As artificial intelligence continues to make headlines for its rapid advancements, there’s a growing debate: Will AI wipe out jobs, or will it create new opportunities? Vered Shwartz, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research AI Chair at the Vector Institute and assistant professor at UBC, offers a nuanced perspective.
Shwartz, whose upcoming book Lost in Automatic Translation explores the rise of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, believes the reality of AI’s impact on work is more complex than either the doomsayers or the evangelists suggest. While LLMs are impressive, she cautions against blind trust, especially given their tendency to “hallucinate” or generate false information.
“We’re only beginning to see how AI is reshaping the job market,” says Shwartz. “It can free workers from repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on their expertise, but it also poses the risk of job loss.”
LLMs, trained on massive datasets to predict and generate text, are already transforming white-collar professions. Unlike previous waves of automation that mostly affected manual labor, today’s AI can handle writing, coding, and research tasks. According to Statistics Canada, three-quarters of workers in fields like finance, insurance, and IT are in roles that could be affected by AI.
Despite this, Shwartz prefers to see AI as a force for transformation rather than outright replacement. She points out that while some entry-level positions may be lost, especially as companies experiment with automation, new roles will likely emerge over time. “It’s short-sighted to eliminate all entry-level jobs,” she warns, “since these are the workers who eventually move up to fill more senior roles.”
Shwartz also urges caution with bold predictions from tech leaders, noting that such statements often serve to promote their own products. While some job losses are inevitable in the short term, she expects most white-collar jobs to evolve rather than disappear, with humans overseeing and validating AI-generated work.
Looking ahead, Shwartz hopes AI will enable professionals to focus on more meaningful work, though she acknowledges the risk that some may end up spending more time managing AI tools than practicing their core skills. As AI becomes more integrated into the workplace, she believes the key will be using it to enhance, rather than replace, human expertise.
