In robotics and artificial intelligence, there is a phenomenon based on Moravec's Paradox, formulated by Hans Moravec in the 1980s. This paradox demonstrates that complex logical reasoning, such as playing chess or analyzing contracts, requires little computational processing, while simple motor skills for a human, such as placing a stake or shaping wood, require an extraordinarily complex and expensive level of computation and physical robotics.
Artificial intelligence is destroying employment for people with higher education more rapidly, mainly affecting white-collar workers in routine cognitive tasks. Data management, accounting, administrative support, and writing functions are at the top of automation risk, while tasks requiring physical dexterity and on-site presence maintain high demand.
Around 300 million full-time jobs can be automated by generative AI. The administrative support sector, with 44% of tasks exposed, and the legal sector, with 46%, present the highest percentages of AI exposure, while the construction sector, with only 6%, and maintenance and repairs, with 4%, have minimal exposure.
Workers with higher education and higher salaries, such as lawyers, financial analysts, programmers, and consultants, are substantially more exposed to AI than workers in manual or mechanical roles, in an inversion of what would be expected.
