Past automation suggests clerical women may bear AI's first job losses

CNBC argues that women are likely to be among the most affected by AI, using past technologies as a guide. Ariane Hegewisch of the Institute for Women's Policy Research says AI targets routine, numerical and pattern-finding work, the clerical jobs many women hold. The International Labour Organization concluded in March that nearly 1 in 10 women in high-income countries work in occupations at the highest risk from AI. The history it draws on begins with telephone operators, nearly 95% of whom were female in the 1940s, whose jobs AT&T's automated switch displaced. The article puts that loss at an estimated 75,000 operator jobs. Economists James Feigenbaum and Daniel P. Gross found that many displaced operators took lower-paying work or left the workforce, while later generations adapted. It is worth reading for its case that displacement and adaptation have both happened before, though its link to AI remains a forecast.