SEEKING OPPORTUNITY IN A ‘ROBOPOCALYPSE’

SEEKING OPPORTUNITY IN A
‘ROBOPOCALYPSE’

This glimpse of the future was crafted by: Brad McBean

We’ve heard it all before. Robots ‒ those elusive job
munchers ‒ are making their way to an office near you. And the message is
clear: they are smarter than you, they are cheaper than you, and they won’t vie
for the corner office… like you. If it’s not YouTube, it’s our friends at TED who splatter our screens with stats and
remind us to stay afraid, very afraid of the imminent robopocalypse. After all, it’s
not just the postmen and snow plowers and plumbers who face the dirge; the
professionals in white coats and collars have reason to steady their knees when
pit against the innovative power and pace of artificial intelligence.

Don’t believe it? The fact is, it’s already been
happening for years. Just think about how easy it is now to check in your own
baggage at the airport. Only a few years ago, we were at the whim of airline
staff to do it for us. Or how about when you would plunk your groceries on the
conveyor belt and watch the friendly cashier scan your cookies’ bar code? Now
it’s your job, my friend. The milkman who knew your name? The travel agent? The
DVD shop that boomed on Friday night? All of them ‒ gone. A distant memory.

To think the march stops here would be downright
absurd. It’s only the beginning. So putting our heads in the sand of the great disruption debate is
not an option. We need to think around this clearly.

If you are an employer, constantly squeezed by margin
pressure, looking for efficiency, what do you do? Do you invest in technology,
knowing that you could render your workforce redundant? (After all, you still
attend those town hall talks that say “it’s all about people ‒ not silicon
chips and profit.”) Do you hold your nerve in the hope it will never happen ‒
only to have your competitor make the leap and grab the corner advantage? And
for you, the employee ‒ what do you do? Join a picket and start marching?

We don’t think that any of these are smart options.
Working the problem collectively is where we think the answer lies. The reality
is, only some tasks are facing immediate replacement, and so it is in those
spaces, where time and money find new slack, that we must seek out fresh
innovative seed. Beyond the obvious but short-sighted solution of reducing
staff numbers, how about thinking long-term and forging new value out of unique
circumstances? Perhaps humanity doesn’t have to end up “on their knees”, as
Robopocalypse author Daniel Wilson suggests.
Perhaps there’s the whiff of reinvention in the air.

Finding the gap…

Don’t get us wrong. There’s good reason to perk up ‒
maybe even panic, if that’s the fuel needed to move into new paradigm thinking.
But McKinsey’s latest
report on automation displacement reminds us that, although
almost every occupation has partial automation potential, humans will
remain an essential ingredient in the future workplace equation. Even those
jobs that can be easily automated, such as nursing or teaching, rely heavily on
interactions between people and expertise that stretches beyond the knowledge
of facts.

Where the design and construction of cities of the
future depend on public participation, the role of human creativity and ingenuity
will keep rising to the top. And for machines that excel at analysing
structured data, creative thinking will always remain gold, which is why
future-thinking organisations are placing more emphasis on innovation and fostering creativity.

So, while a future with AI might mean the factory
floor is inhabited by more affordable, time-efficient robots, designers and
engineers will have more time to imagine, create and build; clients will have
more choices; and niche opportunities will find new traction.

…also makes new jobs

Others would say that AI and robots are creating a
whole new job crop. Although an estimated 78% of predictable
physical jobs in the US (such as packaging, food preparation
and assembly line work) are under replacement threat, robots will never have
the technical world waxed. So long as there are machines, there will be
glitches and maintenance and updates required. All the more, we’ll need skilled
labour and expertise to manage and maintain these emerging technologies. The
robot will need replacing, the driverless car will need a tweak. And odds are
good for still some time, it will be the human hand to do the fixing.

New jobs will open up. Just as digital has given
birth to the IT world, with titles like ‘network administrator’, ‘field service
technician’ and ‘web developer’ now mainstream occupations, so too will the
same phenomenon unfold in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Furthermore in other fields, according to a 2011 study,
jobs are likely to triple from automation. Experts say, for every one million
industrial robots created, nearly three million jobs are directly needed to
support them. They even argue unemployment rates will drop, as they did for
five of the six countries examined in the study.

Are we taxing the wrong ‘people’?

Indeed, the subject is a bit more complex than a
one-sided end-of-the-world scenario. We can envision a future of coexistence,
but we must ask the big questions now and ensure that conscience leads the
way. Should robots be taxed like normal citizens, as Microsoft co-founder
Bill Gates proposes? It could be a way of slowing down automation and even
funding jobs in human-centred sectors such as caring for the elderly and
teaching children. And what’s stopping us from asking, should we ban
robots in some industries altogether?

These are the questions we need to be asking. These
are the grey areas we need to define. If we do it well, if we stay agile and
inventive, and if we keep eyes peeled for opportunity, we’re likely to dodge
our own demise and remain the future’s authors.

Aurecon’s
award-winning blog, Just Imagine
provides a glimpse into the future for curious readers, exploring ideas that
are probable, possible and for the imagination. This post originally appeared
on Aurecon’s Just Imagine blog.
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