After day two of training, I am pretty worn out. It is not that it was difficult, but it was just long and being around colleagues throughout the day with zero personal space, there was no chance to recharge. And tomorrow, I will be delivering my own session to a team that I haven't delivered to earlier, from a department I don't know very well. Thankfully, I don't need to understand too much of what they do to deliver and facilitate my part of their workshop.
In today's training however, we were talking a little bit about the impact of automation on business in general, and how people underestimate how much it is going to affect them. We have dealt with business automation for a few decades already, and with artificial intelligence for about the last ten years. I am not a coder, but I know a thing or two about the affects automation can have, because I have seen it first-hand in the companies I have consulted for. There has not only been reductions in headcount, it has also affected future headcount, because efficiencies have meant that growth can happen without more people.
For a look into the future for many companies, the Swedish BNPL Klarna, gives some insight. They have gone from 5000 employees down to 3800, and are looking to settle at around 2000. This has been made possible by investment into AI tools that replace the majority of their customer service and marketing positions.
"I think politicians already today should consider whether there are other alternatives of how they could support people that may be effective. It is "too simplistic" to simply say new jobs would be created in the future. I mean, maybe you can become an influencer, but it's hard to do so if you are 55-years-old,"
Sebastian Siemiatkowski (CEO, Klarna)
And he is right, because while they will likely pay the remaining staff more, the leavers will have very few options available for them, if any, and the competition is going to be fierce. It won't just be the older amongst us out of a job, it will be the majority of us in any jobs that can be codified and automated in some way, whether through mechanical automation, or artificial intelligence - often with the two working together.
But, the average person reading the news seems to be blinded by the media representation of AI, or what the corporations are pushing publicly. They care about being able to make AI-generated emojis on the new iPhone, not the loss of design jobs now and in the future for those who were previously creating these assets. While there will be some specialized jobs created through to the midterm, the better the technology gets, the less people will be required to provide their skills.
Some people think that once we have robots doing all the menial tasks that we don't want to do, then we will all be able to live in abundance. I believe that they are mistaken, because that is not how humans treat each other. A small percentage will have near unlimited possibility, but the rest will just wither away, or descend into the neo-dark ages. Unless there is extreme fundamental change in the way we organize, govern, and value humans in society.
Do leopards change their spots?
I am worried for my employable future, and I think anyone who needs more than ten years of work in order to retire debt free, is going to be in trouble also. But even then, there are other factors to consider, because while an individual or even a family might be able to look after themselves, they will also be living in communities where the majority are unable, and this is going to cause other problems. Those who can't move to a fully serviced island, are going to have a pretty difficult life, regardless of how much money they have.
Who knows, perhaps humanity will reach some singularity where our intelligence is enough that we are able to govern ourselves effectively. However, it is more likely that the technological singularity will happen before that anyway, and then we would have close to zero chance of affecting our future, because the technology will be driving us, not us driving it. Perhaps that is the point where humanity will be able to find peace and harmony, because our fate will be out of our hands and the artificial intelligence will guide our every action.
Like pets.
I sat in a few days of training, with people's whose jobs are heavily affected by whether they can effectively apply what they learned to their every day behaviors. However, it will take time to make it habit, they will apply it imperfectly, and forget the majority of what they learned. But it won't be long until an AI will do the majority of their work, and it will free up their time to do more value-adding activities. There is a problem with that though, because there won't be a large enough market to warrant the headcount, so how many of us will be left? B2B will become AI2AI, as people will be replaced on both sides of the table.
And no table will be needed.
So much for the furniture makers.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
