Achi news desk-
Worried artificial intelligence is coming for your job? So did the federal government—enough, at least, to set aside $50 million for reskilling workers.
One of the main promises in the federal budget released on Tuesday was $2.3 billion in investments aimed at boosting the adoption of the artificial intelligence technology and industry in Canada.
But alongside that was a promise to invest $50 million over four years “to support workers who may be affected by AI.” Workers in “potentially disrupted sectors and communities” will receive new skills training through the Sectoral Workforce Solutions Programme.
“There is a significant transformation of the economy and society on the horizon around artificial intelligence,” said Joel Blit, associate professor of economics at the University of Waterloo.
Some jobs will be lost, others will be created, “but there will be a transition period that could be a bit chaotic.”
While jokes about robots taking over jobs preceded the appearance of productive AI systems in late 2022, the widespread availability of systems like ChatGPT made those fears real for many, even as workers across industries began to integrate the technology into their working day.
In June 2023, a briefing note for Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland warned that the impact of productive AI “will be felt across all industries and could affect around 40 percent of all working hours.”
“Banking, insurance and energy appear to have a higher potential for automation compared to other sectors,” said the note, obtained through access to information and citing information from Accenture.
“This could have a significant impact on job and skills requirements.”
The budget only identifies “creative industries” as an affected sector that will be covered by the programme. In February, Canada’s TV, film and music industries asked MPs for protection from AI, saying the technology threatens their livelihoods and reputations.
Finance Canada did not respond to questions asking what other sectors or types of jobs would be covered under the program.
“The creative industries were used as an illustrative example, and not as an exception from other areas that were affected,” said the deputy spokesperson for Finance, Caroline Thériault, in a statement.
In an interview earlier this year, Bea Bruske, president of the Canadian Labor Congress, said that unions representing actors and directors have been very concerned about how AI systems could use their likeness or their work. But the “reality is that we have to look at the implication of AI in every job,” he said.
Blit explained that large language models and other generative AI can write, come up with new ideas and then test those ideas, analyze data, as well as generate computer programming code, music, images and video.
Those affected are individuals in white-collar professions, such as people working in marketing, healthcare, law and accounting.
In the longer term, “it’s actually quite difficult to predict who is going to be affected,” he said. “What’s going to happen is that whole industries, whole processes are going to be reimagined around this new technology.”
AI is a problem “across sectors, but clerical and customer service jobs are certainly more vulnerable,” Hugh Pouliot, a spokesman for the Canadian Union of Public Employees, said in an email.
The federal government has used AI in nearly 300 projects and initiatives, new research published earlier this month revealed.
According to Viet Vu, manager of economic research at the Toronto Metropolitan University Dais, the impact of AI on workers in a sector such as the creative industry does not have to be negative.
“That’s only true if you adopt it irresponsibly,” he said, pointing out that creative professionals have been adopting new digital tools in their work for years.
He noted that only four per cent of Canadian businesses use any form of artificial intelligence or machine learning. “And so we’re really not there yet for these frontier models and frontier technologies to have an impact.
When it comes to how AI will affect the labor market, it’s more useful to think about what kinds of tasks the technology can do better, rather than whether it will replace entire jobs, Vu said.
“A job involves so many different tasks that sometimes even if a new technology comes along and 20, 30 percent of your job can be done using AI, you’ve got that 60, 70 percent left of length,” he said.
“So it’s rare that (an) entire occupation is actually wiped out of existence because of technology.”
Finance Canada also did not respond to questions about what new skills the workers would learn.
Vu said there are two types of skills it makes sense to focus on in retraining – computational thinking, or understanding how computers operate and make decisions, and data-handling skills.
There is no AI system in the world that does not use data, he said. “And so being able to really understand how data is curated, how data is used, even some basic data analysis skills, will go a long way.”
But given the scope of the change AI technology is poised to trigger, critics say much more than $50 million will be needed.
Blit said the money is a good first step but will not be “near enough” when it comes to the scale of the coming transformation, which will be similar to globalization or the adoption of computers.
Valerio De Stefano, Canada research chair in innovation law and society at York University, agreed that more resources will be needed.
“It is possible that jobs will be reduced to the extent that reskilling may be insufficient,” and the government should look at “forms of unconditional income subsidy such as basic income,” he said.
The government should also consider requiring AI companies to “contribute directly to pay for any social enterprise that cares for people losing their jobs to technology” and ask “employers who are reducing payrolls and increasing profits thanks to AI doing the same.”
“Otherwise, society will end up subsidizing tech businesses and other companies as they increase profits without giving back enough for technology to benefit us all.”
