Future of work

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most important technologies in the world today. Business leaders believe it will significantly change the way we do business. AI has helped companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple to become one of the leading organizations in the world.

But how will this technology affect work in the future? Will it take away their jobs and will it lead to massive unemployment? Or will intelligent systems help in giving back time by doing all the mundane jobs?

AI in the short term is not here to take our jobs or leave us unemployed instead, it will enable new jobs and change the definition of some current job functions. This will require a large effort from the organizations and government to enable smoother transition into this future state. Even-though this future state is decades away we need to start preparing and planning for this future state now to reduce the shock value of the change. In this transition space the value lies when humans collaborate with intelligent systems to drive value. This is only possible if we adapt to this new way from the grassroots level, which means from curriculum in schools to how we support this future through organizational change to government policy change.

Schools –

Every school has a computer science program, and encourage kids to take computer science classes from the onset of schooling.

Computational thinking should be part of the curriculum.

Schools should be used as re-skilling pods to help enable the smarter workforce for the future.

Business –

AI should be used to get to better outcomes than replacing people.

Offer training / brown bag sessions for your teams who are interested in AI and smart systems.

Provide support to your technology team by building a growth plan for them based on their ability to learn and advance their careers.

Decision makers in product and technology teams should undergo AI education. This education should be incentive based and should encourage learn on your time.

Community organizations

Using strong local ties and deep understanding of the challenges faced by the community, help deal with the disruptions caused by AI. Provide re-skilling and educational programs in your community.

Set up exhibitions and interactive sessions within your community.

Share educational content for smarter systems within the communities.

Bring awareness about AI and smart systems. Encourage your community to tread on this new AI and the future of work path.

Government

Re-write policies to support these changes.

Help improve schooling and curriculum.

Increase funding for schools and the re-skilling programs.

Improve the legal and regulatory framework that governs working with these specialized systems.

Manufacturing

Enable learning of these smarter systems in your organization.

Ensure every one is adapting to these new systems.

Educate and bring awareness on AI and smarter systems in positive light.

Show growth using smarter systems to enable more adoption by your workforce in future.

Conclusion

In the long term, AI-enabled human + machine smart systems will facilitate new forms of change in business, science, manufacturing and art that are as different from what we know today. This will be an ongoing process and will need a larger push from grassroots to the government to help this be a smoother transition.

Also Read: AI vs Machine Learning