![[Artificial Intelligence] Why should I pay you, if AI can do it? The future value of jobs](https://images.spr.so/cdn-cgi/imagedelivery/j42No7y-dcokJuNgXeA0ig/ce760182-b481-4df6-af32-475934ca35c2/gradients_10/w=3840,quality=90,fit=scale-down)
📌 Key facts
- Examine Technological Displacement & Augmentation: Dive into how AI-driven tools are reshaping workforce demands, with some tasks replaced or augmented—and others remaining distinctly human.
- Skill Profiles of the Future & Job Value: Construct a data-driven inventory of which skills are susceptible to automation and which will grow in importance, using sources like O*NET and assess how evolving skill mixes could influence salary ranges, leveraging today’s data to project tomorrow’s earnings potential.
- Practical Blueprints: Provide actionable insights for employees, companies, and policymakers on adapting to these future job realities.
- When: Ideally start before April 2025, but flexibility is possible. Applications are open now!
- How to apply: Send us an e-mail (at the end of this page) with your CV, a grade report, and a short bullet-style thesis proposal.
- 📌 Key facts
- 💡 Background
- 🎯 Goals
- 🎓 Profile
- 📚 Further Reading
- 📄 Requirements to work
- 📝 How to Apply
- 📬 Contact
- 🦾Who We Are
💡 Background
Automation isn’t coming - it’s here. Yet while certain tasks are increasingly replaceable by AI, others may become more valuable:
- Technological Displacement & Augmentation: While AI chatbots might reduce some customer-service roles, these same tools (AI agents, GenAI solutions) can augment complex problem-solving or creative tasks.
- Shifting Skill Mix: We’re witnessing a fluid reconfiguration of required skills- some become obsolete, others see surging demand.
- Future Salary Trajectories: Salary is a function of demand and scarcity. As AI picks up routine tasks, what will happen to the pay scale of roles that remain?
🎯 Goals
Your thesis aims to explore how the growth of AI automation influences compensation across job categories—especially for those “human” components that resist automation.
- Map the Impact of AI: Identify which tasks are at risk of automation and which will likely remain human-centric, using job/task databases like O*NET.
- Skill Profiles of the Future: Construct a “future job” database that merges current occupations with new skill requirements.
- Analyze Salary Data: Using today’s salary benchmarks, forecast whether future roles will experience pay spikes (due to scarcity and complexity) or pay stagnation (if easily automated tasks reduce overall job value).
- Industry & Policy Recommendations: Propose adaptive measures for organizations and workers - e.g., retraining strategies, rethinking compensation models, and designing effective AI-human collaboration.
🎓 Profile
We’re looking for a highly motivated student - bachelor, master, or EMBA - excited for the intersection of AI, entrepreneurship, and data analysis.
- TUM Enrollment: You could be in Management & Technology / Data Science, Informatics, Economics, or any other relevant program at TUM
- Methodological: Familiarity with empirical research methods and excitement for exploring creative data sources.
- Founder’s Mindset: A passion for startup culture, emerging tech, and the hustle it takes to make big ideas happen in small teams.
📚 Further Reading
Your thesis will integrate insights from classic and cutting-edge research on automation, AI, and skill development:
- Frey & Osborne (2017): The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?
- Stephany, Teutloff, Ole (2024): What Is the Price of a Skill? The Value of Complementarity
- Recent scholarly and industry reports on generative AI’s impact on specific tasks, industries, and skills (e.g., Dell'Acqua et al. 2023, McKinsey & Company 2024, etc.)
📄 Requirements to work
We do not want your research to gather dust in some corner of bookshelf but make it accessible to the world. Thus, we warmly encourage you to create some or all of the following:
- Slide Deck - summarize your research and possibly present it
- 2 LinkedIn-Posts about the most important findings and summarizing the topic
Please note that these deliverables are not officially required.
📝 How to Apply
If you are interested, please contact Philipp Lemanczyk by submitting your CV and grade report. Please also briefly outline your tentative research idea (research question, data and methods, possible outcomes with a tentative outline all in a Word or PDF - bullet points only)
We're greatly looking forward to hearing more about you!
📬 Contact
Philipp Lemanczyk (Chair for Strategy and Organization)
Please add the following subject in your email: “Application-Jobs-AI” and your name
🦾Who We Are
Philipp Lemanczyk is a PhD student at the Chair for Strategy and Organization focusing on Information Systems and Entrepreneurship research. Before embarking on his PhD journey, he worked at McKinsey & Company as a consultant focusing on strategy, organizational & digital transformation, and M&A. He holds a M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering, a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering, and a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from TU Darmstadt.
The Chair for Strategy and Organization is focused on research with impact. This means we do not want to repeat old ideas and base our research solely on the research people did 10 years ago. Instead, we currently research topics that will shape the future. Topics such as Agile Organisations and Digital Disruption, Blockchain Technology, Creativity and Innovation, Digital Transformation and Business Model Innovation, Diversity, Education: Education Technology and Performance Management, HRTech, Leadership, and Teams.. We are always early in noticing trends, technologies, strategies, and organisations that shape the future, which has its ups and downs.