Future Disruptions and New Maladies – what the future may hold…..

• An aging population without a plan to take care of our old and infirm.
• AI and ML: Machines are getting smarter and more intelligent. AI seems to be able to do a lot of the cognitive jobs currently held by humans.
• Automation: Think self driving cars, trucks and other vehicles; IVRs that perform the jobs of CSRs, chat bots etc.
• Are humans a single planet species? Can we defy gravity at scale (mass transportation as opposed to a few infrequent transgressions into space) – Will this open up new frontiers to explore and eventually inhabit new worlds?
• Will we discover other intelligent species/civilizations? Again new frontiers for engagement outside our current boundaries of work – think Star Ship Enterprise and its crew – “Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before”.

All of these can be looked at as either opportunities or threats – it is what we make of it.  Change is never comfortable, but depending on how we embrace and adapt to it may mean our survival or ultimately demise.

Our response to these changes may take the following shape –

Protectionist Policies – Have they ever worked?

When we domesticated animals, did humans that performed manual labor, resist the entry of animals? – no, instead they evolved to managing these animals and accomplishing more work than what they could do individually.

Did humans resist mechanization – yes, but it wasn’t a disruption that they could resist for long because industrialization came with a number of benefits: it raised living conditions, increased life expectancy and also provided a preponderance of additional time that could be productively used in the pursuit of other interests and goals.

So why do we believe that the same response will be successful for the next round of redefinition of work?

Innovation: Can we reimagine work that humans do?

Why do we assume assembly line work is actually adding value?

Humans were first domesticated by agriculture and forced to leave their hunter-gatherer life style. For work that needed more strength than a single human, we used animal power for tasks such as ploughing or extracting oil.

Then came automation – where we invented gears, pulleys and mechanical arms or wheels driven by motors and generators to perform the  work on our behalf.

Next came CNC machines which in addition to the mechanical aspect of doing the job, could also be programmed to do the work without human intervention.

The final frontier is AI – where an automaton (or a software program since not all realms of work are physical) could sense the environment and determine the best action in order to achieve a set of finitely defined goals

I think we are ok as long as “we” get to define the goals but there are larger fears in society that when these automatons/programs take over and set their own goals – why would any human be needed?

Is that the right question? I do not know … does anyone?

Can AI and Intelligent robots really be an ally instead of a threat?

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True if we do not hang on to our traditional definition for work and instead look for different ways to create value.

Will be a possibility if an alien species attacks us and we collaborate with our own robots to ward off this threat.

May be necessary if humans are not suited to be a space faring race and we need robots to help us in this hostile environment.

We will need them when we are older and frail and younger humans do not have the inclination or interest to look after us.

If we want to succeed, we will need to change the game …and have a plan for our workforce to transition to this new definition of work.

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