AI is suddenly everywhere. The technology has changed how students write essays, how families plan travel, how marketing departments create boardroom presentations and how investors analyze data. ChatGPT holds the record for fastest-growing consumer application of all time, attaining 100 million active monthly users two months after launch, a number Instagram took two and a half years to reach.
In the current issue of Maclean’s, 15 big thinkers explore how AI is changing every aspect of Canadian life. One of the essayists, Joel Blit, an associate professor of economics at the University of Waterloo, answers the question many of us worry about: will my job be replaced by a computer? Yes and no, he says. Some people’s jobs are at risk of being eliminated. For others, their work life might be improved, or at least made more efficient.
Blit’s explanation: “If most of your job is composed of tasks that ChatGPT can perform—as it is for roughly 20 per cent of Canadian workers—the outlook is bleak. ChatGPT may replace you entirely. But more likely, ChatGPT will become a tool that is integral to your job.” His essay lays out how tools like ChatGPT will be used by many professionals to enhance productivity, accuracy and even, in some cases, empathy. “Too often,” he says, “with disruptive technologies, we focus on the risks and overlook its prospective benefits.”
—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief
