QCRI enlightens on AI impact on jobs and employment during World Cup

In a novel exercise, Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), part of Hamad Bin Khalifa University teamed up with Silatech, during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 to raise awareness about the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on jobs.Silatech, a Qatar-based international nonprofit and nongovernmental development organisation aiming to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) through the economic empowerment of youth, hosted a range of events on the Corniche, in collaboration with different organisations during the World Cup.The events drew attention to the UN’s SDG 8, which promotes inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment, and decent work for all. Through its digital walk through exhibition, Silatech showcased the situation in refugee camps across the globe and promoted different aspects of youth employment.Dr Ghanim Mohammed Y J al-Sulaiti, a scientist at QCRI in an article said that QCRI has developed an AI system that determines the susceptibility of different jobs to AI technology such as how AI can improve the efficiency and productivity of task performance within a job. The system achieves this by computing an impact score using two different kinds of inputs: patents on AI and job descriptions.He said: "It processes more than 1.5mn patents acquired from the Google patents database, in addition to more than 1,000 job descriptions, acquired from the Occupational Information Network database managed by the US Department of Labour. The job descriptions contain overviews and the tasks inherent to each job. The AI system uses advanced machine-learning techniques to match the jobs and their tasks with relevant AI patents. The more matched patents for a job, the more likely the job is to be impacted by AI.”Unlike earlier industrial revolutions that impacted blue-collar jobs, AI is mostly impacting white-collar jobs. In particular, AI impacts jobs with cognitive non-routine tasks such as memorisation, information ordering, visualisation, deductive reasoning, and speech recognition.Hence, AI is mostly impacting white-collar jobs that usually require formal education. These jobs include business professionals, law professionals, social workers, managers, health professionals, sales workers, and clerks. On the other hand, jobs that focus on physical tasks, like cleaners and helpers, fishers, farmers and chefs, are the least impacted by AI.For the World Cup, QCRI customised the system for use on iPads and made it interactive, educational, and fun. Attendees at the digital exhibition interacted with the system through different iPad stations. Users were able to select their jobs, determine the tasks relevant to the job, guess the impact score for each task, and view the real impact score based on the data processed by the system.Ji Lucas, senior software engineer at QCRI, explained: "We had initially developed the system to complement the white paper on the impact of AI on jobs in Qatar. When we were approached by Silatech and offered the opportunity to participate in the SDG 8 event, we had to create a game-like scenario so that World Cup fans could have a fun time with the app and learn more about the impact of AI on their jobs.”Besides the AI system, visitors could learn more about the impact of AI on the different skill sets required in the future through the exhibition, which showcases QCRI’s research in this area on different digital screens.Having exposure to such information helps the youth to make better-informed decisions about their careers and have a better idea about the type of skills they should nurture to adapt to the future implication of AI on jobs.