REPORT: 13% Of Charlotte Jobs At Risk Of Being Replaced By A.I.

CHARLOTTE, NC — A report from the Chamber of Commerce shows 165,870 jobs are at risk of being replaced by artificial intelligence. That’s about 13% of the current workforce.

Charlotte native, Titus Blair, believes in A.I so much, he created a company and even wrote a book about how artificial intelligence can help small business thrive, called A.I. To The Rescue.

“I have a person I’m working with now and they spend, you know, $1500 to $2000 of their time just answering repetitive emails. So, I built a smart, intelligent agent that just makes that go away. So that $2,000 a month that they’re wasting of their time, they can now put into the business,” explained Blair.

Great for the entrepreneur trying to keep the business afloat, bad for the single parent who may want the job of answering those emails.

Gordon Hull
“I think there’s also risks of just jobs being lost,” UNC Charlotte philosophy professor Gordon Hull.

Hull also runs the the Ethics Center on campus.

Ethics were certainly called into question recently for Sports Illustrated. The man in charge of publishing for sports illustrated is out as CEO. He was recently fired after the historically respected magazine was caught publishing stories with fake author names and profile photos generated by artificial intelligence.

“If Sports Illustrated puts their name on content or they produce a byline with a person’s name, we want to think that that person is somehow responsible for that content,” suggested Hull.

A Goldman Sachs report from early this year shows A.I. could replace 300,000,000 full-time jobs.

“It’s going to cost, of course, job displacement, but it’s going to substitute some skills with others,” said Akofa Dossou.

Dossou is the principal economic researcher for the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance. She says it will take about 4 years to see the impact of artificial intelligence on the Charlotte region. While jobs like accountants, cashiers and budget analysts will certainly be replaced. It may also mean other occupations will grow in it’s place.

“I think that AI is going to make job more fun, interesting, and then it’s going to push more employees and employers alike to invest more in professional development training,” Dossou explained.

The Charlotte Regional Business Alliance reports less than 12% of business in the Charlotte area currently use AI. However, about 9% of business say they plan to incorporate it somehow with the next 6 months.