Machine learning gives rise to a range of smart machine implementations that act in an autonomous manner. This includes robots, autonomous vehicles, virtual personal assistants (VPAs) and smart advisors.
Advances in physical smart machines like robots receive a lot of attention. Google is already developing all kind of different machines/robots for several years and more and more jobs are taken over by machines/robots. This trend has been happening for decades and it will accelerate even more.
Computer robots can drive cars now. What does that mean for us as a society? As technology advances and robots learn to perform human tasks with greater efficiency than even humans themselves do, how many of us will be left in the dust? Is there a way to ensure that we remain irreplaceable as workers?
The main threat is still far in the future. However, next generations should get concerned because scientist believe that robots will take over more than half of the jobs in the next 50 to 100 years.
The questions that rises my mind is “What kind of job do I need to have to guard against autonomous takeover?”
Are we safe as Business Information managers? I am not so sure about that. I do believe that creative artist, sport players, teachers, doctors and judges are the least likely persons to be taken over by robots. Art is an expression of human creativity, imagination, and improvisation, something that computers will never have. Governors, lawmakers, judges, and juries will always need some sense of human discernment that computers will never be able to offer. It is true that there are online teaching courses, but someone has to create it. The same applies to healthcare, since technical aspects are already involved. However, there are elements of healthcare that computers just are not capable of handling: making decisions from incomplete patient data and dealing with human psychology.
Do you believe that we, BIMmers, have chosen the right profession and will not lose our future job to robots?
I’m pretty confident that BIMmers’ jobs will be safe in the future. You said it yourself: business decisions require a logical understanding of the business environment and more importantly, other people. There are so many variables in play that sometimes cannot even be quantified that even quantum computing can only hope to become a sort of decision support system. You’re in quite a bit of trouble if you’re working at McDonalds, though.