Will Marco (13:40)

Great to be here, Dave. Thank you for having me back.

Dave Bittner (13:43)

So we are seeing a lot of anxiety, I think it's fair to say, about artificial intelligence, specifically these large language models and the degree to which these are taking away jobs. Can we get a little reality check from you, Will? What's your take on this?

Will Marco (14:03)

Yeah, so I think a reality check is definitely needed. If you've listened to CEOs, pundits, every talking head you can hear right now, they're going to make you think the sky is falling when it comes to AI. You hear CEOs tell us that they're getting rid of jobs. You hear people saying that we're about to face this AI apocalypse. And at four one insights, we said, well, hold on a second. We want to actually cut through some of the hype and look at some hard data to see what's actually happening here. And what we find is that it's, as is usually the case, a bit of a nuanced picture. The first thing you can ask is, well, are we actually already losing jobs to AI, as some people are starting to pause it. And if you actually look at employment numbers, jobs are going up, not down, since generative AI came on the scene in 2022. And that's true for almost every job family you look at, even those that are most exposed to AI. So if you're just looking at employment numbers, most jobs are not going to show you any kind of a decline. But there is one caveat to that. If you look at some of the more clerical and administrative roles, those are starting to decline a bit. However, they've been declining for a long time that didn't start in 2022. Most of those roles have been on a downward trajectory for a good number of years. And so it's hard to say that all of that decline decline is being caused by AI. Now, of course, we don't just want to look at employment data, we also want to look at some more forward leaning indicators that tell us whether or not jobs are likely to decline in the future. And so one thing we can turn to is online job posting data, which often is a bellwether for where the job market is going to be headed in the future. And if we look at that, we do see that since 2022, there has been a decline in job postings in many different roles across the economy. However, it's also difficult to attribute that just to AI, because the peak for job postings that we saw was in March 2022. You know what else happened around March 2022? Interest rates started rising. And the most precipitous decline that we have seen in job demand over the past few years occurred in between March 2022 and the following year. So most of the decline we've seen actually wasn't even happening when ChatGPT had entered our collective consciousness yet. And so I think it's much easier to attribute most of those declines to things like rising interest rates and geopolitical uncertainty and other factors that led to economic destabilization and uncertainty long before ChatGPT ever burst on the scene. So have there been some declines due to AI? Probably, somewhere. But it's hard to say that the majority of any kind of labor market effects over the past few years have been caused by AI.

Dave Bittner (17:06)

Well, let's dig into cybersecurity specifically. I mean, I think folks, look, correlation is not causation, but I think it's natural for folks to connect some of the dots. And we see rounds of layoffs at places like Microsoft, and that leaves people scratching their heads as to, you know, is automation leaving to people being redundant.

Will Marco (17:31)

And that is a completely fair anxiety to have. When you hear all of the headlines, all the CEOs telling us that they're not going to hire anybody unless they can prove that AI can't do the job that a human could do. And that causes a significant amount of concern for many of us in the workforce. And it's a very logical connection to make. The reality is that if you actually look at the data to see where companies are investing in more AI skills and more AI skilled workers, you would expect that if AI is actually taking people's jobs, then you would see a decline in all of the non AI jobs within companies. But when we looked at the data, we unpacked hiring activity at all the Fortune 100 companies and the companies that increased their demand for AI skills and AI workers usually also saw an increase in demand for all of the non AI workers too. And so we just don't see strong evidence in the data that when most companies are investing in AI, they're not also investing in the rest of their workforce as well. And you say, well, okay, that flies in the face of what you hear from a lot of these CEOs, what's actually going on? And it could be a few things. One, there could be a few isolated incidents where organizations are in fact replacing certain corners of their workforce, maybe due to AI, maybe due to other things. Could also be that AI is a convenient scapegoat for some of these organizations. And rather than tell their investors and tell the public that they have to reduce headcount because they didn't hit their targets, they'd much rather tell a story that says, oh, we're investing in the latest and greatest technology. That's why we have to replace our workforce, because we are good stewards of the organization, not because we didn't hit our numbers.

Dave Bittner (19:21)

So what is your advice for the people who are concerned about this? I mean, is this a case of, you know, embracing the change that maybe upping your skill level when it comes to some of these AI tools may make you a more attractive person to keep on the payroll, or is there anything to that?

Will Marco (19:41)

I think that's exactly right. So although I'm saying to people don't be quite as concerned, you should also not be complacent. The reality is these are transformative technologies, generative AI, large language models. They are here, they are here to stay, and they're having an impact in the workforce. It's just that the disruption that we're seeing isn't necessarily in terms of headcount. It is in terms of the underlying skill sets that people need to have and the tasks that they're going to be performing. Leveraging these new tools in conjunction with other tools that they're already using. And it is definitely showing up in the data that these tools are having an impact when it comes to the underlying skills and responsibilities that people have, especially in cyber as well as other IT fields. Often what we're finding is that these new tools are spreading like wildfire. Skill sets related to generative AI prompt engineering, large language models, they're growing faster than any other skill we are tracking across the entirety of the market. And so what a lot of people are saying is it's not that people are going to get replaced by AI, it's that people who use AI are going to replace the people who don't use AI. And that is the reality that we see in the data as well.

Dave Bittner (20:59)

All right, well, Will Marco is CEO of Four One Insights and also an N2K CyberWire Senior Workforce Analyst. Will, thanks so much for taking the time for us.

Will Marco (21:07)

It's my pleasure. Thank you, Dave, for having me.

Dave Bittner (21:21)

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