Step 1 of 8Explainer5 min
Break a job into tasks
Pick a job you know well. It could be a family member’s job, your own part-time job, or a job you want someday.
List ten things a person in that job does in a normal week. Then mark each task with one of three labels:
- AI could do it
- AI could help with it
- AI can’t do it
Here is a start for a restaurant manager:
- Write the staff schedule: AI could help
- Calm an upset customer: AI can’t
- Train a new server: AI can’t
- Write the weekly specials post: AI could do it
Think about it
Look at your list. How many tasks landed in each column? Did any surprise you?
If your job landed in more than one column, that is the first big idea of this module. Forecasts about AI and work are really about tasks, not whole jobs. A machine doing a task a person used to do is
The question that matters is what happens to the job when some of its tasks change. Sometimes the job shrinks. Sometimes it grows into something new. In this module you will learn to read the forecasts and look at what is happening so far. Then you will face a hard question the forecasts rarely ask.