A.I. is on a collision course with white-collar, high-paid jobs — and with unknown impact

The notion of technological advancement upending the job market isn’t a new phenomenon.

Robots and automation, for example, have become a mainstay of factory floors and assembly lines. And it has had various effects on the workplace, by displacing, changing, enhancing or creating jobs, experts said.

Artificial intelligence — a relatively nascent and fast-moving type of technology — will undoubtedly do the same, experts said. However, it’s likely such tech will target a different segment of the American workforce than has been the case in the past.

“AI is distinguished from past technologies that have come over the last 100-plus years,” said Rakesh Kochhar, an expert on employment trends and a senior researcher at Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank. “It is reaching up from the factory floors into the office spaces where white-collar, higher-paid workers tend to be.”

“Will it be a slow-moving force or a tsunami? That’s unknown,” Kochhar added.