AI Won’t Replace Historians
- sciart0
- Aug 18
- 2 min read
Excerpt: "Axios last month published a list of “The 10 jobs least and most threatened by AI.” No. 2 on the threatened list, between translators and passenger attendants, was “historians.” The source is a study by researchers at Microsoft on the implications of generative artificial intelligence on the labor force. The study uses data from Copilot, Microsoft’s competitor to ChatGPT, to match user requests with relevant career paths. In doing so, it purports to demonstrate the level to which work activities in certain careers are “covered” by generative AI.
To their credit, the researchers are modest about their findings. They note that in the past, efficiency tools have often tended to increase the value of work, not decrease it. Whether generative AI will have a similar effect is too early to tell.
The many news outlets that have publicized the study have been less scrupulous. Almost every popular news report on the Microsoft study claims that it shows which jobs are most “vulnerable” or “threatened” by AI—even though those words never appear in the original paper.
While the study seeks to determine the level of overlap between career tasks and generative AI, it doesn’t purport to measure how large the gulf is between that “coverage” and professional-level mastery of a subject. In some of the careers with the highest AI “coverage,” the gulf is wide indeed.
That explains the appearance of history, along with political science, journalism and writing—fields that lean heavily on humanity’s creative spark—in the study’s top 20. All these disciplines are practiced at a variety of levels of depth: by professionals, students and inquisitive amateurs. While for professionals generative AI is merely a slight improvement over a Google search, it can more easily satisfy a curious mind or create the appearance of familiarity for a passable term paper."