A new analysis of the job market shows that big businesses are looking for experts in OpenAI’s GPT-4 large language AI model (LLM) to boost their tech teams. This news of new artificial intelligence-related roles being created comes after a BT executive was criticised for saying that staff being laid off and replaced with AI should accept their fate as part of the “evolution of work”, comparing the change to when horses were replaced by cars.
Research company GlobalData says its Jobs Analytics Database shows that large enterprises across a range of business sectors are recruiting engineers with experience in using GPT-4, OpenAI’s most advanced AI model, which was released earlier this year.
AI skills have been in demand in the last year, with companies rushing to embrace automation after the success of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular chatbot, showcased the ability of AI to transform a multitude of business processes. IT vendors, led by Microsoft and Salesforce, have been rushing to infuse their products with AI capabilities, putting further pressure on the talent pool.
These companies are recruiting GPT-4 AI experts
Against this backdrop, GlobalData says it’s no surprise that demand for GPT-4 experts is booming.
Sherla Sriprada, business fundamentals analyst at GlobalData, said GPT-4 “has been generating buzz online ever since its launch”. She said: “Recently OpenAI launched GPT-4 Turbo [and] Microsoft is partnering with OpenAI to introduce the next generation of language and multi-modal models.”
GPT-4 Turbo was announced this week at OpenAI’s developer conference. Available to OpenAI’s pro and enterprise subscribers, it features an updated knowledge base, having been trained on information published online up to April 2023. OpenAI also promises input and output tokens, which are used to access the system, are two and three times cheaper respectively than those used for its predecessor.
The GlobalData Job Analytics Database shows that companies looking for GPT-4 experts include Citigroup, Merck, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters and the Travelers Companies.
Investment bank Citigroup is recruiting a generative AI full-stack engineering lead for codified controls, a role that will “drive and contribute to the technical direction of products and services, instilling engineering best practices into the team, and promoting cultural change across the organisation”. The successful applicant will also work with generative AI technologies, such as GPT-4, embedding capabilities through prompt engineering in systems.
Meanwhile, pharmaceutical giant Merck is seeking an AI/ML engineer, whose role will be to explore and apply the latest large language models, including GPT-3, GPT-3.5, GPT-4, Meta’s Llama and Google’s Bert. They will be tasked with assessing AI technologies, building prototypes for divisions, and delivering enterprise AI projects to maximise value.
BT CDIO under fire for comments on AI job losses
But while artificial intelligence is creating new roles for engineers, many fear the technology will lead to job cuts elsewhere. This year, IBM and BT have both announced they are making job cuts and will replace some of the roles with AI.
This week, BT’s chief digital and information officer faced a backlash over an interview she gave earlier this month where she said replacing jobs with AI was part of an “evolution” of work.
Speaking to Raconteur, the telco’s CDIO Harmeen Mehta said: “It’s part of evolution. Some jobs will change, some new ones will be created and some will no longer be needed.”
She added: “I don‘t know how horses felt when the car was invented, but they didn’t complain that they were put out of a job; they didn’t go on strike.”
Mehta’s comments have been criticised by trade unions. Mary Towers, lead on AI at the Trade Unions Congress, told the Guardian: “It’s not fear of job losses that paralyses innovation. It’s monopolies, lack of good regulation and all the power over AI being in the hands of corporations.”
BT said it is keen to embrace “human and artificial intelligence working alongside each other”.
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