AI impacts
Artificial intelligence appears set to influence almost every facet of human existence. Will developments in AI this century enrich or threaten your working life? They may free you from mundane jobs, so that you can do … what exactly? They might empower you to take work that expresses your more human qualities. Perhaps a wholesale delegation of codifiable tasks to AI will close career pathways to jobs that require an apprenticeship. Certainly AI capabilities will increasingly encompass logical reasoning, strategic argument, diagnostic skill, and written, oral, visual and architectural creativity. The immense promise of AI assumes endless supplies of human-generated data for model training; AI models that cannibalise their own outputs have rapidly degrading utility.
Here is ChatGPT’s own perception of limits to its reach, as of 4/2/2025. The following list of jobs is compiled from three replicate responses by GPT-4o to the question: “Over the course of this century, which careers have the lowest existential risk from developments in AI?”
The list below recognises five main categories, and examples of job types within each. Those showing in red were not present in ChatGPT’s answer. The list excludes several job types from its response that carry foretold existential risk: artist, composer, novelist, poet, screenwriter, songwriter, teacher / lecturer. Many of the listed job types may evolve to employ more or fewer people as AI tools augment or erode human engagement.
Careers with the lowest existential risk from AI
Jobs involving crisis response
Jobs motivated by curiosity
Jobs relying on embodied experience
Jobs requiring common sense
Trades in unstructured environments
Patrick Doncaster would welcome suggestions for additions or subtractions (email: cpd@soton.ac.uk)