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At a time when actors have gone on strike, at least in part to counter the threat they see artificial intelligence posing to their profession, is anyone’s job safe from AI?

“I think all jobs are susceptible to AI,” says Harold L. Stuart Endowed Chair and Professor of Marketing Siva K. Balasubramanian at Illinois Institute of Technology, where he teaches graduate business courses on AI and is engaged in several research projects examining the impact of AI on business. “A specific job may differ on the extent to which it is susceptible, and how soon this influence from AI will manifest.”

Until recently, he notes, capacities such as intelligence, common sense, and creativity were thought to be strictly the domain of humans; machines could only execute commands. 

In November 2022, though, ChatGPT changed everything. 

“The historically popular view that was commonly—though not universally—shared by human beings, that certain abilities are uniquely human, is pretty much destroyed,” Balasubramanian says. “AI is here, and as a society we have to figure out how to manage it.”

According to Balasubramanian, companies will need to be strategic in managing change as they make the transition to AI because so many people’s lives will be dramatically affected. He advises businesses not to navigate this transition too rapidly or in a strictly top-down fashion. “We’re going to be in a state of disequilibrium for a while—that is, a sequence of trial and error, missteps, corrections, etc.—but eventually, we’ll get to a good place.”

He adds that humans invented AI, so there could very well be another something created that is more powerful than AI. 

“It is critical that we never undermine our own capabilities just because these AI machines appear so powerful,” he notes. “Our job as business people is to take what is there with AI and see what we can make of it.”