Artificial intelligence could impact half of jobs in NYS

When a class in Mandarin Chinese starts next summer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, students will be practicing their spoken dialogues with a different sort of teaching assistant: an artificial intelligence chatbot. Capable of conversing with students in simulated settings -- a restaurant, garden or even a Tai Chi class -- the bot is part of a future where artificial intelligence (AI) will perform more of the tasks, and potentially the jobs, now done by humans. Part of a so-called "situations room" at RPI, the chatbot is an example of what are called "cognitive and immersive systems," in which the burgeoning field of AI is melded with rapidly growing torrents of financial, health and education information as well as so-called "unstructured data" like social media posts spreading across an expanding constellation of networked computers, smartphones and other electronic devices. RPI is developing the room under a partnership with the technology giant IBM and its supercomputer Watson, which first gained worldwide attention in 2011 when it beat humans in the TV game show "Jeopardy." It's too early to predict how much impact AI will have on how New Yorkers work, but a recent report by the Albany-based Rockefeller Institute of Government projects that large numbers of jobs being replaced or changed -- particularly in jobs that involve basic, repetitive actions.