What jobs will generative Al replace?

What to know about how this technology may affect future careers.

In discussions about the rise in AI-generated content, one prevailing question looms above all other: Will this technology threaten to put me out of work?

According to computer technology company IBM, generative AI is any artificial intelligence that creates new pieces of media based on user input. These pieces of artificially generated media include text, images, videos, audio recordings, or even lines of software code. 

What generative AI, or gen AI for short, lacks in real creativity, it makes up for in its ability to remember massive amounts of images, videos, sounds, and writing. This period of a generative AI consuming existing media is known as “training.” Training allows generative AI programs to make new creations that are heavily inspired by everything the AI has seen before.  

For instance, if someone were to tell Midjourney, an independent research lab, to create a realistic-looking picture of a horse, that AI would draw upon the countless photos of horses it has seen in the past to make a new image that should more or less resemble a horse. All generative AI programs go through training in order to give appropriate responses to user requests. 

Generative AI has the frightening potential to produce high-quality media, but it has limitations in fully replacing human artists. Even so, many may wonder about the impact of generative AI, particularly on creative industries.

AI journalism: can robots replace reporters? 

For better or worse, AI-generated news is not something that awaits us in the near future—, it is already here. In 2023, NewsGuard reported that it found 49 websites filled with articles that seemed AI-generated. These websites were published in seven different languages: English, Chinese, Czech, French, Portuguese, Tagalog, and Thai.  

Though these websites churn out dozens to hundreds of articles a day with AI, many of them promoted false narratives or even made up stories entirely on their own. Additionally, they had what NewsGuard referred to as “hallmarks of artificial intelligence,” such as bland language and repetitive phrases. Many of these websites were littered with advertisements as a way of making easy money. 

For this reason, media analyst Mauricio Cabrera told Poynter that the future of newspapers and magazines will see them making less content overall to focus on quality instead. In the same article, technology leader Ben Werdmuller echoed the same concept, saying newsrooms that treat AI as a way to cut costs will drown themselves in a sea of similarly mass-produced and equally dull publications. Werdmuller also advised newsrooms against sticking to traditional search engine optimization and social media tactics for the same reason: to avoid blending in with AI-produced copies. 

AI’s limitations in journalism carry over into other fields of media as well. Artists worried about competition from machines should remember to focus on quality over quantity. 

AI artists: why AI art looks so real … until it doesn’t 

Just like with news reporting, generative AI has started to become a reality in the art world. In March of 2024, an official Batman comic published by DC Comics was criticized for supposedly using AI-generated imagery. Lego met similar criticism over some of their recent advertisements. 

In both cases, critics pointed out unusual mistakes in the artworks, like unnecessary details that a human artist would not add. For instance, in the Batman comic, there is a megaphone sticking out of a horse for no apparent reason. Likewise, the seemingly intricate trees seen in the background of a Lego ad are, on closer inspection, not only growing their branches at odd angles but also fusinge with streetlights. 

AI art has come a long way, but many of its creations are filled with odd design choices. Even when users give the AI a very detailed prompt that avoids graphical glitches—or perhaps manually edit the generated photos to remove any mistakes—there are still some things AI cannot draw properly. 

Hands are infamously hard for generative AI to draw properly. This is—unlike human artists—AI has no real understanding of what a hand actually is.  

Because AI illustrates our appendages, such as hands, using a bunch of randomly gathered images for inspiration, it does not understand how a hand would realistically look when holding something, clenching a fist, pointing or doing any other complex action. This also applies to animal body parts. While AI can generate a hyper-realistic photo of, say, an octopus, it has no clue how many tentacles an octopus has or what exactly they would look like. 

The uncanny valley is one of AI’s biggest obstacles. It’s the reason why so many AI-generated images of people look fake. The uncanny valley comes from an evolutionary response that developed as a way of avoiding contagious diseases because a seriously ill or dead person looks almost like a normal person who is “off” in some way. Humans are really good at recognizing each other based on instinctive knowledge of a person’s features.

AI’s inability to accurately depict body parts like hands, teeth, and eyes falls into this uncanny valley because people are way better at recognizing these features than we realize. For artists wanting to stay in business alongside AI generators, it may be worthwhile to get good at drawing body parts that machines struggle with. 

AI music: will human singers still be relevant? 

Unfortunately, things don’t look so optimistic for human musicians in the wake of generative AI. Seventy-five per cent of producers believe they might eventually be replaced by AI music generators, as reported by MusicRadar. However, only 17.3 per cent of those interviewed claimed to hold a negative opinion of AI in the music industry. How audiences react to AI will make or break the success of AI music generators since they cannot thrive without public support.  

In the worst-case scenario, where robots have near-perfect accuracy and become mainstream, there’s still hope that these very tools can be used to enhance human music instead of replacing it entirely. Musicians can benefit from using AI to automate repetitive tasks like sampling sounds, and still have enough creative input to create their own music.  

While AI demonstrates impressive capabilities across various sectors, its limitations in creativity highlight the importance of human imagination and originality. Artists, journalists, and musicians can harness AI as a tool while emphasizing the importance of maintaining creative authenticity.