Mark Cuban: Tagging data is the low-skilled job of tomorrow
Evan Vucci / AP
The spread of artificial intelligence technology will create great demand for workers to "tag and label data," Mark Cuban argued at an event staged by VC firm Lerer Hippeau in New York Tuesday. "In order for machine learning, deep learning ... to be effective and work the most quickly, the more data that is tagged and defined and labeled correctly the quicker everything goes," he told Axios' Dan Primack.
Prepare yourself for the future: Cuban is a big believer in the power of AI, and its power to disturb labor markets. "There's going to be more disruption sooner than people have expected over the next 4 or 5 years," he said. According to Cuban, we all should be preparing for a workplace dominated by this new technology. The important question, he argues, is not how many jobs it will destroy, "The real question is how is it going to disrupt your job."
What jobs will go? Cuban argued that we're already seeing the evidence of the application of new labor-saving technology, pointing to the example of Ford's plans to cut 10% of its workforce even as revenues are near record highs. He listed non-trial corporate lawyers, accountants and book keepers, insurance adjusters, and doctors as key jobs that will be partially eliminated or greatly changed by machine learning and AI.