ChatGPT is stealing jobs from online freelancers, study shows

The workforce’s stance on artificial intelligence is generally divided into two camps: One thinks AI will replace jobs and increase income inequality; the other thinks AI will make everyone’s jobs easier and inequities less pronounced.

One 2023 study updated last week — which was co-authored by a Harvard Business School fellow alongside academics from Germany and England — sides with the former. In the eight months after ChatGPT was released, the study found that online freelance jobs prone to automation related to writing and coding declined 21%. And such jobs will only continue to decline in demand, the study’s authors wrote.

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI itself has acknowledged the transformative impact of artificial intelligence, reposting a study on its site showing that AI will impact 80% of the U.S. workforce, automating at least 10% of the tasks required by their jobs.

A recent Wall Street Journal piece suggests their predictions are coming true. The Journal’s Christopher Mims spoke to the managing director of the job site Upwork’s Research Institute, Kelly Monahan, who said freelance job postings requiring basic writing and coding skills are disappearing. At the same time, online data processing and writing jobs to train AI models — which pay a lot less — are on the rise. The demand for such tedious jobs supporting the development of AI bots will likely continue as more companies build out their AI software.

“Human intelligence is the basis of artificial intelligence, and we need to be valuing these as real jobs in the AI economy that are going to be here for a while,” Sonam Jindal, the program and research lead of the nonprofit Partnership on AI, told Intelligencer last summer.

While easily-automated online jobs not related to AI are getting harder to find, the ChatGPT labor market study said, “Skills that complement AI, such as critical thinking, creativity, and emotional intelligence, may become more valuable and in demand.”

“This shift in skill demand may lead to more pronounced differences across the labor market, with a growing divide between high-skill, high-wage jobs and low-skill, low-wage jobs,” the authors added.