AI Is About to Spark a Radical Shift in White Collar Work

The story of automation in America has long been told in shuttered factories and declining Midwestern cities. But the latest wave of advancements in artificial intelligence may be bring the prospect of machine replacement beyond blue collar work. Developers are creating algorithms that promise to take over vast amounts of work in white collar fields like law and medicine, potentially upending traditionally high-status fields. For people in those once-secure positions, the questions are whose jobs may be changed, how soon, and what new opportunities may arise to take their place. Knowledge work that involves repetitive tasks or large amounts of data, such as lawyers' often arduous document discovery process, is particularly ripe for disruption from AI, experts say.