MIT determines that AI could already replace 11.7% of American workers

The determination was made by running a simulation tool called the Iceberg Index

Rowan Dunne

Published

1 hour ago

Concerning new research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has determined that artificial intelligence could be coming for the jobs of many Americans in the near future.

Based on the results of a digital twin simulation of the United States labour market, the renowned institution found that 11.7 per cent of the nation’s workers could already be replaced by AI. This figure represents approximately 1.2 trillion worth of wages, according to the report.

“Ouch!” commented Canadian Senator Clément Gignac.

The “Iceberg Index,” created in partnership with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, examined 151 million model workers and 32,000 skills to identify where artificial intelligence could potentially step in and takeover. The study analyzed those skills and compared them to the capabilities of over 13,000 AI tools.

Specifically, the researchers say that the technical capability of AI primarily extends into healthcare, finance and professional services. Their experiment was conducted with the intention of providing valuable insights about future integration of artificial intelligence in the workforce.

With regard to finance, MIT has explained that financial analysts will not be disappearing but AI may be capable of taking over many of their document processing and routine analysis tasks.

“By simulating how capabilities might spread under different scenarios, Project Iceberg enables states to test interventions before committing resources, transforming workforce planning from reactive crisis management to strategic foresight,” the authors concluded in their paper.

They say the index provides measurable intelligence for important workforce decisions, including training investment, balancing infrastructure with capital and which skills should be prioritized. Their research aims to make AI a more navigable transition than it otherwise would have been.

“Future work will model adoption dynamics, extend to physical automation as robotics mature, and integrate task-level quality benchmarks,” they added.

Since the inception of MIT’s artificial intelligence lab in 1959, one of the world’s first facilities of its kind, the school has been an instrumental force in the AI field. Today, through institutions like the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Schwarzman College of Computing, MIT continues to achieve breakthroughs in deep learning, reinforcement learning, natural language processing, and development of trustworthy AI systems

Thousands of MIT alumni are now leading AI efforts at major companies and startups. The school is arguably one of the world’s most influential in the field.

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