How can we prepare ourselves for the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI)? According to Jack Ma, founder and chairman of Alibaba, we have to change the way we teach otherwise the future generation will lose their jobs.
Despite the fact AI has a lot of advantages – for instance increase of productivity, lower costs and more precision – we are still concerned about the fact that AI will exceed human intelligence and supplant us as the dominant species on Earth. In the last 200 years, manufacturing brought jobs. (Bundy, 2016) But today, because of AI, manufacturing is no longer the main engine of creating jobs. Products that, for example, were made in China will only be made by the Internet in the future.
Preparation time has started
To benefit from the advances in productivity brought by AI, we will need to reallocate to new types of jobs. If new jobs are not created, workers are likely to remain locked in their previous jobs or become unemployed. (Frey, 2017) According to Jack Ma, the new technology will destroy bunch of jobs, but it will also create plenty of jobs and the service industry will be the largest engine of the job creation. However, the current approach to education is not preparing today’s youth for the realities of tomorrow’s work. We have to teach them to be very, very innovative and very creative. (Ma, 2017)
Adaption will create jobs
In consequence of AI, a distinct wave of job displacement will almost certainly occur. New technologies in areas like AI and robotics will both create some totally new jobs in the digital technology area and, through productivity gains, generate additional wealth and spending that will support additional jobs of existing kinds, primarily in services sectors that are less easy to automate. (Wilson et al., 2017)
In my point of view, the future will be automated excessive, but human interference is still crucial. Humans are the best watchdogs for upholding norms of human values and morals. What do you think the future will look like according to the labour market?
References:
Bundy, A., 2016. Review of “Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence”.
Frey, C.B., 2017. The Future of Jobs and Growth: Making the Digital Revolution Work for the Many.
Futurism. (2017). Jack Ma: the way we teach is going to make our kids lose jobs. [online] Available at: https://futurism.com/jack-ma-the-way-we-teach-is-going-to-make-our-kids-lose-jobs/ [Accessed 25 Sep. 2017].
Horowitz, J. (2017). Jack Ma: We need to stop training our kids for manufacturing jobs. [online] CNNMoney. Available at: http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/20/technology/jack-ma-artificial-intelligence-bloomberg-conference/index.html [Accessed 25 Sep. 2017].
Wilson, H.J., Daugherty, P. & Bianzino, N. 2017, “The Jobs That Artificial Intelligence Will Create”, MIT Sloan Management Review, vol. 58, no. 4, pp. 14-17.
Thanks for your interesting article Sharon.
In my honest opinion I think that people are too scared about AI when it comes to the labour markets. Yes, Artificial Intelligence will cause a major shift in the employment, but so did the steam engine and so did the invention of robotics.
These changes led to the distinction of certain types of jobs but in return created whole news sectors and industries whom were able to employ far more individuals then previously.
To illustrate, in the 19th century automation in the weaving process led the amount of cloth a single weaver could produce to increase by a factor of 50, meanwhile the amount of labour required per yard of cloth fell by 98%. Instead of leading to massive unemployment more jobs were created (the number of weavers quadrupled between 1830 and 1900) (Economist, 2016).
However this does not mean that we should not prepare ourselves for the future. I believe that the important distinction between the illustration and the possible future is that the jobs created due to the invention of steam engines, or automation are quite similar and the learning required for these jobs was not significant. This might not be the case with future jobs created by AI or Automation. In addition I think that the rate at which the current industry is changing cannot be compared with yesteryear economies. Research by McKinsey indicates that as much as 45% of the US jobs can already be automated using current technology (Chui, Manyika & Miremadi, 2015). So we will certainly see some major shifts in employment and people will become unemployed due to AI and automation.
The key to handling these changes is in education, and I agree with Jack Ma that in this area we are severely lacking, and that if we do not change this we will teach our kids skills for jobs which will no longer be available in the future (Ma, 2017).
References:
Chui, M.,Manyika, J., Miremadi, M. (2015) Four fundamentals of workplace automation. [online] Available at:
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/four-fundamentals-of-workplace-automation [Accessed 1 Oct 2017].
Economist. (2016). Automation and anxiety; the impact on jobs. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1800519708?accountid=13598 [Accessed 1 Oct. 2017]
Futurism. (2017). Jack Ma: the way we teach is going to make our kids lose jobs. [online] Available at: https://futurism.com/jack-ma-the-way-we-teach-is-going-to-make-our-kids-lose-jobs/ [Accessed 1 Oct. 2017].
This is a rather controversial subject these days. And I agree with Martijn that some people are just too scared and the facts are somewhat blown out of proportion. I think Artificial Intelligence (AI) will certainly bring significant changes to the job market and the human component in production of goods and services, but for most jobs this will not make human input obsolete in the production processes.
The concern that AI can possibly exceed human intelligence, at least for now is not realistic according to some AI professors (Grover, 2017). The McKinsey report on workplace automation stated that ‘60 per cent of jobs would have 30 percent of their activities automated. In total, only 6 percent of jobs would be lost to automation’ (Chui, Manyika & Miremadi, 2015). So, for the most jobs and thus most people, it will be mostly about replacing tasks and activities and not their complete jobs. Most AI experts predict that tasks undertaken by humans, especially the more basic and dull mental and physical tasks can be replaced by AI and give humans more time to perform more complex and meaningful tasks that AI will not replace. Until now, AI does not have the ability to supersede human knowledge.
Personally, I believe the advent of AI will bring more new opportunities than destroy jobs that we have today. In most industries having more time for important tasks will give us the possibility to solve a lot of problems in our world. Sectors like education where teachers are overwhelmed with secondary tasks that take time from human interactions with their students is a prime example of how AI can complement rather than destroy completely. Humans have skills that machines will not acquire that easily, emotional intelligence and creativity for instance. Besides that, I think if we humans are the ones to set technology such as AI in motion, we should be able to remain control no matter how smart we would like to make these technologies. They should always work to realize our own ends. How we reap the benefits of AI and remain in control is an issue experts on this area and regulators should debate collectively.
References:
Chui, M., Manyika, J., Miremadi, M. (2015). Four fundamentals of workplace automation. [online] Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/four-fundamentals-of-workplace-automation [Accessed 14 Oct 2017].
Grover, R. (2017). AI is not taking your job. Available at https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2017/ai-is-not-taking-your-job.html [Accessed 14 oct 2017]