It’s now widely accepted that white-collar jobs will be disrupted with the advent of AI, but the highest-paid white-collar jobs might be the most vulnerable.
Piers Linney, the co-founder of Implement AI and judge on Dragon’s Den, offered this stark prediction in a recent CNBC interview. He argued that contrary to popular belief, it’s not the low-paying, repetitive jobs that are most at risk, but rather the high-earning “knowledge work” roles. His perspective, drawn from a diverse career spanning law, finance, and government, provides a compelling insight into the potential trajectory of AI-driven workplace transformation.
“My day job now is AI agents where I’m mapping workflows with the technology,” Linney said, speaking about his latest company Implement AI, which specializing in AI implementation for businesses. “The AI agent is going to transform work. Any work behind a computer is going to be automated over time,” he said.
He then connected this software evolution with advancements in robotics. “Robotics, what we’re seeing now, is the hardware is now being connected with the software. You can’t quite tell it yet to go do something, but that’s coming. And once they connect those dots with vision, [robots] can navigate our built environment,” he added.
“You’re going to see cognitive work go to zero. And then you’ll see physical work (go to zero) as well. The point though is this will take time. Even if you solved AGI today, it’s probably five years [before it is] disseminated across the economy,” he said. “So the point is, whether you’re an individual, an organization, or a nation-state, my main concern really is how do you put this to work? How do you optimize your costs, increase growth?”
Addressing the question of which jobs are truly at risk, he offered his blunt assessment based on his extensive experience: “I’ve got an accounting degree, [I’m] a qualified lawyer, I was a banker at Credit Suisse, a hedge fund, I was on the board of the government bank… if you are earning, you know, 200 million or 500 million pounds a year, you have an enormous bullseye on your back. Okay? It’s not the admin assistant, it’s not your secretary, it’s expensive knowledge work. And that’s where you’re going to see, I think, the biggest impacts.”
Linney’s argument has significant implications. While the automation of repetitive tasks has been a long-standing concern, the potential for AI to displace high-earning knowledge workers presents a new paradigm. This shift could necessitate a fundamental rethinking of education and skills development, and the very nature of work itself. There are already signs that this is happening — AI is already getting really good at performing highly paid jobs like those of programmers, investment bankers, and doctors. And if these jobs end up being disrupted by AI, it could lead to a rewriting of societal hierarchies that could require plenty of care and deftness to navigate.