Blue-collar jobs have a new sheen to them as desk workers become increasingly vulnerable to being replaced by artificial intelligence.
Microsoft examined the link between how much certain workers rely on AI tools and the potential impact to their professions, in a new report titled “Occupational Implications of Generative AI.”
The tech giant’s researchers analyzed data from 200,000 anonymized and privacy-scrubbed conversations in the U.S. between users and the tech giant’s AI chatbot companion, Microsoft Bing Copilot, gathered over nine months between January and September 2024.
The analysis, published last week, focused on users seeking assistance from Copilot to complete a task, defined as the “user goal” by researchers. Meanwhile, AI performing a task within the conversation was labelled “AI action.” This determined which work activities generative AI was completing. In some cases, the AI was providing instructions on how to perform a task.
“To illustrate the distinction, if the user is trying to figure out how to print a document, the user goal is to operate office equipment, while the AI action is to train others to use equipment,” the report said.
