Over and over, we hear of the prospects of AI taking over our jobs, making us effectively redundant thanks to our human rights and requirements (breaks, time off, sleep) and fallibility (the fact that sometimes we make mistakes).

However, heartening studies often reassure us that, in fact, AI tools tend to be more error-prone than the humans monitoring them, that their adaptability is less advanced, and that it’s unlikely we’ll see an AI takeover any time soon.

And yet the evidence is clear to see, with jobs being cut left right and centre, with some of those roles being redistributed to AI. In fact, the customer service team of some major companies is now made up, in part at least, by AI.

But, in the spirit of academic progress (or, perhaps, to prepare us for what’s coming), a team of scientists from Microsoft have released a list of the job roles most suitable for AI takeover, as well as those least likely to be replaced by technology.

And for many of us, it won’t make for comforting reading.

The paper, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, takes a wide range of metrics into account – everything from gathering information and processing data to managing subordinates and operating machinery – to determine the level to which job roles would be suited to AI.

They made use of a dataset of conversations between Microsoft Bing Copilot and its users to understand the level to which AI could undertake certain roles, finding that teaching and writing, information and assistance based jobs were most suitable to be undertaken by AI.

The study also makes distinctions between roles that could be supported by AI, and those that could be performed by AI (the former still requiring human input, the latter relying much less on it).

And the ‘AI applicability score’ given to each job role, a number that explains the likelihood of AI use in current human job roles, is likely to be unsettling to many.

First of all, the good news.

If you work as an embalmer, a facial surgeon, a masseuse, or a motorboat operator, your job is probably safe – for now, anyway.

That’s because these roles slot within the forty least likely to be replaced by AI, due to the specialist and often human requirements of the roles.

As for those in the top forty most likely to be replaced by AI? Well, if you’re an author, a historian, a travel agent, switchboard operator or data scientist you’re out of luck.

Thanks to the effectiveness of large language model (LLM) AI products, you might just find that you’re being pushed out of the door sooner or later, in favor of a less human alternative.

Your best bet for a future career path? Become a dredge operator – something that the paper suggests AI unequivocally cannot do.

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