The Future of Work
How will new technologies change the way we work?
by Lavine Hemlani, Founder & CEO Xccelerate
Our world is fundamentally changing and we are going through one of the most exciting periods in our history. The rapid change in the economy around the future of work by technologies like automation, artificial intelligence and robotics are shaping how we work, where we work, and the skills we will need to work in the near future which will look very different.
Technology has been reshaping the workplace continually for the past two centuries since the Industrial Revolution, but the technological change we are currently going through, the speed with which automation technologies are developing today, and the scale at which they could disrupt the way we work, is unprecedented. And we are hopelessly unprepared for it.
The Faults in our Education System
The fundamental problem in our education today is that we still use a factory-model education system that is obsolete and very slow in preparing students for future job markets. The way we learn today, with teachers in front of packed classes, exams, and round memorizations is irrelevant and a waste of time. It does nothing to prepare young people for the future of work.
This is a challenge on a scale that is unimaginable because we are looking at so many jobs (800 million) that will be displaced in the short term. And that is happening at the moment. AI is changing the type of jobs available at record speed. And given the potential of automation and artificial intelligence to take over existing jobs, there is a growing concern about whether there will be enough jobs for workers. And is this disruption is an opportunity or a challenge?
Changing Models for Work and Work Structure
Historically speaking, labor markets adjust to changes in demand for workers from technological disruptions. Even though more and more jobs are being lost in traditional areas where AI and automated work streams can come, an equal number of jobs are being opened up in fields where we have to interact with AI and create cognitive residency with it, which is a new opportunity. Such opportunities will provide job openings in all sectors; from healthcare to green and industrial, and of course IT.
The IT sector alone is set to affect all sorts of companies and create new employment opportunities that include security analysts, data scientists, Blockchain, cloud architects, and the implementation and analysis of the Internet of Things along with quantum computing. Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems will replace jobs but also generate new jobs for engineers and technicians.
The 4th Industrial Revolution!
It is astounding to find that more than half of all occupations available in today’s market have at least some activities that can be automated, based on the current technologies. This means that the nature of our jobs will change,
and more people than ever before will have to work with technology.
It also means, we need to rethink out talent equation and ensure that it is driven by technical literacy. We need to learn how to interact with computers. We need to educate people at large scales in preparation for the future and create new opportunities to use man and machine together to achieve greater things — for humanity.
This is because even while technologies replace some jobs, they are also creating new types of jobs in industries that most of us don’t know much about, and these new types of jobs created will require people to be highly skilled to generate income. These new jobs created by AI include Data Scientist, AI product manager, AI project manager, AI architect & Machine Learning engineer.
An industrial revolution isn’t a new concept. It happened before many times. What makes this revolution both exciting and scary at the same time is because of the speed and scale of the change. Previous revolutions took a lot longer and impacted relatively fewer people.
The surge of big data and algorithms that are increasingly more efficient, coupled with vast storage capability and computing power in the last few years, propelled Artificial Intelligence to heights in which individuals, enterprises and governments aren’t ready for. In the last 5–10 years alone, we have seen spectacular progress and demonstrations with artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and robotics in a way that has been extraordinary.
Conclusion
It is not too late to start learning. Regardless of prerequisites, one can learn the languages to communicate with computers and AI. It is also great to get more exposure to different maths equations, the goal is to understand the properties and explore the nature of the problems you are trying to solve. Our technical illiteracy today is no different from our previous inability of how to read and write a few centuries ago. We overcame that, why shouldn’t we do the same now!!
