In 2016, I wrote an article titled “Robots Aren’t Taking Our Jobs, They’re Transforming Them,” in response to a flurry of articles I read about robots taking over the workforce in the coming years. Now, nearly four years later, we see the same headlines.
While innovation is happening at an astonishing rate, we’re still nowhere near a Westworld-esque future where robots and automation rule. Robots have come a long way, but still need human expertise and skills to function. Therefore, the outcome is less likely a replacement of humans, but rather a reskilling.
There is a valid concern over the possibility of increasing inequality in our automated future. Once robots enter the workforce fully, most highly-skilled, educated workers are likely to experience a smaller shift in responsibilities than their less-skilled, educated counterparts. In order to adapt, those with fewer skills and education will likely have to expand their abilities to either empower them to work with robots or fall within the realm of abilities that robots currently lack, such as emotional intelligence and creativity.
For those that adapt to work alongside robots and automation, most will experience an increase in job quality, or even safety. For example, customer service professionals have been using AI chatbots for a few years now, and chatbots like bold360 allow the AI to answer the simpler questions, giving the humans more time to focus on complex customer issues. For example, HP’s virtual agent helps its support team sort through nearly 600 million technical support requests each year. There are also bomb disposal robots that use VR to allow soldiers to pilot them while disarming bombs from a safe distance.
It’s predicted that, despite disruption, there is still a net positive outlook for jobs. In other words, though 75 million current roles may be displaced by technology, 133 million entirely new roles may emerge simultaneously. These roles will likely be of two categories, one that deals predominantly with emerging technologies, like IT Services or AI Specialists, and one that provides the exclusively human touch, such as Designers or Human Resources.
Other reports, like this one from Brookings Institute, find that approximately 25% of US jobs are likely to be affected by automation. At face value, this number can seem concerning, but it’s important to remember that the process of implementation will still take time.
In the time it takes for the world to fully implement robots and automation in the majority of work systems, humans will be able to adapt and learn new skills, especially if they are empowered by their employers. Some are calling this the “Skills Revolution,” which refers to the fact that the skills required in the workforce are changing at a rapid pace. In the face of this, workers must embrace continuous learning opportunities, and employers must provide ongoing training to future-proof their employees.
To do just that for your employees, consider the following steps:
Pay attention to trends
As a futurist, I am constantly on the lookout for new Megatrends and patterns that may affect our future. This skill has served me and many others well over the years and has helped HP prepare itself for the years to come.
When it comes to future-proofing yourself in the face of automation, pay attention to new careers and job opportunities. It’s predicted that 65% of the jobs that Gen Z will perform don’t even exist yet. If you are able to spot a job trend and properly prepare for it, you could help usher in an entirely new career field.
Embrace lifelong learning
Gone are the days where you could learn a set of skills, perform them for the rest of your life, and earn a living. Nearly all careers require the occasional training or upskilling, but soon it will be necessary to dedicate time to learning on an ongoing basis. For some, this could mean improving their existing abilities and adding complementary skillsets, but for others it could mean learning an entirely new skill. It’s predicted that 42% of required skills will change by 2022, requiring the average worker to adapt to new tasks such as analytical thinking and negotiation. To adjust to these new skills by 2022, employees will need 101 days of training on average.
Thankfully, there are plenty of resources that will help, like Coursera and Lynda, as well as an emergence of recognized online higher education.
Maintain a growth mindset
How do you cope with challenge and difficulty? Do you give up when you feel that something is out of your range of abilities, or do you accept it as a learning opportunity? To maintain a growth mindset, you must learn to embrace challenges and failure as opportunities for growth, rather than letting them stop you in your tracks.
When you develop a growth mindset, you’re able to have the confidence to push through challenges, and this persistence will help you prepare for our automated future. Whether this is a small shift in your career or a larger transition to an entirely new field, a growth mindset will help you see things through a positive lens.
What happens when computers become intelligent? We are just now beginning to see what this future may look like, as gains in artificial intelligence (AI) are increasing. From intelligent self-driving cars, to AI-powered robot surgeons and smart factories, computers and machines that can learn and adapt will soon change the world as we know it.
While we are still in the nascent phase of AI technology, billions of dollars are being spent on research and development, helping to accelerate AI advancements. IDC predicts AI spending will increase by more than 50 percent year over year and reach $57.6 billion in investments by 2021.
One industry poised for massive disruption from AI-led technology is transportation. Leading automotive manufacturers and technology companies are in a heated race to develop fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) for use as taxis, commercial transportation, personal transportation and more.
All major car manufacturers are currently exploring AV technology. Each day in Arizona, hundreds AVs developed by Google’s Waymo, Lyft, General Motors and Intel roam the streets of Phoenix and other cities. Arizona lawmakers intentionally created minimal regulations for AVs in order to attract AV-related companies, which encouraged a sort of tech boom in the state. Safety advocates have criticized the state’s lax approach, claiming that more regulations around safety, auto cybersecurity, insurance and privacy have not been worked out.
While AVs for personal transportation have garnered a great deal of attention, AI is now disrupting virtually all other areas of transportation. Uber, Waymo and other companies are testing and using autonomous cargo trucks to deliver goods. GE transportation is actively using AI to develop “intelligent” locomotives to improve efficiency of rail transport and Hitachi is using AI to reduce power consumption. Major airline companies already use autopilot technology to do most of the work once a plane is in the sky and can even land a plane in inclement weather. Now they are researching how AI can replace more of a pilot’s responsibilities.
AI is even having an impact on city infrastructure and planning of cities. The U.S. Department of Transportation issued a call for proposals from cities looking into smart infrastructures. It will award 40 million dollars to a city that can demonstrate how to solve critical municipal challenges using innovative transportation technologies, data and applications.
“It is very clear to us that autonomous technology will fundamentally change the industry,” said Michael Ableson, GM’s vice president of global portfolio planning and strategy. “There is no greater impact on the industry than self-driving cars.”
The brains behind self-driving vehicles Soon, we may well see the road filled with AVs. According to WinterGreen Research, over 90 million autonomous-capable consumer vehicles, cars and light trucks will be on the road worldwide by 2023.
In order for this to happen, a fully functioning, safe AV needs an enormous amount of computing resources, power and AI that can sort through large amounts of data in milliseconds. The biggest challenge facing AVs is to improve the software powered by machine learning and AI to correctly interpret data that is fed through the car’s sensors. It needs to safely drive a vehicle through various weather scenarios and identify and respond to other cars, animals, pedestrians, bike riders and more. In other words, the AI that controls self-driving cars needs to be error-free. “This is not a recommendation engine for Netflix,” said Danny Shapiro, senior director of automotive at chipmaker Nvidia. “The AI has to be spot on.”
AI is already being used for AVs today, including Tesla’s Autopilot system that helps drivers navigate highways and parking lots. Tesla claims every vehicle it produces has the ability for complete, autonomous driving, yet it will only be activated when the necessary software and government regulations are in place.
Cameras inside certain vehicles now identify drivers and track eye position to see if the driver is distracted or asleep. Cars also now identify and predict potential cross traffic danger. Auto braking features that prevent collisions are in place. In fact, if you have a 2017 car, it most likely has level two partial automation features, which can be steering assistance and accelerating or decelerating under certain situations, as defined by the Taxonomy and Definition for Terms Related to On-Road Motor Vehicle Automated Driving Systems. The next three levels in the classification system are all based on vehicles with automated driving systems that monitor and respond to the environment.
As we continue the road to AI-enabled AVs, here are some other exciting details that are expected to emerge in the coming years:
Automotive self-diagnostics and maintenance As automobiles become more like computers with wheels, they are increasingly becoming connected and, with artificial intelligence capabilities, will predictively identify maintenance needs. By combining data from advanced Internet of Things sensors, maintenance logs and other external sources, AI will help with better prediction and avoidance of machine failure, according to McKinsey. This could reduce maintenance costs by up to 10 percent.
Predii, a company that provides a platform that enables organizations greater efficiency for repairs and maintenance, predicts that connected cars will be a source of high-frequency data for predictive and proactive maintenance.
“The availability of continuous streams of data from vehicles will empower vehicle monitoring businesses which are responsible for continuous health checks of your vehicle or fleets of vehicles,” according to a white paper by Predii. “Intelligent repair solutions will monitor check engine lights, diagnostic trouble codes, symptoms and data from advanced driver assistance systems.”
Automated cars are programmed to obey laws Imagine intelligent cars that can drive somebody home who has consumed too much alcohol. Or takes over the wheel if somebody falls asleep. One of the key predicted benefits of having AVs on our roadways is the reduction of traffic accidents. In 2017, there were an estimated 40,000 traffic fatalities in the U.S., with more than 90 percent of them caused by human error, according to the National Safety Council.
Self driving cars are far better than humans at obeying traffic laws, since they are programed to do so. They don’t text and drive, or drive under the influence of alcohol, or drive too fast, which makes them much safer than humans.
Government traffic planners are optimistic that AVs won’t go over the speed limit, which will produce more cohesive and calm roadways with fewer accidents, according to a report last year on speed limits by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Car Rental Companies become Self-Driving Car Fleet management operators If a car can drive itself, do we really need to own our own vehicle? Can’t we call Uber to pick us up in one of their AV taxis? That’s the question posed by various automakers, technology and rental car companies, who envision a near future full of “robot taxis” through a ride sharing or rental car service. This “on-demand autonomous” vehicle is a vision of Michael Ableson, GM’s vice president of global portfolio planning and strategy. And it’s why GM paid $500 million for a stake and a strategic alliance in Lyft, the second biggest ridesharing service behind Uber. Ford isn’t far behind, since in August 2016 the company announced a “high-volume, fully autonomous vehicle for ride sharing” by 2021.
With a fleet of AVs, car-sharing companies are expected to have a coherent view of an AV fleet, monitor and manage it, detect issues and enforce policies. Operators can gather data of each individual vehicle including location, mileage, fuel consumption, driving behaviors and even if a door is left open. The AVs can then be remotely controlled to drive to service stations for repair and refueling.
Reroute traffic based on congestion, accidents, etc. Google maps and other map-based apps have already helped road warriors find the shortest route possible to their destination. As AVs include greater connectivity, the AI behind it can gather data regarding traffic patterns, accidents and slows downs and appropriately — and automatically — reroute for optimal travel. This will help to ultimately lessen traffic congestion.
Tesla’s complete self-driving system will use GPS technology to find the optimal route to its given destination. If the car isn’t given a destination, it can check the owner’s calendar to determine the best destination or take the owner home.
Vehicles as “digital living environments” It now takes the average U.S. worker 25 minutes to travel to work, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. AVs are expected to free up time for passengers to focus other tasks, including work, socializing, viewing entertainment, etc. Bosch has created a show car to display the company’s “digital living environment” inside AVs. It features large-surface monitors with the ability to have video conferences, display real-time traffic and weather information, email accessibility and entertainment options.
“Alongside the home and the office, the car will become the third living environment and a personal assistant,” said Bosch CEO Volkmar Denner.
Autonomous truck services In October 2016, the world’s first successful autonomous truck delivery was completed when an Uber truck carried 50,000 cans of Budweiser beer over a distance of 120 miles from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, CO. Now Uber’s autonomous trucks are delivering goods throughout Arizona. Other AV companies are following suit.
A report by the International Transport Forum claims autonomous delivery vehicles will save costs, lower emissions and improve road safety, compared with trucks operated by humans. New autonomous trucks will have the ability to perform a host of delivery duties including pick up garbage, deliver packages and food, and a numerous other services. All these services can be optimized through advanced logistics for traffic flow.
Public transportation safety and usage optimization Public transportation also stands to benefit from the use of AVs and the associated logistics operations systems.
In Helsinki, Finland, trial is underway where an autonomous bus transports up to a dozen passengers at a time through a quarter-mile route with restaurants and saunas. The city is expected to expand the trial and provide autonomous bus services throughout the city, in order to measure customer response and basic operations data.
“There’s a lot of demand to solve the last-mile problem,” said Harri Santamala, the city’s project coordinator, referring to the challenge of transporting passengers from centralized transit hubs to their final destinations. “I think this is something we could do with automatic buses. On a real-time basis, we can adjust how they drive and where they make the connection. We’ve learned with this pilot that you can be flexible and synchronize with this technology. We could scale this up to the entire fleet.”
Metro Magazine suggests numerous benefits to a municipal transit system powered by autonomous buses:
Trip-planning information is integrated across modes and agencies (public and private), so the general public has the ability to evaluate their travel options with comprehensive information on travel time, cost, environmental impact, and more.
Real-time schedules for all transportation modes are centrally available.
Vehicles and transit schedules are “right-sized” so fleets are used effectively and there are no more empty buses.
Fare payment is made electronically and only one payment is needed for each whole trip.
Travel times are generally predictable and well-communicated.
Lower income and people with disability populations have access to all of these services.
The future of AVs are near A world of intelligent vehicles is no longer a novel science fiction idea, but a near future. Passenger busses, taxis, personal vehicles, airplanes, trains and more are set to improve the way we get around. Ford, GE, Volkswagen, Audi, Toyota, Ford, BMW and Nissan are all hard at work creating and testing AVs they say will be road ready by 2020. And the U.S. Secretary of Transportation stated at the 2015 Frankfurt Auto show that he expects driverless cars to be in use all over the world within the next 10 years.
This AI-driven transportation revolution is expected to make our roadways safer, ease traffic congestions, make our transportation systems more efficient and make transportation more enjoyable. And, the trend toward urbanization might be reversed as AVs give people more time to work and be productive.
AI’s potential impact on transportation is immense. Advancements will continue to reshape the industry, how we drive, deliver and ship goods on earth and possibly in space in the future. Get ready to start your AI-powered engines.
Artificial intelligence (AI) will make a direct and immense impact on the healthcare field. Technology has already improved diagnostic accuracy, drug delivery, and patients’ medical records, and AI will only add to those breakthroughs. AI can mine medical records, design personalized treatment plans, handle administrative tasks to free up medical providers’ time for more meaningful tasks, and assist with medication management.
AI has already made headway in medicine, helping to do everything from processing x-ray images and detecting cancer to assisting doctors in diagnosing and treating patients. In fact, the global AI healthcare market is expected to reach $22,790 million by 2023.
And the general public is on board. According to a recent survey, 47% of people were comfortable with AI assisting doctors in the operating room. More than half of respondents over age 40 were willing to go under the knife with the help of technology, compared with only 40% under age 40. Additionally, six in ten participants (61%) were comfortable with their doctor using data from wearable devices, such as an Apple Watch or Fitbit, to assess their lifestyle and make recommendations based on that data.
So what healthcare areas will AI have an impact on in the next five to ten years?
Mining medical records
In our current age of big data, patient data is valuable. Often times, patients’ files are unorganized and mining their records to extract necessary medical insights can be a great challenge.
David Lindsay, founder of Philadelphia-based start-up, Oncora Medical, realized this struggle in radiation therapy. He and his team built a data analytics platform that helps doctors design sound radiation treatment plans for patients, personalizing each one based on their specific characteristics and medical history.
Virtual healthcare providers
AI is being used to detect emotional health issues as well. x2 developed a mental health chatbot, Tess, that delivers on-demand, psychological support. Tess coaches you through tough times to build resilience, by having text message conversations — in the same way a therapist would. The coping strategies Tess delivers are based on the emotions and concerns you express in your conversations.
Beyond Verbal is another example of a company utilizing AI to track emotional well-being. The emotions analytics company, developed a vocal biomarker to potentially help patients and their providers recognize patterns and better understand their healthcare needs.
Sensly boosts, Molly, a virtual health care assistant which dynamically generates speech, receives images and videos, and offers complete remote monitoring, with support for the common and high-cost conditions.
Drug development
Clinical trials can take more than a decade and cost millions of dollars. AI can play a part in speeding up the process of drug development, along with making it more cost effective.
GSK, a company that researches, develops, and manufactures innovative pharmaceutical medicines, vaccines, and consumer healthcare products, is active applying AI to its drug discovery arm. In fact, it created an in-house AI unit called “Medicines Discovered Using Artificial Intelligence.” In 2017, the company announced a partnership with Insilico, to identify novel biological targets and pathways.
Overall, AI can assist healthcare providers in managing their patients’ care more efficiently. I don’t believe AI will take healthcare jobs, but instead transform them. AI will provide the opportunity for healthcare works to take on higher impact jobs or at least offload their less desirable workload. AI will create growth and introduce more opportunities for the human workforce. It has the potential to automate mundane tasks, allowing humans to spend more time on more important tasks. If they can collaborate with the human workforce in hospitals and doctors’ offices, it will take care of the most important aspect of healthcare — improving patients’ experiences.
“It’s the end of the world as we know it.” The iconic song from rock band R.E.M. has been the soundtrack for many dark days since its original release in…wait for it…1987. It was a simpler world then…wasn’t it?
Actually, there’s ongoing debate over whether we are living in an increasingly dangerous world, or whether 24-hour news cycles and social media are decrying global crime conditions that may actually be stable or in decline. Still, the news delivers a daunting barrage: terrorist attacks, gang murders, warring militant groups, gun violence and cybercrime. It can be hard to know where to focus and how to stay safe both in the physical and digital environments.
Better news: AI and Robotics in public safety and security present a growing, diverse and powerful force for good against an evolving threat landscape. From tireless patrol robots to game-theory based monitoring of harbors and airports to predictive analytics at IoT scale…security technology is helping law enforcement, businesses, communities, and citizens stay safe and quash criminal activity.
Robo-guards: At a data center or street corner near you
There’s a long tradition of retired police and military personnel joining the civilian security workforce. Military robots are following suit, being deployed as extensions of police departments and security staffing teams. Robots are increasingly being used as smart, and uber-efficient patrol guards in businesses, institutions, city streets and transit hubs. They have become affordable enough to justify cost even for smaller businesses. The global security robots market is likely to reach $2.71 billion in 2021, according to Arcluster, in the first-of-its-kind report on the Worldwide Security Robots Market (2016–2021).
There are numerous examples of military-style robots reporting for duty. The Los Angeles Police department handles car bombs with a 50-foot telescoping arm on their burly Bomb Assault Tactical Control Assessment Tool (BatCat), built on a Caterpillar tractor chassis. In Cleveland, a tiny version, the 12-inch robot Griffin, that under cars and behind dumpsters to scan for hidden explosive devices.
South Korea will be making extensive use of robo-guards to enforce security at the 2018 Olympic Games in Pyeongchang. In Greece, aquatic rescue robots have sped flotation devices across the water at 20 mph to Syrian refugees stranded by capsized boats. In Japan, suspicious drones flying over sensitive areas are scooped up by defense drones wielding what are essentially six-by-ten foot butterfly nets — the better to avoid falling debris that would result from shooting at them and destroying them in flight.
One company with early mainstream momentum is Knightscope, makers of the Autonomous Data Machines (ADMs). They are 4-to-5-foot tall robotic security guards, able to monitor and report activity, stream video, and sniff out cybercrime, detecting devices that are trying to access data on a network. They can detect and alert authorities to the presence of certain kinds of items — guns, for example — a person may be carrying into a public area.
While their AI-driven capabilities are impressive, these robo-guards are at their best when they are feeding insight to, and taking direction from, their human counterparts. And when they are visible in public spaces, it will be natural for them to fulfill other typical aspects of a human security guard’s role: being an greeter for a business or city; providing directions, and gathering input from members of the community or business they serve.
AI: The brains of the operation for tech-enabled public safety
Artificial Intelligence is the other half of the story. Oceans of data are generated daily, both by humans and by the global mesh of devices that interact with us and with each other.
There is tremendous promise in the ability to aggregate and crunch that data and turn it into usable insights for public safety officials. AI can help us pre-empt crime by recognizing patterns, finding anomalies, and using predictive analytics to anticipate the likely next moves of terrorists and criminals from the physical and digital realms.
Digital transformation in the public safety field is no small challenge. It requires legacy IT systems and entrenched processes and behaviors. But the CIA, recognizing an existential need to modernize, did just that a few years ago. It moved onto the commercial cloud a few years ago and is now able to instantly and securely inter-operate across all 16 of its agencies and all levels of classification — a development its leadership describes as “game changing.”
Collaborating with AI and Robots to cut cost and improve safety
AI and robotics have much to offer security professionals who are responsible for the safety of people, places, and things (physical and digital.) There’s no question that protecting human life, sensitive data and other assets are worthy of our investment. But resources are finite, and there is tremendous value in using technology to replicate elements of human judgement, observation and insight.
Accenture recently asked 165 technology leads in police, justice and intelligence departments worldwide to identify the biggest challenges they face today. Their top three answers were: financial constraints, increased citizen expectations and the need to modernize operations. Digital transformation is essential to overcoming those challenges — as is adopting a proactive, preventive security strategy to ensure greater safety for individuals and communities everywhere.
TED2017: a dancing robot, taking lessons from the past, and looking to the future. TED2017 has been full of thought-provoking and ground-breaking talks. Here are a few of my favorite technology-focused talks so far:
“The future, today” Anab Jain
In the opening night, Anab Jian, Founding Director of Superflux, captured the audience with her perspective and tangible experiments focused on the future. She pointed out that while it can feel like innovation is happening too quickly, we must stay focused on our impact on the future. Jain does this by taking in the signals and trends around her to build objects – flying advertisements, an apartment to survive a drastic decrease in natural resources, and more – that allow us to experience the future. This talk hit close to home for me, as future enthusiast, and correlates nicely to the Megatrends work we’ve been doing at HP.
"We treat the future as a foreign land, but it's not — it's continually shaped by our actions today." @anabjain#TED2017
“Conquering your fears, the stoic way” Tim Ferriss “If your goals aren’t specific, you can’t achieve them.” Author, podcast host, and entrepreneur Tim Ferriss shared his inspiring story and enlightened the audience with tips to capitalize on opportunities, manage fears, and fully envision the future. He credits stoicism to his success and recommends achieving similar success by writing down worries about your next move, whether it be starting a business, taking time off, or launching your next product. Once you have those concerns on paper, Ferriss says it’s vital to document how they can be prevented, how you can repair damage if they come true, and most importantly, consider the cost of inaction.
#TED2017 Tim Ferriss: calculate the atrocious cost of the status quo… It is important.
"I urge you to ask yourself where in your life would defining your fears be more important than defining your goals." Tim Ferriss #TED2017pic.twitter.com/vnORX8kjtL
“A vision of robots that might replace you” Marc Raibert
Marc Raibert, founder of Boston Dynamics, is responsible for arguably the most innovative robots today. In his talk, he showcased robots like BigDog, a cheetah-like robot, AlphaDog, a massive robot that can trek through snow, and Spot, a robot that uses its hands to handle packages.
I was most impressed by SpotMini. The robot can move sideways, run in place, and hop from side to side. Raibert demonstrated how SpotMini creates a dynamic map of the world around it, while delivering a drink to Raibert on his command.
Raibert’s talk inspired me to think even more about the future of human and robot collaborations. Innovative robots like the ones highlighted in this talk will allow us to automate the mundane and present endless collaboration opportunities. If we design and program robotics to work with us, there is no problem we can’t solve.
Other TED attendees, cinema experiencers, people who’ve been following along on Twitter, what TED talk has impacted you the most so far? Which TED talk are you looking forward to? I’d love to hear your comments below.
“More Robots Means Fewer Jobs”, “Jobs that Humans Will Lose to Robots”, “Robots Taking Over Jobs” – these are just a few of the headlines I’ve seen recently surrounding robotics and their threat to human jobs.
Andrew Bolwell 