puts this theory to the test.

According to a poll from earlier this year carried out by TUC, more than half of UK adults fear that their jobs can be replaced by AI, with a Reuters poll showing that this is true for 71 per cent of American adults.

In short, people across the board are terrified that one day corporations will simply decide that their job is cheaper and easier to give to AI.

Several studies have been taken regarding which jobs are the most likely to be replaced by AI, with varying views on which are actually the most likely.

Geoffrey Hinton, a man known as the Godfather of AI for his work on artificial neural networks, just this week warned that on its current trajectory AI would ‘make a few people much richer and most people poorer’.

Hinton pointed to failings in capitalism, stating that the fault was not AI, but of the system that is currently producing it.

Microsoft themselves have suggested that 40 core jobs are at high risk of being replaced by AI.

Of the 40 listed as the most likely to be replaced by AI in the coming years, Interpretors and Translators, and Historians were the two most likely, with major fields such as sales, customer services, and journalism among those at high risk of replacement by AI, according to Microsoft.

The full list can be found here.

One of the most highly discussed fields regarding AI, however, has been healthcare, with Hinton stating that this is one of the highest potential fields for AI integration.

The newest episode of Channel 4’s Dispatches however puts that idea to the test, seeing four professionals, including a doctor, pitted against AI in Will AI Take My Job.

This saw a doctor, photographer, lawyer, and composer pitted against an AI clone of themselves to see who can carry out their jobs better.

Dr Tom Rustom, a GP from Surrey, is pitted against an AI clone of himself in assessing six people and was 'intrigued by its ability to make a diagnosis'.

Speaking about this to The i Paper, Rustom said: “Honestly, I haven’t felt that sort of pressure since medical school exams.

“I was glad I put some antiperspirant on that morning, because I was very, very scared.

“And all the permutations of, you know, ‘What if I lose?’, ‘What if I misdiagnose somebody?’, ‘What if I miss something, you know, really obvious?’”

Whilst the AI impressed the GP it makes one potentially fatal mistake in the episode, telling a patient with symptoms of a stomach ulcer to simply take iron supplements when Dr. Rustom believed it was a potentially fatal matter, which he said 'scared' and 'angered me a little bit'.

Dispatches: Will AI Take My Job? airs tonight on Channel 4 at 8pm