A new study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) has found that artificial intelligence (A.I.) can already replace 11.7% of the U.S. workforce.
The study concludes that A.I. today can save employers as much as $1.2 trillion U.S. in wages across the finance, healthcare, and professional services sectors.
The study was conducted using a labor simulation tool called the “Iceberg Index” that simulates how 151 million U.S. workers are affected by A.I. and corresponding policies.
The Iceberg Index, which was launched by M.I.T. earlier this year, offers a forward-looking view of how A.I. may reshape the labour market and cause human disruptions.
Specifically, the index runs population-level experiments, revealing how A.I. is impacting tasks, skills and labour flows before the changes show up in the economy.
For the latest study, the Iceberg Index mapped more than 32,000 skills across 923 occupations, then measured where current A.I. systems can already perform those skills.
What the study found is that the tip of the iceberg, the recent layoffs in the technology sector, represent just 2.2% of total wage exposure, or about $211 billion U.S.
Beneath the surface lies the total exposure, or the $1.2 trillion U.S. in wage savings, as human roles are replaced by A.I. in human resources, logistics, finance, and office administration.
M.I.T. says that the index is meant to give a skills-centered snapshot of what today’s A.I. systems can already do and the likely future impact on the economy.
So far this year, major technology companies such as Microsoft (MSFT) and Amazon (AMZN) have cut tens of thousands of jobs as they rely more on A.I. and robots.
