During recent years, there has been a lot of discussion about Artificial Intelligence and its potential threat to thousands of workers all over the world. Some papers have shown how the impact will reduce the number of jobs critically (Hughes 2014), meanwhile other authors are more cautious in making predictions (Brynjolfsson et al., 2018).
Its impending imminent will affect the entire structure of the firm and, thus, their supply chain. Chatbots in procurement, new predictive analytics and autonomous vehicles for logistics are only a few of the applications that can be implemented in the modern Supply Chain Management.
But what will the impact be of AI on this fundamental process?
According to Gary Hanifan and Kris Timmermans from Deloitte, the true point is not the human replacement, but the value that a new kind of collaboration can generate. Robots are programmed to complete tasks, not entire jobs, unlocking new perspectives in terms of increase in human capabilities.
In particular, three kind of new jobs could be considered:
- Trainers who have to “translate” human behaviour into algorithms, whose goal is to teach AI systems how to operate as best as they can
- Explainers who analyse the data, giving accountability to the AI’s processes
- Sustainers who are in charge of controlling the adherence of AI’s actions to the original goals, also taking into account an ethical dimension
Furthermore, sensors and devices could gather a huge amount of data that should be analysed in order to make the processes more efficient. Consequently, another role could arise: the digital engineer.
To conclude, the arrival of the AI could create new jobs in the Supply Chain. These professions will face the task of managing these robots and interpreting the resulting data. Clearly, all these new positions should own some analytical and mathematical skills because they will have to deal with a vast amount of information. Therefore, in order to do this a proper digital and statistical background is necessary.
Alberto Duretto
References:
- Hanifan, G., Timmermans, K., (2018). New Supply Chain Jobs Are Emerging as AI Takes Hold. Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/2018/08/new-supply-chain-jobs-are-emerging-as-ai-takes-hold
- Hughes, J. (2014). A strategic opening for a basic income guarantee in the global crisis being created by AI, robots, desktop manufacturing and biomedicine. JET press. Available at: https://jetpress.org/v24/hughes2.htm
- Erik Brynjolfsson et al., (2018). What Can Machines Learn, and What Does It Mean for Occupations and the Economy?. AEA Papers and Proceedings. Available at: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom/pubs/AEA2018-WhatCanMachinesLearn.pdf
