Job ready skills for the digital age

Over time, advancements in technology have always simultaneously advanced and poses problems for various industries, such as automated conveyor belt production, or the printing press. In the modern digital age, artificial intelligence, or AI, has now become one of these technologies offering both advantages and disadvantages in the labour market.

To understand how this effects the labour market, the digital divide first must be understood. The digital divide refers to a theory posed in the early 1990’s that suggested people without access to technology, socio-economically disadvantaged, or other disadvantages that do not allow them to learn or regularly become familiar with technology would be left behind in both education and job prospects (Shakina et al., 2021). This theory has now been extended today, called the corporate digital divide, which is similar, but refers specifically to those who will find it difficult to find a job or career if they lack the necessary digital skills (Shakina et al., 2021). This effect has already begun to take hold, where many companies are finding it difficult to find potential employees with the necessary skills required for work (Shakina et al., 2021).

This brings us to the potential problem AI, and specifically platforms like ChatGPT can pose. While some may complete qualifications more successfully than others, an AI model like ChatGPT offers the possibility of students asking it questions to get answers, somewhat nullifying their qualification to a degree. This has already been recognised and some Australian schools have already begun to block access to the service (Sciberras, 2023). The obvious problem here is that this potentially means students could essentially plagiarise a qualification almost entirely, but not possess the skills required within their chosen field. Although some initiatives have started to address the problem of the digital divide such as the Reskilling Revolution by the World Economic Forum (The Reskilling Revolution, n.d.), it does not address the problem of AI because it is designed specifically for those who did not have the opportunity to gain skills, as opposed to those who may have skipped them during the learning phase of their qualification.

It should be noted that while this is a problem for potential employers, it may also be somewhat of a self-imposed problem as financial sectors, health services and communications industries have begun to adopt AI technology (The Future of Jobs Report 2020, n.d.). While it is true technology often causes job displacement as it develops, employers should be aware of the risk of employers possibly using AI to do their jobs for them, as opposed to simply automating tasks. It has been suggested that jobs with lower tech skill requirements such as data entry could become automated, requiring employees to have a higher skill set regarding technology and to take part in the digital economy and labour market (The Future of Jobs Report 2020, n.d.). In fact, it has already been shown that those who possess a higher level of tech ability have an increased chance of 6% of taking part in the labour market (OECD, 2015). What this demonstrates is that the digital economy and digital skills are intrinsically linked when it comes to labour relations. Essentially, it is a chain reaction. To take part in the labour market, one will have to learn how to work within the digital economy, which means they will have to have the necessary digital skills to do so. If abuse of the capabilities AI can provide to students becomes too prominent, these skills may not develop and ultimately result in a student with a qualification that is not employable due to the lack of skills.

It does need to be clarified that the existence of AI itself is not the threat, but in the way we utilise it. Some research has suggested that AI may help to automate repetitive, menial tasks and that as a society as a whole, we could be encouraged to foster an atmosphere where people are encouraged to attain higher skills, with higher wages and more job fulfillment (Frank et al., 2019). An example of this is using the AI itself as a tool, rather than a crutch. Take the following images for instance. A simple syntax error in this programming code causes the code to not work at all. This is not an indicator of the programmers’ skills. It is something entirely visual based and could be missed by anyone. Running this code through an AI service like ChatGPT could help find these syntax errors more quickly, correcting them and increasing productivity overall.

Although a simple example, this illustrates that AI existence is not a threat to the labour market or education, but in the way we choose to utilise it and make sure that it is not a replacement for human skills and development. With a platform like Xcel Learning, we will be able counter this potential problem of the abuse of AI language learning models, and instead simultaneously utilise it in an efficient way while developing students’ skills to make them job ready and employable at the end of their studies.

References

Frank, M. R., Autor, D., Bessen, J. E., Brynjolfsson, E., Cebrian, M., Deming, D. J., Feldman, M., Groh, M., Lobo, J., Moro, E., Wang, D., Youn, H., & Rahwan, I. (2019). Toward understanding the impact of artificial intelligence on labor. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(14), 6531–6539. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1900949116

OECD. (2015). Does having digital skills really pay off? https://doi.org/10.1787/5js023r0wj9v-en

Sciberras, A. (2023, February 2). Victorian state schools to block access to ChatGPT. https://www.9news.com.au/national/artificial-intelligence-victorian-state-schools-to-block-access-to-chatgpt/222417a3-b1f6-483c-ab5a-89a139635bb4

Shakina, E., Parshakov, P., & Alsufiev, A. (2021). Rethinking the corporate digital divide: The complementarity of technologies and the demand for digital skills. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 162, 120405. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120405

The Future of Jobs Report 2020. (n.d.). World Economic Forum. Retrieved 8 February 2023, from https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2020/

The Reskilling Revolution: Better Skills, Better Jobs, Better Education for a Billion People by 2030. (n.d.). World Economic Forum. Retrieved 12 February 2023, from https://www.weforum.org/press/2020/01/the-reskilling-revolution-better-skills-better-jobs-better-education-for-a-billion-people-by-2030/