Canadian companies like Shopify and Open Text are drawing scrutiny for the effect that their AI adoption is having on the workforce.Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press
A breakthrough in information technology promises an almost unimaginable new kind of power. Skilled workers fear for their jobs. Scholars warn of misinformation. Institutions built on tradition brace for collapse as entire professions begin to vanish.
Almost six centuries later, it’s hard to look back on the invention of the printing press as any kind of low point in human history. It represented an existential moment for scribes and content creators of all kinds – history truly does echo – yet it also accelerated the distribution of the Bible, helping to trigger the Reformation; made information more accessible and portable, laying the groundwork for the Scientific Revolution; and fuelled a rise in literacy that helped usher in the Enlightenment and circulate ideas foundational to modern democracy.
Today, there is another massively disruptive technology that is reshaping the way we live, work and conduct business: artificial intelligence.
In Canada, high-profile companies such as Shopify Inc. and Open Text Corp. are announcing plans to shift investment into this technology, and are drawing predictable scrutiny for the painful yet inevitable flipside of that focus: fewer employees will be needed to perform tasks, and at a much lower cost.
That change is striking more directly at junior-level jobs as AI carries out an increasing amount of menial and repetitive tasks. More roles will be expected to review, refine and build upon first drafts. These are responsibilities that require stronger judgment, domain knowledge and a higher level of decision-making than many entry-level jobs previously demanded.
AI adoption is upending the job market for entry-level workers
While high-tech companies like Open Text and Amazon are the ones drawing attention, the impact of AI is unfolding across the economy – in banks rebuilding underwriting models, in retailers automating inventory planning, in farms deploying predictive tools. No sector will be untouched.
Canada, of all countries, should see these moves as a roadmap to solving its long-simmering productivity crisis and to restoring economic competitiveness.
Since the early 2000s, when commercial uses of the Internet began remaking global markets, corporate Canada has consistently underinvested in machinery, software and intellectual property.
Business investment per worker in Canada – across all sectors – fell to just 85 per cent of its 2014 level by 2023. In the United States, it rose by 21 per cent over the same period, the OECD reported last month.
At this rate, the report warns, Canada will fall further behind in productivity, miss the gains of emerging technologies and grow more vulnerable to economic shocks. For businesses and workers, too little investment in modern tools and skills means stagnant wages and weaker profits.
The challenge for Canadian businesses isn’t just spending more – it’s spending better. Like any tool, AI has its limits: There is no substitute for human creativity, and it relies on people to ask the right questions and recognize the right answers.
For now, at least. Which brings us to another important limitation that is more likely to withstand the test of time: the ability of technology to put guardrails around itself. The overall arc of improvement owing to those innovations is undeniable – but so is the fact that left unchecked, they can lead to greater inequality.
In each of these areas, humans can and should find the future of employment. That is, if companies and policy makers treat the moment for what it is: a disruption that has already taken hold and an opportunity to shape it before it shapes us. Those disruptions will be painful in the short run but bear fruit in coming decades.
Looking back again to the 15th century, the printing press indisputably upended the lives of writers and illustrators. But from that rupture came the birth of entirely new industries – publishing, advertising, mass education – and with them, inventions that reshaped how knowledge moved through the world: the newspaper, the novel, the magazine, the public library, the scientific journal.
None of those changes could have been predicted when Johannes Gutenberg set his first page of type. Today’s AI-generated upheaval might look like the end of something. It’s actually just the beginning.