Microsoft AI boss issues 18 month warning to all office workers with jobs severely at risk

Microsoft’s CEO of AI has issued an 18 month warning to everyone working a 'white-collar' office job.

While ChatGPT is becoming a useful everyday tool for a lot of people, you can't help but worry about how it will play out in the job market.

On many levels, the age-old idea of 'being replaced by robots' is very much becoming a reality, yet Mustafa Suleyman argues that AI is 'designed to enhance human wellbeing and serve humanity, not exceed humanity'.

He told the Financial Times that Microsoft, which has a $135bn stake in ChatGPT maker OpenAI, wants AI tools to remain under human control.

At the same time, he said the advancements mean that 'white-collar work, where you’re sitting down at a computer, either being a lawyer or an accountant or a project manager or a marketing person — most of those tasks will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months'.

Microsoft’s CEO of AI Mustafa Suleyman says 'white-collar' jobs will be fully automated in the next 12 to 18 months (Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Suleyman believes that AI agents will co-ordinate better with large businesses in the next three years and that the technology will learn by itself and improve over time. Frightening, I know.

“Creating a new model is going to be like creating a podcast or writing a blog,” he said.

“It is going to be possible to design an AI that suits your requirements for every institutional organisation and person on the planet.

“We have to reset that and make the assumption that we should only bring a system like that into the world, that we are sure we can control and operates in a subordinate way to us,” Suleyman added.

'Most of those tasks will be fully automated', says Suleyman (Getty Stock Images)

Meanwhile, Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), warned at the World Economic Forum last month that AI will be like a 'tsunami hitting the labour market'.

“We expect over the next years, in advanced economies, 60 percent of jobs to be affected by AI, either enhanced or eliminated or transformed – 40 percent globally,” she added.

“Tasks that are eliminated are usually what entry-level jobs do at present, so young people searching for jobs find it harder to get to a good placement.”

It comes after Microsoft's list of 40 jobs and careers that are 'most at risk' from AI.

Towards the top of their list are writers (great), historians, customer service representatives and telemarketers.

The top 40 most affected occupations by generative AI:

AI can automates filing, reduces errors and improves document organisation (Getty Stock Images)

1) Interpreters and Translators

2) Historians

3) Passenger Attendants

4) Sales Representatives of Services

5) Writers and Authors

6) Customer Service Representatives

7) CNC Tool Programmers

8) Telephone Operators

9) Ticket Agents and Travel Clerks

10) Broadcast Announcers and Radio DJs

11) Brokerage Clerks

12) Farm and Home Management Educators

13) Telemarketers

14) Concierges

15) Political Scientists

16) News Analysts, Reporters, Journalists

17) Mathematicians

18) Technical Writers

19) Proofreaders and Copy Markers

20) Hosts and Hostesses

21) Editors

22) Business Teachers, Postsecondary

23) Public Relations Specialists

24) Demonstrators and Product Promoters

25) Advertising Sales Agents

26) New Accounts Clerks

27) Statistical Assistants

28) Counter and Rental Clerks

29) Data Scientists

30) Personal Financial Advisors

31) Archivists

32) Economics Teachers, Postsecondary

33) Web Developers

34) Management Analysts

35) Geographers

36) Models

37) Market Research Analysts

38) Public Safety Telecommunicators

39) Switchboard Operators

40) Library Science Teachers, Postsecondary