By: Daniel Salcedo Rubio, Features Editor

I recently graduated from a master’s program at SFU. I’ve been casually swiping through positions on LinkedIn for a while now, not really looking for a serious commitment. This wasn’t my first time entering the job market. When I finished my undergraduate degree, I was in a similar position; however, back then, I was far more anxious and desperate to find the one.

I’m familiar with the dreadful hunt for a job. The tricks one has to do to get over HR’s screening bot, the tips to approach hiring managers through LinkedIn, the interview prep, and deciding the interview outfit the night before, all equally soaked in anxiety. This time, I felt far more at ease, having an advanced degree and a couple of years of industry experience, I felt safe. I was no longer the same man entering the waters of the job market from years ago — but as the saying goes, the job market didn’t remain the same river either. While a lot felt familiar,  a new factor had been creeping around for a while. Artificial intelligence was now shifting the waters. From the general fear of AI replacing human workers to interviews entirely conducted by an AI agent, I quickly realized just how unfamiliar certain things could become.

Let’s start with the obvious: AI will be replacing human workers, to some degree. I’m not trying to sound negative or ominous. I believe there’s a lot of work that AI will be more efficient at performing, like repetitive tasks in data entry. However, I also think that in the transition to finding the right position for AI to take in the workforce, a lot of us will be negatively affected. For example, Bloomberg Intelligence estimated 200,000 jobs in Wall Street banks will be lost in the next three to five years due to AI adoption, and about 92 million roles could disappear by 2030, according to a Future of Jobs report. Entry-level positions, which already have ridiculous qualification expectations, will be significantly harder as AI is expected to overtake most entry-level work. 

“Policymakers, companies, and developers need to ensure these technologies are implemented ethically — and more importantly, humanely.”

Data entry, customer service, and administrative jobs are already being replaced with AI chatbots, and positions in paralegal work, advertising, and graphic design, to name a few, will all likely be disrupted and to some extent automated by AI in the near future. In human resources, screening bots scan your documents, search for keywords, and either pass you to the next step or reject you within minutes of submitting your application. However, that report also estimates a net gain of 78 million new job opportunities. Service jobs, software and cybersecurity, farmers and related trade workers, project and operations managers, jobs in education, among others, are expected to grow by 2030. Not all is bleak; it’s just more and more complicated. As it’s always been the case, one has to remain up to date with emerging technologies, but AI’s fast development and improvements make it increasingly difficult to predict and adapt to the shifts it’s making. There are likely people right now studying and preparing for jobs that will no longer exist by the time they graduate. 

In some way, I had this as a mindset during my job hunt. I’ve been working as an editor for The Peak for about three years now, following a similar path alongside my science degree. I had considered a career in scientific writing — perhaps still am, just far more cautious and less hopeful. I can’t deny the capabilities of the language learning models in use today. I don’t believe that what I, or anyone else, is capable of doing is actually replaceable. For example, I don’t think AI can be as good a writer as I am. However, it can do it far faster and far cheaper than I do. It’s disheartening to scroll through job opening after job opening for some form of artificial intelligence trainer, fine-tune responses, or prompt developer — it felt like my only options were to train my replacement or apply to positions soon to be replaced. It’s hard to predict the changes AI will bring to the job market. Just six years ago, when I first started working, ChatGPT didn’t even exist yet, and now it’s getting university degrees. Even human resources aren’t safe of being replaced by artificial intelligence — AI is now also replacing interviewers. AI recruiters like Alex, have recently emerged, providing a fully automated interview process — ironic right? Human resources being replaced by AI. Not only have the waters changed, but the rate at which they change has increased as well.

Perhaps it’s just the cycle of life and I’m just starting my how-do-I-open-this-pdf-boomer–era. I do see the benefits of incorporating AI into the job hunt. For example, on principle, that same recruiting AI bot Alex should be able to interview thousands of applicants for a position, something no single human would be able to feasibly do by themselves. Imagine a world where you’re guaranteed an interview and assessment of your abilities rather than being just one more electronic email from the digital pile. However, that world isn’t yet here and instead we have to navigate through AI recruiters glitching out and AI systems that just replicate the same biases they promised to eliminate. Right now, it seems as if we’re starting the very unpleasant transition into widespread incorporation of AI into different areas of the job market.

I sincerely hope AI brings change for the better, but I also hope those building these tools and those adopting them into their workforce will think about those dipping their toes for the first time. AI will continue to shape the currents of the workforce, and the job market, but the onus shouldn’t entirely be on the job seekers to keep adapting. Policymakers, companies, and developers need to ensure these technologies are implemented ethically and more importantly, humanely. That means transparent practices on data use and training sources, auditing and mitigating biases, and ensuring humans remain involved — AI should be a tool to support us rather than a replacement of us.