Seems Like AI Can Replace You Even If You’re Highly Skilled

New research challenges assumptions that AI is only replacing low-skilled workers.

Albert Camus, Nobel prize winner, half-length portrait, seated at desk, facing left, smoking cigarette. 1957. Public Domain.

As someone who makes a full-time living from my words, it used to be reassuring that AI only replaces low-skill jobs… until researchers found that top-rated, high-earning freelancers are seeing the largest relative setbacks due to generative AI.

After going through real transaction data from the online gig site Upwork, one of the study’s authors said:

“For every 1% increase in a [high-earning] freelancer’s past earnings, they experience an additional 0.5% drop in job opportunities and a 1.7% decrease in monthly income following the introduction of AI technologies.”

AI appeared to “level the playing field” by eroding the advantage of experts.

Another study that came out early this year found that copywriting and translation jobs saw a roughly 20%-50% decline in demand relative to pre-AI trends.

The researchers assembled a dataset of over 3 million freelance job postings and assembled them into three categories below, saying the AI disruption has created “winners” and “losers” in the job market.

• “Substitutable” — Examples from the study include content…