44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 20, 2023
- 12:24:47 p.m.
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Thank you for the invitation to share my thoughts with the committee today. My name is Nicole Janssen. I am the co-founder and co-CEO at AltaML. It is the largest pure-play applied AI company in Canada. We create custom AI software solutions for enterprise-level clients in both the private and public sectors. We're not quite six years old, but we've already worked with over 100 companies on over 400 AI use cases.
I base my thoughts today on my observations of those projects and the current and near-term capabilities of AI, as well as my knowledge of the AI ecosystem.
I want to start by saying that AI will absolutely disrupt the Canadian labour force at all levels and professions and across all sectors, and that the work this committee is doing to understand those impacts is incredibly important.
I will address the elephant in the room around massive job losses due to AI, which seems to be the largest concern we hear around jobs and AI. Of the 100 companies we have worked with, not one has implemented an AI solution and then made resulting job cuts. What we are seeing is that the AI tools are being used to increase productivity and, in most instances, are capable only of augmenting humans, not fully capable of replacing them.
The fear of job losses from AI is consistent with the fear that has come for hundreds of years when a new technology is introduced. It can be traced as far back as the introduction of the mechanical loom. However, every single new technology advance in history has led to more jobs at higher wages.
Overall, there will be net gains in the job market from AI, but certain jobs will absolutely see disruption. In fact, we're already starting to see that disruption. Jobs that require consuming large amounts of information and synthesizing it, such as content creation, or in the legal profession—paralegals, for example—will see significant disruption, as will jobs that require manipulating large amounts of numerical data, like research analysts or financial analysts. AI can identify trends in the market much faster than a human being can. Jobs that provide some form of external, repeatable assistance—like call centres, receptionists, or even executive assistants—will see disruption. Software engineering will be disrupted and already is being disrupted as AI becomes more and more capable of writing high-quality code.
From what I have seen, these jobs won't disappear, but rather the individuals in them will need to adapt how they do their jobs, and their time will be focused on the higher-value work.
You may have noticed that lots of those jobs I just mentioned are white-collar jobs. AI is designed to mimic cognitive function, and it's likely that higher-paying white-collar jobs will have the most exposure to the technology. That said, industrial robots and drones also use AI technology, and that's the one place I see a high likelihood of replacement of jobs, such as in the factory line or for warehouse workers. This is a transition that we have been seeing for many years, though, through automation. Then there's a likelihood of delivery persons over time being replaced by drones.
Jobs in which a human touch or relationships with people skills are required will become more and more important. While these professions likely will use AI to support them, they will not see the same kind of disruption—so professions such as teachers, nurses, doctors, therapists, human resource managers, sales managers and public relations.
Then we'll also have new jobs emerge in AI development, cybersecurity, ethical oversight, change management for AI integration, for data labelling professionals, hardware specialists for AI and prompt engineers. These jobs didn't exist a few years ago, and now we see job ads for them everywhere.
What's clear is that the people of any profession who choose not to adopt and use the new technology will be the ones who lose their jobs to those individuals who do adopt the technology, because they'll be far more productive. Sectors that adopt AI will be more productive and put more people to work faster. If we use AI to approve building permits significantly faster, that puts a lot of people to work a whole lot faster. If we use AI to perfect our preventative maintenance in our plans, that will ensure more uptime and more work for more people.
The productivity growth that AI has the potential to create is a huge advantage for Canada, as we currently face both a long-term labour shortage challenge and incredibly low productivity as a country.
We must embrace AI with careful consideration and proactive measures, investing in education and training programs that equip individuals with the skills needed in an AI-driven economy. We must also implement policies that ensure inclusivity, diversity and ethical use of AI.
I'm here today to share my thoughts, partly because I know how important this topic is, but also because I knew I could rely on ChatGPT to formulate the version one of my comments, which I could then edit and put my own thoughts to, allowing me the efficiency to say “yes” to this request.
Thank you. I welcome your questions.
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- 12:32:02 p.m.
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I'll speak maybe to the projects we've done in AI where we have had pushback from fear. There are a lot of them.
The key is that the individual whose job will be impacted, the person whose workflow will change, has to be a part of the process of developing AI from the outset. They have to feel like they're part of the solution, not that this is being done to them.
They also need to see that the goal in implementation of the AI is not to replace them. As soon as someone feels that their job is going to be taken as the outcome, they, the end user, will absolutely not implement this new technology.
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- 12:35:49 p.m.
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I think companies are incentivized to sell to everyone. Selling only to the elite few will not make profits. As we saw in the past with cars, electricity, radio, computers and mobile phones, the makers of these technologies were highly motivated to drive down their prices until everyone on the planet could afford them. Now, I fully recognize that there are places on the planet where there is no accessibility to the Internet or phones, but those prices continue to be driven downward because there is a desire to reach the entire population. If you look at OpenAI's ChatGPT, it's free. There is access for everyone to use it.
Will we start with the white-collar, higher-wage earners likely using AI first? Absolutely, we will, because it costs a lot to develop AI right now. However, as those prices come down—
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- 12:41:41 p.m.
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The only thing I'd add is that only about 20% to 30% of AI that's being built is actually being adopted. You would want to focus your attention specifically on the sectors and companies that are adopting AI.
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- 12:57:08 p.m.
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The cat's out of the bag with AI. We're not putting it back.
By the way, I am fully supportive of the committee. I would have the committee focus on the education, upscaling and supports we need to provide to our workforce as this begins to roll out. This means identifying those early, disrupted professions, following them, seeing what lessons can be learned from those professions, and then perfecting that change management as it rolls out across all sectors and professions.
Then there is the responsible AI piece, which is the transparency, accountability, privacy and all of those pieces that come with responsible AI. That and the direct impacts on workers would be the areas I would focus on.
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