Interview for O Brasilianista. Read the full text
Anthropic, one of the leading companies developing artificial intelligence (AI), has begun asking its main laboratories to pause the production of the technology in a coordinated manner. This is because it considers that its agents could, very soon, improve themselves without any human intervention and that society would not be prepared to control the effects.
The warning rekindles a central discussion about the future of the labor market: AI arrives not only for the automation of repetitive tasks, but now the possibility is that the system will assume cognitive, analytical, and even creative functions, previously considered exclusively human.
The level is – “finally” – close to those cited in science fiction films in which machines are more intelligent than human beings. And the labor market, as it is structured today, is not ready for this scenario.
The market still operates with models of training, hiring, and development based on relatively stable professions. AI, on the other hand, accelerates changes at a speed far greater than the traditional capacity of companies, schools, and workers to adapt.
“Brazilian futurists, such as Rosa Alegria and Lala Deheinzelin, already point out that the future of work will require less attachment to fixed positions and more capacity for continuous learning, creativity, collaboration, purpose, and adaptation. In other words, the challenge is not only technological: it is human, educational, and social,” says Soraia Pena, organizational psychologist and consultant in Human Development & Corporate Mental Health.
The sectors most affected by AI domination
The most likely outcome is not the total disappearance of work, but a major reconfiguration of occupations. Many administrative, analytical, operational, and content-production functions tend to be reduced or transformed.
“The greatest risk lies in inequality: those who have access to education, technology, and requalification will be able to reposition themselves; those who do not, may become more vulnerable to professional exclusion. In this scenario, technological unemployment may come accompanied by anxiety, loss of professional identity, and insecurity about the future,” explains Pena.
Over the next five years, the tendency is for AI to strongly transform areas such as customer service, marketing, legal, financial, human resources, technology, and administrative services.
A broad replacement of the majority of human jobs, however, depends on factors beyond technology: regulation, cost, organizational culture, social trust, and the capacity of companies to implement these systems. For this reason, a more massive scenario may take ten to twenty years, but the preparation needs to begin now, in the specialist’s view.
“The central point is not to try to stop AI, but to build a responsible transition. The future of work will be less about competing with machines and more about developing that which technology does not easily replace: critical thinking, ethics, empathy, creativity, leadership, and the capacity to care for human relationships,” reiterates the corporate psychologist.
The challenges of regulation
If artificial intelligence truly reached a level capable of performing the majority of the work today carried out by human beings, the scenario would be one of great risk for the labor market, with the potential to generate high levels of unemployment and profound economic and social transformations.
The greatest concern today is that generative AI does not affect only repetitive or industrial tasks. It reaches intellectual, administrative, legal, financial, advertising, journalistic, technological, and customer-service activities. This changes the nature of the risk, because it pressures precisely middle-class jobs, entry-level functions, and careers previously considered protected by formal qualification.
Even with AI agents capable of updating themselves on their own, that is, without human intervention, the broad replacement of the majority of professions still depends on relevant technological and regulatory challenges.
The legal, economic, and social challenge is to prevent a technology capable of generating wealth on an unprecedented scale from producing, at the same time, mass unemployment, income concentration, and professional exclusion. Governments are actively discussing this matter, with regulations that prevent a total replacement of the majority of jobs, which could generate an undeniable crisis for the world’s economies.
Who foots the bill for AI domination?
The impact of artificial intelligence on the economy tends to be significant. On a global scale, the expectation is for an increase in productivity, a reduction in operating costs, and an acceleration of innovation.
On the other hand, the technology also brings important challenges, especially related to the replacement of certain functions, the need for professional requalification, and the risk of income and market concentration in the companies that hold the most advanced technologies.
“Thus, the economic impact tends to be positive in the long term, but the benefits will depend on the capacity of governments, companies, and workers to adapt to the changes brought about by the technology,” comments Anthony Braga, attorney in the labor practice at Lassori Advogados.
The central point is that economic growth does not automatically mean income distribution. AI may increase GDP and, at the same time, reduce jobs, render intermediate functions precarious, and concentrate gains in the companies that hold technology, data, and computational infrastructure.
In Brazil, the impact may be twofold. At the same time that AI may increase productivity in services, banks, industry, agribusiness, the public sector, logistics, and healthcare, the country has high informality, educational inequality, and a historical difficulty of large-scale requalification. This makes the transition more sensitive.
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