Artificial intelligence set to change the workforce, impacting graduate jobs, new research reveals

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2 days ago

Solicitor Kelly Waring isn't shy about how beneficial artificial intelligence (AI) is to her litigation work spanning clients across New South Wales and south-east Queensland.
"Evolve or die," she said.
The 36-year-old principal director of Lismore-based firm Parker Kissane introduced an AI program to the team's workplace 12 months ago, which allowed complex case summaries to be fast-tracked, as well as managing accountancy and clerical tasks.
Tasks that young lawyers traditionally cut their teeth on are predicted to be significantly disrupted by digital automation, and female graduates will suffer the most as a result, new research has found.
"Women make up the majority of legal graduates today, but they're concentrated in areas that are most vulnerable to automation, AI," said lead author Meraiah Foley from the University of Sydney Business School.
Contracts, conveyancing, due diligence and discovery are some of the roles being transformed or hollowed out by digitalisation, according to the research.
Dr Foley, whose research specialises in gender inequality at work, said there's also an increasing expectation that younger workers will be able to justify their "value add" from day one.
"This puts a really significant burden of adaptation on younger workers. They have to go above and beyond to prove themselves," she said.
It adds to recent research from the United States, which points to a rising unemployment rate among university graduates, due in part to artificial intelligence displacing traditional grad roles.
The Oxford Economics study found an "unusually high" 5.8 per cent unemployment rate among graduates, particularly in technical fields, where AI has made faster gains.
Dr Foley said that so far, nothing like that has been seen at the University of Sydney, where she works.
"That could be reflecting some sort of lag, rather than whole scale immunity to these types of transitions and changes."
On the recruitment frontline, Clinton Marks, a director at Robert Half, said right now AI was reshaping tasks, not replacing entire jobs.
"Graduate hiring in the past: it was almost a 'rite of passage' to do the most mundane tasks, reconciling a spreadsheet, writing up reports," he said.
"Generative AI is taking over some of those tasks."
Murray Cassar, general manager for education at the Tax Institute, described AI as a "superpower" for graduates, with AI becoming a "wingman" to cut down on tasks like analysing large data sets.
Mr Cassar has witnessed a drop in major firms recruiting graduates this year, but believed it was related to market conditions, rather than AI replacing these jobs.
He said conversely, mid-tier firms had boosted the number of graduate roles offered.
Director of the UNSW centre for the future of the legal profession, Michael Legg, agreed it was too early to tell whether the Australian graduate market was experiencing a similar contraction, but regardless, technology would have an impact.
"You need digital literacy, new technology skills… but also interpersonal skills and what I call the concept of 'practical wisdom'."
Fourth year Griffith University law student, Stella Hayes, 22, works at Parker Kissane and has seen first-hand how deeply AI is embedded in the job.
"It's an awesome tool you can use for administrative tasks like preliminary research and creating briefs," she said.
"I think we can definitely use it to our advantage to get things done a lot faster so that we have more time to learn the advocacy and the interpersonal skills to deal with clients."
Her boss, Kelly Waring predicts a transformative change in how law firms operate, particularly the role of support staff.
"Their skill set is simply going to change to a minimum of, 'How do I prompt and review AI?', and 'How do I check and cross reference AI with reality or advice from a senior lawyer?'."
Professor Legg predicts as technology improves consumers will turn to it for straight-forward legal tasks.
"Obtaining basic legal information will be possible, you won't necessarily need a lawyer for that," he said.
"But there's still an issue as to whether that sort of technology, which could improve access to justice, may also make mistakes."
Ms Waring isn't concerned about a reduction in potential legal work if people decide to turn to AI tools for do-it-yourself legal tasks.
"As a litigator, the cheeky part of me wants to say that's going to generate a lot of work for me," she said.
"[Failed] will kits from the post office already make me a lot of income.
"Answering questions in AI just does not take into consideration, some random, specific circumstance in your life that completely changes [your legal position], but you just don't have the mind to disclose it to the Bot."
Solicitor Kelly Waring also believes AI could revolutionise the legal system by absorbing all the "paper shuffling" and exchange of documents in courts, which still use outdated methods including posting documents and transferring data via USBs.
Ultimately, she envisions court processes "happening in an AI format," similar to what is already occurring in the conveyancing space.
For law-student Stella, she said she and her classmates — who've signed up to five-year degrees and six-figure HECS debts — aren't feeling threatened by AI taking their job.
"It's such a new thing and I don't think people have really grappled with the technology and where it can go.
"I mean if you were a personal trainer, ChatGPT could take your job and create meal plans and work-out routines.
"But for me, I don't think my job is at threat…. Well, not yet."