New Study Says Artificial Intelligence Still Too Costly To Replace Most Human Jobs::Artificial intelligence is still costly to replace most human jobs, according to a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.The MIT Beyond AI Exposure study said, “Machines will steal our jobs” is a sentiment frequently expressed during times of rapid technological change. “Such anxiety has re-emerged with the creation of large language models (e.g. ChatGPT, Bard, GPT-4) that show considerable skill in tasks where previously only human beings showed proficiency,” it said Monday.
This isn’t a great example of ROI calculations. When companies calculate staff costs they factor in benefits, shared services costs (HR, IT Helpdesk, etc). Even if the ai wasn’t cheaper than the salary alone, benefits put that much higher.
However, it doesn’t really matter. Low or no ROI isn’t going to stop the AI cult from selling snake oil products to companies with the promise of “savings”, real or not. C suite types will say its a better long term investment in new technology and tools, or that multiple applications of an ai service allow costs to be spread across the business.