Americans foresee Generative AI impacting creative and tech jobs most, but uncertainty remains

While creative and tech fields are perceived as most vulnerable, the majority of Americans are still uncertain about the full extent of Generative AI’s influence on the future of work.

Sep 25, 2023

This article is part of my ongoing coverage of the 2023 Generative AI & American Society Survey, a nationally representative survey of Americans conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. Known for producing some of the most scientifically rigorous surveys in the United States, NORC was my chosen partner for this project, which I both wrote and funded. For more details on the survey, you can check out the project FAQ.

Americans believe creative and tech jobs will be most harmed by Generative AI

The future of work has garnered significant attention as new Generative AI technologies demonstrate their capabilities in tasks previously considered uniquely human. Media outlets including The Washington Post, BBC News, Fast Company, Fox News, and Time Magazine have all explored the workforce implications of emerging Generative AI. A research paper from OpenAI estimated that 50% of jobs will have at least 50% of their tasks automated by AI language tools in the coming years.

However, there has been limited research on the views of everyday Americans regarding the impact of AI across job sectors. The 2023 Generative AI & American Society Survey shows that American perceptions on the impact of Generative AI across various job areas are diverse. No single job area was chosen by more than about 20% of respondents as the main area to either benefit from or be harmed by Generative AI. (Note that the timeframe provided in the survey questions specifically referred to “the next three years.”).

When it comes to which areas Americans think will be most negatively affected, 21% of respondents believe that creative professions like artists and writers will bear the brunt of Generative AI's impact. However, only 7% of those surveyed think that this field stands to benefit the most from the technology.

This is perhaps no surprise. Creative jobs have been at the center of early lawsuits against Generative AI companies, mainly focused around copyright infringement,1 with fears that artists’ work will be used against them.

Tech-related jobs, including programmers and data analysts, stood out as the most polarizing job area, receiving the highest percentage (21%) for “most likely to benefit” from Generative AI, while also ranking second highest (13%) for “most likely to be harmed.”

A larger percentage of Americans (9%) think that media-related jobs, such as game designers and 3D artists, will benefit more from Generative AI, compared to the 6% who believe these roles will be most harmed. Game design is an area that has shown recent progress integrating Generative AI technology (see video below).

Against the backdrop of ongoing strikes by writers and actors unions, with AI as a major point of contention, 5% of Americans believe that performing arts jobs will be the area most harmed by Generative AI.

In finance, teaching, and sales and marketing job areas, Americans held fairly balanced views. Between 5% to 7% of respondents believed that these job areas will both benefit and be harmed the most by Generative AI

Perceptions of Americans do not always align with research on job exposure to Generative AI. For instance, while Americans estimated limited impact of Generative AI to jobs in the finance field, the OpenAI paper cited earlier found that many finance jobs are among the most exposed to AI language tools like ChatGPT, (though note that exposure could mean either human augmentation, a benefit, or human replacement, a harm).

Notably, there's a large degree of uncertainty among Americans about Generative AI's potential effects on the job market. Nearly one-third of respondents expressed uncertainty about which job sector will gain the most from Generative AI, while around one-quarter were uncertain about which will be the most adversely affected.

How were these figures determined?

Results from the 2023 Generative AI & American Society Survey came from the National Opinion Research Center’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel of adults ages 18 and over. The sample size was 1,147 and responses were weighted to ensure national representation. The exact questions posed to respondents about job areas are detailed below. For more information, please refer to the FAQ page.

The order of these two questions was randomized so that half of respondents saw the job benefit question first and the other half saw the job harm question first. In addition, each respondent saw the job areas presented in a random order.

Generative AI job benefit question

Think about the next three years. Which job area do you believe will benefit the most from Generative AI? For each job area we've given some example jobs, but there might be other jobs in the job area.
Creative jobs (Artists, Writers, Designers)
Media jobs (Game designers, Game programmers, 3D artists)
Performing arts jobs (Movie and TV actors)
Finance jobs (Accountants, Stock analysts, Traders)
Tech jobs (Programmers, Data analysts, Engineers, IT)
Teaching jobs (Teachers, Course creators)
Legal jobs (Lawyers, Legal assistants)
Health jobs (Doctors, Nurses)
Sales and Marketing jobs (Sales representatives, Brand managers, Digital marketers)
Other (please specify)
I don’t know

Generative AI job harm question

Think about the next three years. Which job area do you believe will be most hurt by Generative AI? For each job area we've given some example jobs, but there might be other jobs in the job area.
Creative jobs (Artists, Writers, Designers)
Media jobs (Game designers, Game programmers, 3D artists)
Performing arts jobs (Movie and TV actors)
Finance jobs (Accountants, Stock analysts, Traders)
Tech jobs (Programmers, Data analysts, Engineers, IT)
Teaching jobs (Teachers, Course creators)
Legal jobs (Lawyers, Legal assistants)
Health jobs (Doctors, Nurses)
Sales and Marketing jobs (Sales representatives, Brand managers, Digital marketers)
Other (please specify)
I don’t know

If you have additional questions, comments, or suggestions please do leave a comment below or email me at james@96layers.ai. To help advance the understanding of public attitudes about Generative AI I’m making all raw data behind the 2023 Generative AI & American Society Survey available free of charge. Please email me if you’re interested.

Recent lawsuits brought against AI companies include:

A class-action lawsuit against text-to-image technologies Stability AI (creator of Stable Diffusion) and Midjourney for infringing the rights of artists while scraping images from the web for use in AI model training. This lawsuit is occurring in the United States.
A similar lawsuit from Getty Images, the stock photo company, against Stability AI. This lawsuit is occurring in Britain.
A lawsuit against Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI. The lawsuit pertains to GitHub Copilot, a tool that aids in software development by using AI to generate production-quality code. Microsoft owns GitHub, and OpenAI developed the AI model that powers Copilot (OpenAI is an independent research organization that partners with Microsoft). The plaintiffs in the lawsuit allege that their human-written code was used unlawfully during the AI model's training, infringing their copyright protection.