Wired publishes a quiz about which jobs are most exposed to AI

In short: WIRED published a non-scientific quiz that helps people estimate how much their job could be affected by AI.

What's going on

WIRED’s quiz is based on a real problem, it is hard to measure how AI is changing jobs right now. Researchers generally agree AI is affecting the economy, but they also say the effects are complicated and good data is limited.

The article points to a recent effort by academic and think tank researchers to forecast AI’s impact through 2030. They surveyed economists, AI experts, and “superforecasters” (people who compete at making unusually accurate predictions). In one extreme scenario, they even asked about an AI so capable it could write a “Pulitzer-caliber” book and negotiate its own publishing rights.

In that survey, most experts expected some high-status roles, like CEOs, senior officials, and legislators, to keep growing even if AI advances quickly. For many other office jobs, the outlook was less clear.

The quiz uses a few simple questions to approximate “AI exposure,” meaning how much of your work could be sped up or partly done by AI. It asks how computer-based your work already is, how much of your daily tasks fit patterns AI can handle, and whether your job requires a licensed human or deep human trust, like doctors, lawyers, therapists, and elementary teachers.

It also highlights concern about early-career office workers. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has warned that AI could displace many entry-level white-collar jobs, and a Stanford analysis of payroll data found declines in employment for early-career workers in jobs seen as most exposed since late 2022.

What to watch

Expect more tools like this that try to translate research into everyday questions. The big unknown is whether companies use AI mostly as a helper, like a faster assistant, or as a replacement for certain roles.

Source: Wired