Will UK creatives be replaced by robots?

Almost three quarters of jobs in the creative sector are at risk of being replaced by artificial intelligence according to a new study.

Roles including those of filmmakers, illustrators, game designers, sound engineers and special effects artists are among those that could become obsolete as AI becomes more advanced.

Using AI bot ChatGPT, the data analysts at NetVoucherCodes.co.uk looked at 41 jobs in the creative sector to assess how at risk they are at being replaced by AI or automation in the coming decades.

They discovered that a massive 51% of jobs are at high risk of being replaced by artificial intelligence with a further 17% at medium risk.

This is a massive blow to the sector which is fundamental in the UK having created blockbuster movie franchises and TV shows, literature, music, fashion and groundbreaking gaming technology.

Government data in 2020 revealed the creative industries contributed £111.7 billion to the UK in 2018 – that’s equivalent to £306 million a day.

And further data highlighted the sector accounted for 2.2 million jobs between October 2019 and September 2020.

Among the roles most at risk are those that a machine can easily be programmed to do including 3D designer, film and video editor, motion graphics designer and illustrator.

Website designers, animators, photographers and video game developers are all thought to be at medium risk.

Among the jobs at low risk are authors, music producers, fashion designers, creative writers and stylists.

Interestingly, the probability of artificial intelligence tools being used to increase productivity in the creative sector is high with 83% of roles likely to make use of the technology available.

John Strizaker from NetVoucherCodes.co.uk analysed the data and created the job risk generator. He said: “It’s really interesting to see how powerful AI is becoming and the potential impact it has on certain sectors of the UK economy.

“We’ve all seen the images recently – whether knowingly or not – generated by AI and in fact our job risk generator has been created using the much hyped AI bot ChatGPT. Whether we like it or not, artificial intelligence is here to stay.”

John continued: “It is worrying when you face the risk of your job being taken by a machine but what we need to do now is embrace this new tech and look at how we work with it to increase productivity and opportunity.

“It’s up to every industry and sector to identify how they do that and our research shows just how important AI could be to the UKs creative industries.”