Posted on 04/07/2025 12:20:54 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Forty per cent of jobs globally could be impacted by the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) in the next decade, a new report from the United Nations said
Artificial intelligence (AI) may impact 40 per cent of jobs worldwide, which could mean overall productivity growth but many could lose their jobs, a new report from the United Nations Department of Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has found.
The report, which was published on Monday, says that AI could impact jobs in four main ways: either by replacing or complementing human work, deepening automation, and possibly creating new jobs, such as in AI research or development.
A handful of companies that control the world’s advancement in AI "often favour capital over labour," the report continues, which means there is a risk that AI "reduces the competitive advantage" of low-cost labour from developing countries.
Rebeca Grynspan, UCTAD’s Secretary-General, said in a statement that there needs to be stronger international cooperation to shift the focus away "from technology to people".
AI is supposed to lead to $4.8 trillion (€4.38 trillion) in market value by 2033 but the beneficiaries are still highly concentrated, the report found.
Just 100 companies, mostly based in the United States and China, account for almost half of the world’s research and development spending in AI.
Market dominance, at both national and corporate levels, may widen technological divides, leaving many developing nations at risk of missing out on its benefits. 2025 Technology and Innovation Report UNCTAD Both countries also produce one-third of peer-reviewed articles and two-thirds of AI patents, which shows that they "dominate knowledge generation," in the field.
The report notes that tech giants like Apple, NVIDIA and Microsoft, all of whom are based in the US, have a market value of $3 trillion (€2.73 trillion), which rivals the economy of the whole African continent.
More than 3 out of 4 workers have already used AI in their job search, new survey finds Amazon and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, are worth at least $2 trillion (€1.82 trillion).
"Market dominance, at both national and corporate levels, may widen technological divides, leaving many developing nations at risk of missing out on its benefits," the report found.
The EU has launched antitrust investigations into many of the abovecompanies but in recent days have, in some cases, consideredrevising digital services taxes on their European operations.
The study also evaluated how competitive countries are with other frontier technologies. It found the US has the edge in digital technologies like AI, the Internet, big data, blockchain, and 3D printing.
China, on the other hand, leads development in 5G cellular networks, drones, and solar photovoltaics (PVs).
AI is too expensive to replace humans in jobs right now, MIT study finds Japan and Korea are also competitive in these areas, along with nanotechnologies, and robotics development.
The UN found that 118 countries, mostly from the Global South, are missing from the conversations about how to govern AI.
How to prepare for the 'fifth industrial revolution' AI uses machine learning to identify patterns and relationships from huge amounts of data, with their performance improving over time.
This means that these systems are not limited to routines and structured tasks like previous automation technologies, the report found.
The result is that AI systems can in theory outperform older systems and possibly human performance, especially in highly skilled jobs. But, when combined with other systems, it can control physical production.
The impact that AI is going to have on the labour force depends on how automation, augmentation, and new positions interact.
The UNCTAD said developing countries need to invest in reliable internet connections, making high-quality data sets available to train AI systems and building education systems that give them necessary digital skills, the report added.
To do this, UNCTAD recommends building a shared global facility that would share AI tools and computing power equitably between nations.
Some real thought should be put into what happens to a society when a very large percentage of the population simply cannot contribute to the national economy. They aren’t going to just sit around and write poetry.
I think the chinese have a youth culture called ‘lying flat’.
A new report from the UN? Same folks who for 20 years have told us what cities will be going under soon due to global warming?
AI needs lots of power.
Let’s hope the UN is the first to cut 40% of its workforce first!
Learn to code!
Oh, wait...
If you have a dynamic labor market with productivity increases, technology never - never - results in mass unemployment over the long term. There will be short term disruption, but labor ultimately finds better paying jobs - always. The key is to soften and deal with the short-term disruption.
“Some real thought should be put into what happens to a society when a very large percentage of the population simply cannot contribute to the national economy. They aren’t going to just sit around and write poetry.”
I’ve been saying this for years!
Just look at our large cities.
The problem is that the politicians and law makers were elected by those “non-contributors”.
So we are back winded and headed towards the rocks.
Our original constitution and bill of rights was probably the best, most well thought out government ever created.
My solution is start over.
wipe out every amendment to our present constitution and start over with the original constitution and bill of rights.(sorry girls, I’m sure with knowing what we know, Men will rush to give you Federal voting rights!).
KISS is the idea.
Emphasize the 10th Amendment!
States rights.
“If you have a dynamic labor market with productivity increases, technology never - never - results in mass unemployment over the long term.”
You may be right (fingers crossed) - but the direst predictions about AI are that it’s unlike any prior tech developments in terms of its eventual capacity to replace human efforts, both intellectual and physical. Here’s hoping that that’s a gross overestimation!
“sorry girls”-ay, por favor-no creo-we know that some of you “boys” would love to take rights away from women with any excuse-so just no. Are you going to leave out the amendments outlawing slavery and other human rights issues as well? Those amendments were needed, and should continue...
“Those amendments were needed, and should continue...”
Why?
We have plenty of laws that cover what concerns you
at the state level.
What I want to eliminate is some Liberal judge in Bung fu4ked nowhere dictating what happens in the entire nation.
Who elected him/her to be in charge of us?
We vote for presidents and congressional people.
Judges for LIFE! are appointed.
and they can thwart the entire nations desires with
just their personal opinion?
That isn’t right.
No, it isn’t-so let’s just get rid of the amendment giving any judges lifetime appointment, and tighten the radius of their jurisdiction to their own states-just a small campfire-no need to burn the barn and whole forest down. Calmate-nothing constructive gets done in the heat of the moment...
Considering that anything that has to do with IT now is considered AI, that sounds reasonable.
/sarcasm...just in case
We mostly agree!
Limit them to their Districts only!
My only question is, since impeachment is so hard to do,
how do we deal with “political” judges?
Judges are supposed to be “Apolitical”.
too many are not!
The trick with AI is you need to be quite specific about what you are asking AND you have to understand the results it produces.
I use it to ask chemistry questions and it’s very unlikely someone without a background in chemistry could formulate the right questions or understand the outputs.
Plus you have to check to make sure the answers AI provides are correct. ChatGPT and Grok sometimes give conflicting answers.
Finally a human has to sign off on the job performed even if a machine does that job.
Hopefully it will eliminate my need for a book keeper and accountant. I HATE wasting time and money just to make sure the government gets “their fair share”
The trick with AI is you need to be quite specific about what you are asking AND you have to understand the results it produces.
I use it to ask chemistry questions and it’s very unlikely someone without a background in chemistry could formulate the right questions or understand the outputs.
Plus you have to check to make sure the answers AI provides are correct. ChatGPT and Grok sometimes give conflicting answers.
Finally a human has to sign off on the job performed even if a machine does that job.
I’ve read that “prompt engineers” will become a growing field (until AI becomes self-prompting...no idea how that would work but I’ve seen it predicted). My son (who is studying cyber security) has become increasingly adept at writing prompts and helps coach the old man :).
I’ve used AI (lately, grok) for a variety of inquiries, but mostly health-related. I have some education and background in that area and I use other AI platforms or search engines for clarification. I’ve found it making occasional errors but overall I’ve been surprised at its accuracy and comprehensiveness.
Going to have better method than vaccine to eliminate more people. Abortion, fags, trans, eliminate traditional marriage are good, but they could do better.
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