Dr. Laura Bambrick:

It is being done at a European level. Overnight we have seen that a popular German tabloid announced 200 jobs going to leverage AI. That could be a cover for something else but that is the official line going out: that it wants to embrace the AI possibilities and use them within the media, be more forward fronting, put digital first and do things like that. As was mentioned in the opening statement, where previous movements in technology have impacted on blue-collar workers, what we are seeing in the latest iteration of AI is looking at white-collar jobs. That is probably driving the public interest in it because we are the people who have access to the airwaves and committees to make it centre stage as an argument.

There will be few jobs that AI will not be part of because we are seeing that one of the leaders in it is in HR. Getting a job and monitoring it and decisions around retirement or redundancies will be involved. Even if you are not using AI in your day-to-day work, what you produce in your job will be overseen by AI in part. Few professions will not have AI used in them but the expert group on future skills needs, of which I am a member, did a recent report which found that one in three Irish jobs is at risk of digitalisation, which means there is a 70% risk of being disrupted. That does not mean those jobs will be displaced. It could be part of the job but that is the level of disruption that AI can bring. As I said, that will mean future-proofing our workforce and preparing those who will not come out, the winners and losers that there are in every other technology change.