What "Jagged Intelligence" Could Mean for STEM Careers

It's arguable that artificial intelligence (AI), since its inception, has had a huge impact in the STEM career space over the years, solving advanced equations, generating usable software code, and analyzing datasets at a speed few human teams can match. But its progress has also exposed that strength in one task doesn’t guarantee competence in another. 

While entry-level programmers may have reason to worry as AI becomes more capable at coding tasks, its effect on many other forms of work remains less certain, at least for now. Where the technology improves fastest, it could offer an early signal of which jobs are likely to feel pressure first.  

As The New York Times reported, understanding AI's strengths and weaknesses is helping economists better assess what the technology could mean for the future of employment. In interviews with the publication, several experts argued that the bigger story may not be wholesale job loss, but how specific tasks inside existing roles are gradually automated. 

"The performance of these systems varies, and it is not easy to tell when they will fail to do things a human can do," said Anuradha Weeraman, a software engineer in Sri Lanka, who noticed that leading AI systems struggled with what should have been a simple common-sense question.