More job cuts on the way? MIT study claims AI could currently replace 12% of total US jobs market (www.techradar.com)

A new MIT study using the Iceberg Index — a labor-simulation tool developed with Oak Ridge National Laboratory — finds that 11.7% of the current U.S. workforce (out of a 151 million-worker dataset spanning 923 occupations and 32,000 skills) could already be replaced by AI, representing roughly $1.2 trillion in wages at risk across sectors such as finance and healthcare. The researchers emphasize this is not a forecast of inevitable job losses but a measurement of what tasks AI can replicate today, distinguishing “visible” impacts (tech-sector layoffs and role shifts concentrated in urban hubs) from “hidden” impacts (administration, HR, logistics) that are geographically widespread across all 50 states. Technically, the Iceberg Index operates at a fine-grained, task-and-skill level and produces county-level estimates (covering ~3,000 counties), giving policymakers actionable intelligence to prioritize workforce training, upskilling, and infrastructure investments and to choose pilot locations before committing large-scale funding. The study reveals that hidden exposure can be higher in states like Delaware, South Dakota, North Carolina and Utah than in tech-heavy California, underlining that AI-driven labor substitution isn’t confined to metro tech centers. Several states (Tennessee, Utah) and lawmakers have already used the index in workforce planning, illustrating its immediate policy utility despite its caveat as a capability map rather than a predictive model.