What To Do When Machines Do Everything
Abhijit Bhaduri
Talent Development Expert || Ex-GM Global L&D, Microsoft || Top 10 most sought after evangelist for brands like Adobe & SHRM || Keynote Speaker || 6x Author || LinkedIn Top Voice
Isn’t it funny how misleading these machines can be? First we teach them how to play Chess. Then they beat our champions. We program them to play Jeopardy and Go. The ungrateful machines defeat our champions. Already they are threatening to remove drivers from cars. Six of the top eight hedge funds have earned $8 billion thanks to AI algorithms. They are picking stocks better than Wall Street experts. Healthcare and Law are being impacted. Should we be worried? The experts have left us confused. They cannot give us one coherent response. Will machines render us jobless? If so, just what can we do.
What To Do When Machines Do Everything by Malcolm Frank his two colleagues from Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work are answering these questions. Technology is creating new jobs. Social media consultants, full stack engineers, search engine optimizers and content curators have all been created by recent developments in technology. Drones will need drone engineers. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality hardware will need storytellers who will tell stories using the new medium. Whether we like it or not, algorithms, AI, bots and Big Data will impact careers whether we like it or not.
In 2014, the authors wrote Code Halo that told us how companies like Amazon, Pandora, Netflix, Spotify and Google are using our digital footprints to understand us with frightening accuracy. Netflix can predict which movies you will like with greater accuracy than your loved ones. This time they go beyond data to add more variables in the mix. The new business models will get created based on new hardware (sensors, connected devices with massive processing power); new software (AI and algorithms are creeping into everything) and human ingenuity.
If you are thinking of smashing the machines like the Luddites did when they saw machines replacing people in mills, then don't. Technology is already embedded into everything we do. Figure out how to leverage this inevitability.
The book suggests five approaches that form the acronym AHEAD:
1. Automate: Pass on the rote work and computation to machines. PayPal, is using machine learning to compare millions of transactions and identify fraudulent transactions. Facebook’s researchers used four million photos of faces to train their machine to recognize faces.
2. Halo: Leverage digital data trails of your customers to create new business models. We are tracking our steps with health trackers and apps on our phone. Shops track your buying patterns and movement inside the store. Website track your eyeballs. Your face is recognizable across millions of cameras in homes, offices, streets and public transport and certainly at airports.
3. Enhance: Your capacities can be dramatically enhanced with data. We already have 5 billion digital screens and 3.8 billion more will be added this year. Reading time has tripled since 1980 and growing. 60 trillion pages exist on the web and growing every day. We need machines to help us.
4. Abundance: Between last year and now you have access to 8 million new songs, 2 million new books, 16,000 new films, 30 billion blog posts, 182 billion tweets and 400,000 new products. We need help from curators, experts, friends and other users to narrow down this ocean to a consumable glass of water. Use machines to help you.
5. Discover: New products can be created for unserved markets. Zipline makes more than 50 drone deliveries per day to 21 clinics in Rwanda. They deliver blood to new born babies and their mothers and save lives that would otherwise be lost. Drones may even be able to track and dissuade poachers, explore uncharted or dangerous territory, and photograph wildlife without disturbing them.
One last time, will machines render us jobless or won't they?
Here's something to mull over: In the data centers of IT organizations, one engineer can manage 500 servers. At Facebook, one engineer manages 25,000 servers. In May 2016, Foxconn replaced 60,000 workers with robots. Bringing down their employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000. In the short term, job losses are inevitable.
In the long run, machines will offer us opportunities for new forms of value creation. That will need a new set of skills and new models of education. I wish the book told us more about how to build those skills. I liked this book, but had enjoyed Code Halo much more.
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This article first appeared in my Economic Times blog <click here>
Want to use the sketchnote in your presentations? Sure <download it here>
Two related books you may like to read. My reviews may help you decide.
- The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly <click here>
- Only Humans Need Apply <click here>
Learning Manager at Concentrix
7yLooking at a future where Artificial Intelligence enables the robot to become our new human overlords (aka Skynet) will happen eventually but for now is a little far off Looking at an immediate future where smart algorithms and tecnology is able to replace tasks that currently require human intervention is more of a reality. For one. I don't know why we're scared but this (tech replacing) has been happening since the industrial revolution. The recording machine killed the story-tellers job The Washing machine killed the washer-man's job so there really is no use complaining! Because these machines gave rise to the need for an engineer and a technician. Change is constant. The only challenge here is anticipating the need this change will bring about.
Keen observer of Disruptive Technologies like Big Data, IoT, SDN, DevOps, Agile and Block Chain
7yImpressive, But., will we seriously be losing our jobs to a machine. When I read the following article I felt we won't be. Here is that interesting article @ http://www.happiestminds.com/blogs/stephen-hawking-is-wrong-you-wont-be-losing-your-job-to-a-machine/
General Manager I/C (SMS) at MECON Limited, India
7yfuture won't be scary....with improved AI and machine learning we would be thriving peacefully with more productive, proactive and intelligent robots...they would be reinforcing our wisdom and belief as ever active mentors!quality of human life would never get compromised.
QA Director at Zeta - Credit and Prepaid Cards. Prior experience in testing Credit Cards, Unsecured Lending, Trading and Hedging applications. Ex: Microsoft, D.E.Shaw, Trafigura, Oracle and DBS
7yJust thinking... Peoples thinking seems to be stopping at what next for me. I'm not saying I have a solution but let's look at this in a different way. 1. Can machines exist independently ? Imagine a world where only robots are present and no humans. What do they do? Some one needs to pay for it (building and maintenance) and some one should decide their purpose. 2. Assuming no one pays for a robot (build/maintain) without a purpose. What do people pay for ? People eat, mate, move, entertained etc. 3. Assuming every service provider is a robot driver, engineer, doctor, cleaner, entertainer etc. There are 2 kinds of people, people who build these robots and people who use these robots. 4. Now people with a skill to build/train a robot gets employed in one business. This could be creative skill, technical skill or manual skill. There are these 2nd category who have money to pay (may be own lands, fishing business etc) and they buy these robots. 5. There is a 3rd category of people, who neither build nor employ these robots either because they don't have the necessary skill or because they are too costly for them. May be they'll run a different low cost economy. There are also market dynamics that come into play. If someone employs a robot and manufactures say million chocolates a day and there is no consumer, then what is the purpose of employing it or manufacturing. An entrepreneur who has become an accumulator has to distribute either by employing or loaning. Otherwise he has no market. Certainly there will be changes in the work demands or skill. However do you still think robots can completely replace humans.