Footballers and three prime jobs are protected from robots stealing work, says AI boffin

Tech giants plan to replace nearly all human workers with machines – and the only people safe are the likes of Harry Kane, Taylor Swift, Sir Keir Starmer and the Pope

Footballers have one of the few jobs in the world safe from robots, according to a top artificial intelligence (AI) boffin.

Tech giants plan to replace almost all human workers with machines. The only folk safe are the likes of Harry Kane, Taylor Swift, Sir Keir Starmer and the Pope.

Famous sports stars, artists, politicians and priests have the most resistant jobs to automation. But Ed Newton-Rex, founder of non-profit Fairly Trained which certifies generative AI companies that respect creators’ rights, reckons everyone else should be prepared to be booted out of job by a bot.

He said a US investor, who sold his artificial intelligence business for ‘hundreds of millions’, told a recent dinner of start-up founders they could make far more money from AI than ‘previous technology waves’.

The guru told his audience they could ‘replace the world’s workers, which means you can capture their salaries – all of them’. Ed, a visiting scholar at Stanford University, California, said: “Replacing all human labour with AI sounds like the stuff of science fiction.

“But it is the explicit aim of a growing number of the tech elite – and these are people who lack neither drive nor resources, who have deep pockets and even deeper determination. If they say they want to automate all labour we should take them at their word.”

Ed said US company Mechanize, which specialises in developing virtual work environments, recently announced its vision as ‘the full automation of the economy’. Some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley are funding it.

Elon Musk has predicted the rise of AI and robotics will mean `probably none of us will have a job’. Bill Gates thinks humans soon will not be needed for ‘most things’. Mass human labour replacement has also been predicted by AI godfather Geoffrey Hinton and billionaire investor Vinod Khosla.

Ed said ChatGPT-4 was `scoring in the top 10%’ of law bar exams two years ago while newer versions were better at coding than chatbot developers. Freelance writing and graphic design jobs have plummeted due to AI.

Driverless cars are ‘everywhere in San Francisco’, Ed told The Guardian, while humanoid robots are set to take over blue-collar jobs in BMW factories and one has mastered ‘more than 100 tasks that would usually be done by human store workers’. “Some careers are obviously safe from robot takeover,” said Ed.

“Taylor Swift is not in danger. Nor is Harry Kane. Nor, for that matter, is Keir Starmer, or the as-yet-unnamed next archbishop of Canterbury.

“Famous artist, sportsperson, politician, priest – perhaps the four jobs that are the most resistant to automation. Unfortunately they’re not open to all of us.

“Today’s technology cannot replace all human labour. AI makes mistakes. Robots lack coordination, dexterity, versatility. So that’s something. But there is lots that cutting-edge technology can do. And there are good reasons to think it will continue to improve – fast.”

He said some tech CEOs ‘genuinely believe a post-labour economy will mean huge economic growth and vastly improved global living standards’. But most just see ‘what it’s always about – money’.

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