Studies suggest that automation and AI will replace over 60% of the jobs that exist today in the next 20 years.
An elevator operator used to be a job. This was someone that stood in an elevator, asked you what floor to go to and drove the elevator to that floor. That job of course is gone, replaced by electrical circuits and simple algorithms and that happened a long time ago.
The driver occupation (taxi cab, Uber driver, truck driver etc) could be one that goes the same way.
One could list out a few other occupations but it is better to give the general principles to identify them.
The job involves very little real intelligence beyond following a list of simple rules AND acts of perception. Driving for example does not really involve much in the way of intelligence particularly in the age of wireless connectivity where machines tell you where you are and where you need to go. The reason why things like driving were not replaced long ago is that the field of automated perception had not advanced much until recently. For example, computer vision to see the other cars or people running out into the road is a current area of research making rapid progress.
Service jobs have been replaced by AI voice recognition to a large extent. Think of the last time you called a large company and a real person answered. Most of these organizations depend on versions of Alexa, Siri and other “bots” for initial call handling. Go into many of the larger brick & mortar companies and checkout is optionally via an AI retail sales clerk. Scan your items, coupons and credit card for 99% of the processes.
Dangerous jobs seem like a natural fit for AI driven robotic replacement. Self driving motors and UAVs (unmanned arial vehicles) will thankfully find their ways into oil rigs, underground mining and as first respondents to fires.
Manual labor jobs represents a huge number of people doing blue-collar work. Some jobs have already been transferred over to robots with, or without, AI direction. Automated production facilities enable processing of sequence of programmed commands without the need of any manual intervention. Earlier the purpose of automation was to increase productivity (since automated systems can work 24 hours a day), and to reduce the cost associated with human operators (i.e. wages & benefits). However, today, the focus of automation has shifted to increasing quality and flexibility in a manufacturing process. The story isn’t different in other “blue-collared” sectors like agriculture, chemical and pharmaceutical.
Information technology (support, testing application development) jobs would also not be spared by the advent of AI. While the industry is projected to grow by 20% in the next 5 years, it’s also witnessing a paradigm shift. Automation and “bots” are replacing QA and support effort while the code generators and low code platforms are replacing replacing development effort.
Fortunately, there are certain job classes that will be safe from the artificial intelligence revolution
Jobs that involve genuine creativity, such as being an artist, writer or a poet, being a scientist, developing a new business strategy etc.
The need for finely tuned social and emotional skills will rapidly grow. Accompanying the adoption of advanced technologies into the workplace will be an increase in the need for workers with finely tuned social and emotional skills—skills that machines are a long way from mastering.
There will be a shift in demand toward higher cognitive skills. Research also finds a shift from activities that require only basic cognitive skills to those that use higher cognitive skills. Demand for higher cognitive skills, such as creativity, critical thinking, decision making, and complex information processing, will grow.
Empathetic and creative jobs that involve building complex relationships with people, jobs like being a nurse or a nanny or a business role that requires one to build close relationships with clients. These jobs require compassion, trust and empathy.
Complex and strategic jobs These include gigs like executive, diplomat and economist.