The silent AI takeover of white-collar jobs

India Today

Meta’s code is being written by AI. But it’s not just tech — from design to law to finance, AI is creeping into white-collar jobs once considered “safe.”

Transcript

00:00I would guess that like sometime in the next 12 to 18 months, we'll reach the point where like most

00:05of the code that's going towards these efforts is written by AI. And I don't mean like autocomplete.

00:10That's Mark Zuckerberg saying AI is about to take over coding at Meta in a podcast with

00:16Dwarkesh Patel published on April 29th. Now, Zuckerberg clarified this isn't just autocomplete.

00:21And I don't mean like autocomplete. I'm talking more like you give it a goal,

00:24it can run tests, it can find issues, it writes higher quality code than like the average very

00:30good person on the team already. But I don't know if that's the whole game. I mean, I think that

00:35that's, that I think is going to be a big industry. And he's not alone. Enthropic CEO Dario Amodi

00:41recently predicted 90% of code will be AI written in the next six months. If you take more computation

00:48and more data to train AI systems with relatively simple algorithms, they get better at all kinds

00:56of cognitive tasks across the board. Google's Sundar Pichai claims 25% of Google's code is already

01:03written by AI. OpenAI's Sam Altman says in some companies that number is already at 50%. And with

01:09that comes job displacement. The Washington Post reports that over a quarter of all programming jobs

01:14in the US have vanished in just two years. Additionally, a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey

01:19says one in four CEOs expect AI will force job cuts this year.

01:24There will come a point where no job is needed. You can have a job if you want to have a job

01:29for sort of personal satisfaction, but the AI will be able to do everything.

01:34But this is bigger than coding. This is about how AI is quietly reshaping white collar work. From

01:40writing and design to customer service and finance, AI is starting to do jobs we once thought only

01:46humans could do. AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude are already writing emails, reports,

01:51press releases, even novels and screenplays. Apps like Midjourney and Dally can generate images,

01:57logos and ad layouts from simple text prompts, something that only graphic designers could do

02:02earlier. Now it's even being trained to analyze balance sheets, offer investment advice used in law

02:07firms to prepare arguments and take over teachers core roles. However, this isn't just a story about

02:12automation. We are not being replaced yet, but we are being repositioned from doers to directors.

02:18And the big question is, are we training the AI or is the AI training us?

02:23And I think coding will still be important in the future. It's just going to change a little.

02:26As AI continues to advance, the role of human coders is evolving. While AI can handle many tasks,

02:32human oversight remains crucial to guide and manage these systems effectively.

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