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Software engineers and customer service agents will be first to lose jobs to AI, Oireachtas to hear
Software engineers, junior lawyers, and customer service roles will be among the first in Ireland to be affected by job losses to artificial intelligence, experts on the AI Advisory Council predict.
Members of the council, made up of 15 independent experts who advise the Government on Ireland's AI strategy, appeared before the Oireachtas AI Committee on Tuesday.
It heard the even moderate workforce reductions could collectively lead to "noticeable increases" in unemployment.
"We cannot predict the exact pace, scale, or whether new jobs will replace those lost," AI Advisory Council chairwoman Patricia Scanlon said.
When asked if he could predict what would be the first jobs to be hit in Ireland, council member and Jentic founder and CEO Sean Blanchfield said he believed it would be in software engineering, 'ironically enough'.
'Naturally enough, people in my industry are taking this technology and applying it to the first market they know, which is themselves.'
'That's real, and that's current."
Entry level programming jobs are largely being replaced by AI now, he added.
Certainly, among the leading companies. The job of the software engineers has moved up to more software 'architect'. I think if you speak to lawyers, you find the same things happening in law firms. Those are two obvious examples.
The quality of AI technology is improving 'month after month', he added. 'Palpably. We can see it in our own company.'
"These are intense, information-work jobs. If it's possible to automate the work of a software developer or a junior lawyer, you can automate a lot of things. '
Customer service would be another example of this, he added.
Professor Deirdre Ahern, member of the AI council and professor in law at Trinity College Dublin, cautioned that cuts to junior roles due to AI could have further impacts.
'We mightn't have as many but we still need people who are able to interrogate outputs, etc. It's not that the jobs are gone, but it's just maybe there may be less of them.'
Fine Gael TD Keira Keogh said it was interesting to hear members of the council say we can't predict the next five years.
Five years ago, when we were talking about AI and robots, we didn't predict it was going to be the highly educated engineers that would be losing jobs first.
Bronagh Riordan of EY, who chairs CeADAR, Ireland's national AI centre, added there is another side to this, as AI also free up time through automation.
One example of this is healthcare, she said. 'You can automate repetitive tasks, and you can free up more of the time for healthcare experts to help our society.'
Ms Scanlon told the committee Ireland is at a 'critical juncture' when it comes to AI.
'The choices we make now determine whether we shape this future or are shaped by it.' She also called for an 'AI Observatory', a national system tracking real-time impacts on jobs and skills as they happen. "Without it, we're navigating tomorrow's changes with yesterday's map."
