Staying on task: How the media industry can prepare for the rise of AI in the workplace
One of Hollywood’s most impactful stories in recent years did not play out on screens, but rather in the streets. When writers and actors emerged victorious after striking to secure guardrails against the unfettered use of artificial intelligence in the entertainment business it sent shockwaves around the world – tremors strong enough to be felt in the UK media industry.
“If you look at the way artists’ and writers’ unions were organising in the US to try and prevent AI being used, it’s not too far-fetched to say those in journalism and media might have the same concerns about the vulnerabilities in their industry,” says Bhargav Srinivasa Desikan, senior research fellow at independent UK charity, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), who has analysed the enormous impact AI is having on the UK job market.
“There’s a decent overlap in terms of skills and tasks between these industries and you can imagine certain media jobs, like copy editing and checking types of facts, being vulnerable to encroaching automation.
“The media industry needs to recognise what AI tools can do, what tasks they still want to do themselves, and where AI can improve productivity. Depending on that, the risks of AI to the media can be bad, or not so bad.”
Desikan’s call for the media to get ahead of the oncoming AI juggernaut comes in the wake of a revealing new study by the IPPR on the huge effect new tech will continue to have on the UK job market – and the dangers of policy makers not preparing for the changing landscape. In its worst case-scenario projections, up to eight million jobs could be lost to automation.
Transformed by AI, authored by Desikan and Carsten Jung, senior economist at the IPPR, identifies two key stages of generative AI adoption: the first wave, which is here and now, and a second wave when companies will integrate existing AI technologies more deeply.
In what is a unique approach to exploring the impact of AI on the UK labour market, the report analyses 22,000 tasks in the economy, covering every type of job. The study shows that 11% of tasks are already exposed to existing generative AI, rising to 59 % if companies integrate AI more substantially.
Back office, entry level and part-time jobs are most vulnerable to automation, with women significantly more affected. The report also lists a range of scenarios showing that a “job apocalypse” is not inevitable, and that acting decisively now could lead to huge wage and GDP gains.
“We are at the precipice of a very transformative technology, both from an economic and a social perspective,” says Desikan. “A similar kind of situation happened with social media, and we didn’t really make the most of it in terms of setting our legal frameworks, our policy incentives on how we want to use a technology that’s going to impact all of our lives.
“Unlike social media, where we didn’t really do anything about it and now we’re cleaning up after ourselves, we have to act proactively and make sure the technology doesn’t just benefit the big tech corporations, but all of us, and that we minimise any economic or social harms that might come from AI.”
Building bridges
If the media and other industries want to make the most of generative AI over the next few years teamwork and bridge-building will be essential, says Desikan.
“When you ask who needs to act when it comes to the rise of AI, you have the government, tech companies and the firms who want to use AI, and then you have people who work in the industry,” he points out. “There needs to be organising among all those lines.
“At the moment tech companies build the tool and we just decide how we want to go ahead and use it. That should not be the case. What we want is a proactive government, which decides the scope of what can be automated.
“If there’s something that can be automated there has to be discussions on how we want to do it. And these discussions will involve workers and also people’s panels to find out what they want automated in their lives. Basically, we need a democratic decision on what the future should look like.”
For Desikan, the communication between management at media companies and workers who speak with a collective voice is particularly important when it comes to the process of integrating AI.
“If you have strategic management basically deciding how restructuring is going to happen, you’re going to run the risk of people wanting to cut costs using AI tools and that will lead to multiple problems.
“Of course there will be job losses, but you are also running the risk of news not being trustworthy because you don’t know the source. AI tools are not putting out very high quality at the moment. So, what I would say to media firms is to be responsible at a time when there’s a lot of power to decide how to use this tool and to not just use the tool to cut costs.”
Desikan describes the UK media industry as having a “medium rate of exposure” to the rise of AI but is quick to point out that just because technology can do a task, doesn’t mean it should.
“If a task just says finding information and reporting it, technically you could have an AI do this,” he says. “But then you’re removing the human touch. So, in the context of media and journalism, on a pure task level, you can imagine a lot of the tasks can maybe be done by an AI, but would it be of the same quality, and do we really want to give that away?”
Good robot
In its report the IPPR recommends the government develops a job-centric industrial strategy for AI that encourages job transitions and ensures the benefits of automation are shared widely across the economy.
The measures taken should include supporting green jobs which are less exposed to automation; fiscal policy measures, such as tax incentives or subsidies to encourage job-augmentation over full displacement; and regulatory change, to ensure human responsibility of key issues, such as with health.
While there are reasons to be concerned about the rapid rise of automation and the impact it will have on the UK job sector, Desikan stresses the importance of looking at the huge potential benefits of automation as well.
“There are many potential ways to go forward since the way we decide to do this is not going to happen overnight,” he says. “If we’re able to produce the same number of things in four days instead of five, then why not change to four-day work weeks and have more time with friends and family?
“Also, we could ensure that productivity increases that come with automation goes along with a wage increase. For instance, if you are cranking out double the number of articles, are you getting paid proportionally? The right policy incentives could see a great increase in the GDP growth of our economy and get the UK out of its productivity slump.
“There are multiple things that need to be done right for us to be able to get these benefits, but it’s definitely possible if we handle this well.”
