Whether in crafts, medicine or administration: There is a shortage of skilled workers in many places. Advances in artificial intelligence are now raising hopes. The technology is already being used in some industries – with success.
The labor market in Germany is under pressure from two sides: On the one hand, there is already a shortage of hundreds of thousands of skilled and skilled workers. The situation will become even worse as the baby boomers retire. At the same time, many jobs that will be done by artificial intelligence, or AI, are in jeopardy in the future.
According to a forecast, 300 million jobs could be replaced worldwide. The AI expert from the Institute for Applied Industrial Science (ifaa), Sebastian Terstegen, does not believe that it will come to that. “AI can counteract the labor shortage, especially for simple tasks,” says Terstegen Podcast SWR2 knowledge. Different developments are emerging in different industries, as the following examples make clear:
AI in medicine: relief for practice staff
The Federal Employment Agency counts medical assistants (MFA) among them Professions in which the shortage of skilled workers is particularly noticeable is. The typical situation in a practice today: Patients are waiting at the registration desk, need a prescription or have to be shown to the treatment rooms, and at the same time the phone rings – pure multitasking.
In order to relieve the MFA of simple tasks, the Rauenberg family doctor center, south of Heidelberg, relies on AI. A smart telephone assistant answers all calls from patients, makes appointments or records callback requests and prescription orders. The practice team can then work through these collectively later and until then concentrate on the patients in the practice and all other specialist tasks.
The practice’s senior doctor, Rita Bangert-Semb, observes that AI technology makes her practice employees more efficient but also happier: “The time pressure is less.” This makes work more attractive; This reduces the risk that good employees will look for another job. AI can also relieve the burden on staff in other areas of medicine: for example, when creating doctor’s letters, detecting breast cancer or in nursing.
AI in administration: Like courts Mass proceedings accelerate
In the judiciary, too, the use of artificial intelligence is intended to relieve judges of routine tasks and thus speed up processes. Take Stuttgart, for example: The diesel scandal has set off a veritable avalanche of litigation there. The number of cases before the Higher Regional Court (OLG) has increased tenfold in the past five years.
The OLG is now using an AI assistant for around 15,000 diesel cases. The AI analyzes the procedural documents, some of which are more than 100 pages long, and groups them. The judges can then process related cases more quickly.
In the future, AI could even help to individualize judgments, explains Stuttgart judge Jan Spoenle. The AI does not make its own judgments or write legal texts independently. Instead, it completes the case-specific details in sample texts written by judges – for example vehicle type, purchase price or mileage. Spoenle estimates that the AI saves him and his colleagues around half of the working time they would otherwise need.
AI in trades: potential especially in new buildings
The shortage of skilled workers is hitting the skilled trades particularly hard: as of 2022, more than 150,000 positions in Germany were unfilled. At the same time, according to one Study by Goldman Sachs Only around five percent of the work is taken over by AI or other technologies.
The Berlin start-up Conbotics sees potential, especially when it comes to painting work in new buildings. At the beginning of 2024, the company plans to bring a painting robot onto the market that will use AI to independently paint or spray an entire room, automatically avoiding windows, doors and other obstacles.
Master painter Robert Sachs advised the young company. He estimates that the painting robot could replace two workers on the right construction site. The main advantage is that the robot does not get tired and the quality remains constant. However, the robot is not suitable for renovations and renovations. “He has no chance in an old building with a narrow hallway and a hose bath. As a person, you can hardly get anywhere,” says Sachs.
Conclusion: AI can relieve the burden on skilled workers, but creates new tasks
Although examples can now be found for almost all industries of how artificial intelligence can relieve the burden on skilled workers and workers, the following applies in all cases: someone has to program and monitor the technology. The labor market sociologist Sabine Pfeiffer from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg therefore believes that the potential of AI in the labor market is overestimated. “We will first have to employ more skilled workers,” said Pfeiffer.
This effect has also occurred with other technological leaps in the past, adds AI expert Terstegen. So far, more jobs have been created following technological changes than have been lost due to the technology. In any case, the development is only at the very beginning. “I think it will take a very long time before we see any fundamental changes in the labor market or in individual professions,” said Terstegen.