The Analytical Musician

On March 26, 2023, the venerated investment bank Goldman Sachs delivered a report on the impact of Artificial intelligence (AI) on the global economy. This wide-reaching report investigated several industrial sectors in the United States and Europe and concluded that up to 300 million jobs could be affected by generative AI. “If generative AI delivers on its promised capabilities, the labor market could face significant disruption,” the report stated. Two-thirds of US jobs, representing some 50 percent of the workforce, are exposed to the potential automation by AI. Although the report’s sobering findings are a significant blow to a tenuous labor market, it did state that adopting AI could increase the total value of goods and services by 7 percent globally within the next ten years.

AI has been front and center in the news recently. In November 2022, the launch of ChatGPT gained the attention of the world’s media and organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to arts organizations and government agencies. ChatGPT is an app created by OpenAI. A natural language processing tool, the software can answer questions, write copy, and emails, translate natural language to code, and write poetry. It gained prominence when Microsoft employed the ChatGPT technology foundation, GPT-4, in their search engine Bing. Originally offered to boost Bing’s search results and offer suggestions on writing emails and presentations, the program gained “notoriety” when Associated Press technology reporter Matt O’Brien interacted with the system. O’Brien soon discovered that the program behaved like a hostile human rather than assist him with his emails. The program told O’Brien that he was “ugly, short, overweight, unathletic, among a litany of other insults.” (NPR, Microsoft’s new AI chatbot has been saying some ‘crazy and unhinged things’ https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1159895892/ai-microsoft-bing-chatbot) Other journalists soon tested this system and found similar results. Soon critics began voicing their concerns regarding the rise and influence of AI on society. Some, such as Elon Musk (a co-founder of OpenAI), have called for a moratorium on developing “giant” AI. In an open letter, prominent computer science engineers wrote, “Recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control.” (Future of Life website https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/)

Even with questions surrounding the use and development of AI, technology has become an important driver of the economy and many fields, including business, education, and entertainment. The report’s scope is wide and detailed in its assessment of the impact of AI on the global economy. If AI meets the expectation that experts in the field supposedly expect, “the labor market could face significant disruption.” (report) The report’s findings reflect AI technologies (ChatGPT, DALL-E, and LaMDA) currently available in the workplace. Possible future reiterations of these technologies or potential developments not yet imagined may significantly change the report’s outcomes.

The authors structured their report on the technology that has the greatest impact on the labor market. First, they examined technologies that have a generalized rather than specialized usage. DALL-E is a program that can create digital images from language “prompts.” The program can produce hundreds of images from a single prompt. Second, they included programs that produce outputs with human-like thinking rather than just interpreting data. LaMDA is a conversational language model that can generate natural human language. It has applications in gaming as well as carrying conversations with users on a range of topics. Finally, the report reviewed three technologies that “understand and respond to natural language, images, audio, and video.” (report) These human communication traits are central to how we interact, express ideas, give directions, and collaborate. They are the central skills for work and central in critical thinking. From this basis, the report identified thirteen activities that AI would greatly affect. These range from “getting information,” including tasks such as “web scrap(ing) data from online sources and consolidate(ing it) into a clean data set” to “performing administrative activities” that requires the platform to “draft automated email responses; schedule  and manage meetings and work calendars; file and organize paperwork; book reservations.” (report) Furthermore, the report reviews the effects of AI on countries, the displacement of workers, and the potential for productivity growth by applying AI systems.

The findings of the report are reflective of the changes that AI will bring to the global economy. Apart from the expected 300 million full-time positions lost to automation, the report states that approximately two-thirds of current jobs are currents exposed to some AI automation, and generative AI could replace one-fourth of current work. (report) However, the impact of such technology has mixed results across the labor sectors. The adoption of AI systems will greatly affect fields such as office and administrative support, business and finance, and legal areas. Areas that are labor intensive, such as building and grounds cleaning and maintenance, installation, maintenance and repair, and transportation and material moving, will be less affected by this new technology. Similarly, different geographic regions will face varying levels of automation. Developed economies, including Europe, the UK, the USA, and Japan, will face major changes. Agrarian-based economies will not be affected by the introduction of generative AI but could be affected by developments in robotics and wider-ranged technologies.         

This report indicates a direct and indirect correlation between the introduction of generative AI and job loss in the music industry. The report states that the arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media sector in the US and Europe will see approximately 26 percent of their current work tasks affected by AI. Areas that intersect with the music industry, such as legal affairs, management, computer, sales, and management, will see changes due to the introduction of AI. In most cases, the research indicates that AI will complement music industry jobs rather than substitute jobs. In other words, AI will enhance the roles currently performed by several individuals in arts and entertainment organizations rather than replace humans completely. In keeping with the report’s findings, jobs that require manual labor (performing an instrument, singing, or composing) are relatively “safe” from the advent of AI. However, those jobs that have mechanical components, such as legal discovery, administrative work, or compositional creation will be greatly affected. With the advent of more sophisticated generative AI, even the creative realms face the specter of AI replacing human interaction.

Although sobering to read, the report indicates the positive outcomes of the advent of AI in the workplace. With all technological revolutions, there has been subsequent productivity output in the labor market. The advent of the internet and information technology innovations introduced new occupations like webpage designers, software developers, and digital marketing professionals, but also increased aggregate income and indirectly drove demand for service sector workers in industries like health care, education, and food services. Early adopters of this nascent technology may have a comparative advantage in the globalized economy. The report shares this view, which estimates that the global labor market may see a 7 percent increase in GDP over ten years with the widespread adoption of AI. The increase in GDP is estimated to add $7 trillion to the world economy and may lead humanity into the next development phase.