Alarming Impact of Artificial Intelligence – A Stark Reality in 2024
Earlier this year, on January 24th, I sent an audio message on WhatsApp to my family titled "Alarming Impact of Artificial Intelligence." In it, I expressed my concerns about AI’s rapid progression and its potential to disrupt my field as a data analyst. Nine months later, those fears have become a stark reality, as AI continues to evolve in ways that were unimaginable at the start of the year.
In my recording, I mentioned how technologies like ChatGPT could revolutionize tasks that previously required specialized skills, such as data analysis. Back in January, I reflected on how I had spent almost a decade mastering data analysis and becoming an expert in the field. Yet, AI’s growing capabilities, even back then, were beginning to challenge the value of my expertise. What took me years to perfect, AI could now do in a matter of seconds. For example, tools like ChatGPT can now process Excel files and generate dashboards automatically—tasks that once took hours of manual work.
In the months since that recording, AI has made further leaps, with technologies like text-to-video AI generators flooding social media platforms. The speed at which these tools have become commonplace is astonishing. They have gone from conceptual discussions to mainstream usage in less than a year. While these advancements are fascinating, they also bring profound challenges, especially for professionals like me.
My worst fears have indeed come to pass. I wrote in my latest article, "OpenAI: Leader of AI Tools Like ChatGPT Accelerates Profit, but at What Cost?", that AI could potentially make entire sectors obsolete. And that’s precisely what has happened. As of November 15, 2023, I lost my job as a data analyst—my decade of experience rendered irrelevant as companies streamlined their operations using AI.
Despite my best efforts, I’ve been unable to secure a new position in the data analysis field. AI’s rapid evolution has saturated the market, leaving little room for roles that were once in demand. Today, on October 15, 2024, I remain unemployed, a victim of the very technology I once believed would enhance my career.
The unchecked implementation of AI is not just a hypothetical issue; it’s having real, tangible impacts on people like me. As someone directly affected by AI-driven changes, I cannot overstate the importance of regulating this technology to safeguard the workforce before it’s too late.
It’s time we stop treating AI advancements as merely exciting innovations and start acknowledging the profound consequences they can have on the job market and society at large.
See below the unedited recording in French for French speakers, and the AI-generated English version in my own voice in the audio at the top of this blog post. I could not have fathomed at the beginning of this year that such a capability would one day be possible, but here we go—AI can now generate our own voices. This is yet another tangible example of technology increasing at a fulgurant exponential speed and yet, with no regulatory framework in place to safeguard people’s jobs in this evolving workforce.
Audio transcript:
Hi there, I'm talking to my phone because it's 6 in the morning, and I'm walking Zowie (my dog), and I've got coffee in one hand and the leash in the other, so to answer your questions…
Mom, I don’t even know where to start. So, basically, what’s happening right now—and I can see this with my own eyes—is that the skills for data analysis, which took me more or less 8 years to become an expert in, are becoming less relevant. I’m realizing that all the time I spent, like with Panasonic, learning a program to create graphs for, you know, as a data analyst… In fact, in English, they say that being a data analyst is kind of like being a person who tells a story—”a storyteller,” kind of—because, well, I need to manipulate the data to understand what’s happening and then explain it to people, whether it’s a manager or higher-ups in the company, like I did at Panasonic or with business owners like I did for my last employer for 2 years. I’d give them useful information so they could make decisions for their business to be more efficient.
Basically, the thing is…
Six months ago, there really wasn’t any AI that made me doubt that, well, you could…
…upload an Excel file, like the ones I use, to ChatGPT online. By the way, I use those to create dashboards on the program on my computer, but now anyone can upload an Excel file to ChatGPT, open a window, double-click, and just last week—this is why it’s a little scary because it’s happening so quickly—two months ago, this wasn’t even possible. You can ask the AI to create graphs—things that I was doing manually—and you can ask questions that would normally take me hours to figure out because I’d have to load the data into the program, try to work it out in Excel with formulas, and it would take me hours. But now, you can just ask AI the same questions that managers were asking me in one-hour meetings a year ago.
For example, they’d ask something like, “Kevin, should I hire someone on my team in March or April at a salary of $80,000 a year?” And so, I’d do the calculations: $80,000 means it will actually cost you $110,000 due to insurance, taxes, and everything else. I’d have to do a historical analysis of the company for the last three years to see what’s going to happen with revenues, and then look at the average money the company typically brings in over the next few months. After hours of work, I’d be able to say, "Based on my analysis, I don’t suggest hiring someone in March or April," not just because of the taxes you have to pay in April—like, $500,000 in taxes (this was a real example at my last job)—but also because your data shows that your summer months, like July and August, typically aren’t great for your sales. So I’d say, “Maybe you should hold off and hire later in the year because I see that in July and August, since you don’t sell as much, it’s going to put a strain on your cash flow," meaning you wouldn’t have enough money in your account to pay all your employees. That kind of thing.
But now AI can answer those questions. It’s not "could answer," it can answer what I just explained to you in a second.
So that’s the first point. The second point is when you say, “You need to turn off the notifications on your Google News feed,” but the problem is if I do that, then I end up as a data analyst who, in the future—like I just explained—will be somewhat obsolete. I won’t be aware of the latest technologies, the tools that are actually on the market and that can replace these manual tasks. And if I’m not aware of that, I’m going to become completely outdated. I’ll become like those other data analysts who continue doing things manually.
I was just explaining this to my brother: If I don’t make the effort to stay ahead of what’s happening, for example, if I were to go back to Panasonic as a data analyst, I’d be doing manual processes for at least the next one or two years, because it would take a big company like that a while to change their processes. But the thing is, in two years, after doing manual work for a company that takes a bit of time to change their processes, I’ll find myself on the job market alongside other data analysts who have gained skills in artificial intelligence.
And that won’t give me an advantage in terms of my skills, because what I’m realizing is that I need to learn how to suggest to any company I work with that I become an asset by researching what tools can automate these manual processes. Because obviously, companies want to find solutions to make things happen faster. If they can reduce their data analysis team from 8 people to 6 and save $100,000 to $150,000, of course, they will. That’s the kind of thing I need to learn to implement. And I’m afraid of ending up on the job market without skills that are relevant.
It’s already difficult at the start of 2024 to find a normal job as a data analyst, as I’ve explained over the last few months. I can’t imagine it being any easier once the market becomes saturated because there will be even more data analysts, knowing that AI will make manual data analysis redundant. There will be a lot more people who won’t understand today’s tools, let alone the tools in one or two years. That’s what I think will make the difference between data analysts who are ahead and those who aren’t.
You know, is your data analyst someone who can only do manual tasks, like spending hours creating a Power BI dashboard, or does their resume show skills that tell me they can automate things in my company? That’s what’s going to get me my next job.
And like I sent you a picture of what ChatGPT told me, I really need to start developing soft skills. Because if I keep doing only manual or automated tasks on a computer, at some point—actually, it’s not even a maybe—ChatGPT is already creating technology that can do your job in place of a person who would be a manager of AI tools. They call them agents, and the computer can open a program for you, click the buttons for you, do internet searches—basically, when you look at your computer, the mouse moves by itself. So in the coming years, even the person managing AI tools could become obsolete. This might take three to five years, but what I’m saying is that I really need to develop skills to manage things that AI hasn’t yet learned how to do.
That’s why it worries me. I’ve been realizing that I’ve been doing this job for 8 to 10 years, and I’m now wondering if, at the end of the day, I’ll be able to continue in my field. If the computer takes over and no one needs me anymore, how will I find a job? I don’t have a choice, as a data analyst, like I’ve been explaining for the last 10 minutes—I have to get into AI because otherwise, I won’t have a job.
It’s certain that AI can now perform data analysis in two seconds, and that wasn’t even something that existed three months ago. That’s why the more information I read about what’s happening with technology, the more it scares me, because I’m realizing that this is a complete revolution in the way people work. And like I said earlier, it’s happening right in front of me. I’m trying to figure out what my moves are—it’s like playing chess—what strategies I can use so I can still have a job in two to three years. I’m 35 years old. This isn’t something that will take me 10 years to understand; this technology is revolutionary now.
So yeah, I’m trying to figure out what you wrote after that… Anyway, these are fears that I think are quite valid. Because a year ago, well, AI has existed for decades, but really since they released ChatGPT plugins last November—so not even two and a half months ago—it’s been changing everything incredibly fast.
I’m telling you about companies that see AI as a solution. Like X, you know, they understand that paying people by the hour to watch short videos to see what’s happening and improve driver safety long-term—even in the short-term, as they grow—it would be overwhelming. They’d have to hire an army of people to watch these videos, like 200 people in the coming year. So they understand that AI is the only solution to find a solution to their problem.
So, I need to work for a company that’s ahead of the curve on AI, because it’s not just the future—it’s the present. It’s happening today. I see it with what’s going on online and what this technology can do, and it evolves week by week. It’s kind of mind-blowing.
So yeah, it scares me, and I don’t really know what else to say because I’m a bit overwhelmed by what’s happening.
So there you go, sending you big kisses.
