Work shapes the lives of many people and is often a meaningful part of their lives. History shows that the meaning of work is constantly changing. Every industrial revolution has brought both job losses and new job opportunities, as well as new forms of working and a changed role in people’s lifestyles.
Because we are in the middle of the digital revolution and disruptive technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) are entering our world, work will change significantly. Technologists, economists, politicians and philosophers are vigorously debating about the implications of Artificial Intelligence. A very broad study, published 2013 by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne of the University of Oxford, found that 47% of jobs in America are at high risk of being replaced by “computer capital” soon, which gives this discussion a new urgency (Frey & Osborne, 2013).
Whether we lose all our jobs to robots or not; global mobility, social and demographic change, as well as new ecosystems and life philosophies, will certainly lead to new roles and career models in the future. How will society react? And how will life goals change over time?
The average person nowadays performs 100,000 hours of work during their lifetime. As a result, work not only fills a large part of our lives, but often defines who we are. While we may not necessarily agree on what the future of work will look like, one thing is certain: their character and meaning will change radically, opening up new possibilities and perspectives.
So what are your thoughts about your future professional life with regards to Artificial Intelligence?
References:
Frey, C. B., & Osborne, M. (2013). The future of employment. How susceptible are jobs to computerisation.
Very interesting and relevant topic Moritz, thanks for sharing! My thoughts about artificial intelligence and business (models) are separated into different ‘categories’. I think the cashiers in the supermarkets and other stores are at very high risk for example, while the professional strategy consultants are at less risk for losing their job to artificial intelligence. Besides, while AI enters the businesses and causes disappearance of certain jobs, I am sure it also creates other, sometimes non-existing, jobs. The people that are possible going to lose their jobs, can be used for more creative jobs within the company, because creativity is hard for robots. The article that describes this is https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-create-a-successful-artificial-intelligence-strategy-44705c588e62. To conclude, I believe ‘creativity’ is the most important factor in discovering new jobs. The robots (AI) should focus on the exact well-defined problems within the companies, which they can easily take over. I’m wondering: what are your thoughts on which kind of jobs will be taken over very soon and which kind of jobs will remain available to human beings?
Hi Moritz, first of all, nice read! As you mentioned, the meaning of work has changed radically before and I believe that it will change again in the future. One of the most risky jobs with regards to AI might be accountancy, some even argue that it has a 94% chance to be replaced by robots. Even though these numbers sound very daunting, I think robots/AI will not fully replace most jobs, but complement the human activities. Looking at the accountancy example, AI could replace highly repetitive tasks, such as account receivable processing or procurement. Furthermore, AI could take care of otherwise extremely time consuming tasks, such as a risk assessment (Marr, 2018). Taking care of these tasks allows the human accountants to focus on the more lucrative analyses or processes, making their work potentially more fulfilling.
In general, I think that this will be the case for most jobs. Even if AI takes over most (repetitive) aspects of a job, humans are still needed, since they have qualities that robots do not have (yet), such as empathy or signaling trust to the customer. How the jobs will change is hard to say, however, but I would argue that jobs will be redefined to effectively make use of and work together with AI.
Sources:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/12/18/artificial-intelligence-will-change-the-job-landscape-forever-heres-how-to-prepare/#457ca65e27f4
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/06/01/the-digital-transformation-of-accounting-and-finance-artificial-intelligence-robots-and-chatbots/#205286044ad8