In May, MIT labour economist David Autor was in Singapore for the Asian Bureau of Financial and Economic Research (ABFER) and Asian Monetary Policy Forum (AMPF) conferences, where he conducted a workshop and delivered a keynote speech on expertise, artificial intelligence (AI) and the work of the future.
Professor Autor, most well known for his finding that technology had hollowed out middle-skill jobs in the US and other countries, is again in the limelight amid widespread concern about the impact of generative AI on jobs. The human-like capabilities of ChatGPT and other large language models have prompted AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton to warn in 2023 of significant job displacement, with Tesla founder Elon Musk going further just last week to claim that all human jobs could eventually be replaced.