Whether employees are worried about losing their jobs to AI depends largely on their knowledge of artificial intelligence—and on the extent to which their work can be digitized. This is one of the findings of the latest AI Monitor published by TU Darmstadt, based on a representative survey of more than 2,000 people conducted in cooperation with the market research and polling institute YouGov.
According to the study, respondents' affinity for AI is the factor most strongly associated with fear of job loss: The better people understand how artificial intelligence works and what it is already capable of, the more concerned they are about coming under pressure at work because of AI or even losing their jobs. Almost half of those with very good knowledge of AI (around 43%) expect that AI could soon take over their work.
"This is a remarkable and, at the same time, worrying finding," says project leader Peter Buxmann, professor of information systems at the Department of Law and Economics at TU Darmstadt. "Many debates are based on the assumption that concerns are primarily the result of a lack of information. However, this does not appear to be the case: Those who understand AI best are also the most aware of its disruptive potential."
