In the early 2000s, when Amazon introduced its Kiva robots to automate warehouse operations, employees feared for their jobs as machines began taking over tasks previously performed by humans. Today, advances in gen AI and natural language processing, such as ChatGPT, are transforming many industries and raising similar concerns. However, unlike past automation technologies, gen AI has the unique potential to impact all job sectors, particularly given its fundamental ability to improve its capabilities over time – which promises to affect the workforce in ways that go beyond simple job replacement.
In new research, forthcoming in Management Science, we explore the impact gen AI has already had on the labor market by examining trends in demand for online freelancers. Our findings show significant short‑term job replacement after these tools were introduced, and that jobs prone to automation, like writing and coding, were the most affected by ChatGPT.Our research also examines how competition, job requirements, and employer willingness‑to‑pay have changed to better understand how the online job market is evolving with the rise of gen AI. Although still in its early stages, gen AI’s impact on online labor markets is already becoming discernible, suggesting potential shifts in long‑term labor market dynamics that could bring both challenges and opportunities.
To conduct our study, we analyzed 1.388.711 job posts from a leading global online freelancing platform from July 2021 to July 2023. Online freelancing platforms provide a good setting for examining emerging trends due to the digital, task‑oriented, and flexible nature of work on these platforms. We focus our analysis on the introduction of two types of gen AI tools: ChatGPT and image‑generating AI. Specifically, we wanted to understand whether the introduction and diffusion of these tools decreased demand for jobs on this platform and, if so, which types of jobs and skills are affected most and by how much.
Using a machine learning algorithm, we first grouped job posts into different categories based on their detailed job descriptions. These categories were then classified into three types: manual‑intensive jobs (e.g., data and office management, video services, and audio services), automation‑prone jobs (e.g., writing; software, app, and web development; engineering), and image‑generating jobs (e.g., graphic design and 3D modeling). We then examined the impact that the introduction of Gen AI tools had on demand across these different types of jobs.
We find that the introduction of ChatGPT and image‑generating tools led to nearly immediate decreases in posts for online gig workers across job types, but particularly for automation‑prone jobs. After the introduction of ChatGPT, there was a 21% decrease in the weekly number of posts in automation‑prone jobs compared to manual‑intensive jobs. Writing jobs were affected the most (30.37% decrease), followed by software, app, and web development (20.62%) and engineering (10.42%).
Internet: www.hbr.org (adapted).
The researchers used different job categories in their study. All of them use technology, like data and office management.
