AI is shaking the labour market Lets save the labour
[Music]
last year
i registered my sun at school in the
application form
on paper of course i had to mark that i
am aware
and agree on the school rule prohibiting
cell phones and digital devices on the
school premises
i thought rather than ban them
shouldn’t we teach the kids how to deal
with those devices
properly if the kids don’t learn it at
school
then where by prohibiting digital
devices
where the kids learn most we strengthen
their belief that the analog reality
and the digital space are two totally
different words
instead we should teach them that the
same rules and values
of the analog word are also applicable
to the digital one
our children will be the ones designing
and building the machines of the future
why aren’t we preparing them for it
that day i realized how different my
professional reality was from school
reality
my job consists in helping my company
leverage technology to develop new
products and to increase efficiency
but in a human-centered way
while assessing processes that people
perform every day
my team and i focus on the people behind
these processes
we discuss with them about the tasks
they perform every day
and let them talk about
let them identify the automation
potentials
i hear two business challenges and
discuss with business leaders how we can
use technology to solve these challenges
i talk with colleagues who are afraid of
losing their jobs
and others who feel relieved after a
robber took over the repetitive tasks
i hear people talking positively about
automation freeing up resources for a
more creative endeavor
and others who claim to need these
repetitive tasks to disconnect from
their stressful lives
all in all i witnessed daily how
artificial intelligence
is changing the labor market and with it
people’s lives
according to a study of the organization
of economic development
cooperation and development 14
of the jobs have a potential of
automation of over 70 percent
this is equivalent to 66 million workers
in the 32 country covered by the study
in addition another 32 percent
have a potential of automation of
between 50
and 70 changing
the way these jobs are carried out and
hence changing the skill sets of the job
putting aside the numbers
let’s have a look at a couple of
examples proving how the shifts in tasks
between humans and machines is already
in motion
what you see on the picture is an
airplane factory back in the 40s
nowadays we mainly see robots in
factories
and these robots are building other
robots
in the healthcare sector we used to have
simple utensils
nowadays we have machines we have
surgery rooms full of machines
and in the near future we will have
robots performing the surgery by
themselves
of course steered by a doctor but she
won’t need to be in the same surgery
room as the patient anymore
or something as basic as grocery
shopping will be disrupted
by sensors and cameras equipped with
artificial intelligence
installed everywhere enabling a
supermarket to function without
registers cashiers checkouts or lines
or something as arts ladies and
gentlemen
meet the first rembrandt painted by your
computer
and printed by a 3d printer through the
3d printing you can recognize the brush
stroke
which is something individual to each
artist
or music
[Music]
what we just heard is beethoven’s 10th
symphony you read it correctly and you
heard it correctly the 10th
symphony in fact beethoven started
writing it before he died
but he never finished it that’s why it’s
unknown and to his 250th birthday last
year
deutsche telekom initiated a project to
end the 10th symphony with the help of
ai
and of course with the help of many
human experts ai
and music experts as you can see
not even arts will be something an
endava restricted to humans
at this point i guess you want to hear
which jobs
won’t be automated right at furniture
unfortunately
no jobs are 100 safe the extent of
disruption
will depend on the skill set of the jobs
but don’t worry there is hope mainly
because of two reasons
first because there’s another study of
course
so the word economic forum future of job
reports of 2020
estimated that by 25 85 million jobs
may be displaced by the
the reallocation of tasks from machines
from humans to machines while
97 million jobs may erase
this confirms what we have seen in the
past
in fact in developed countries
employment has been
increasing despite automation
many new jobs exist today that didn’t
exist in the past
think of a data master for example
for those who hear the term for the
first time it’s one of the roles of data
scientists
second there are the so-called
bottlenecks of automation
these are the tasks that based on the
actual state of knowledge are very hard
to automate
they include perception manipulation
which is the ability to carry out
physical tasks and manual tasks in an
unstructured work environment
creative intelligence and social
intelligence
unfortunately emotional intelligence
hasn’t reached the attention it deserves
but we need to change that engineering
and coding skills
are not the only we need
new skills and strength to make sure
that we are prepared
for this technological revolution
according to daniel goleman this is the
american psychologist who helped
popularize it emotional intelligence
is self-awareness self-regulation
motivation
empathy and social skills
those are the skills that are that
robots don’t have
that are unique to humans and that will
be so crucial
in the labor markets of the future
and talking about the future let’s have
a look to the at the past
so if we look back in history automation
has been around for hundreds of years
and yet we managed to cope and to create
new employment the automation of the
agriculture gave away to manufacturing
and the automation of manufacturing gave
away to services
during the industrial revolution the
machines took over the physical tasks
so people developed cognitive skills
in this technological revolution
machines are taken over
cognitive skills so people need to
harness
emotional intelligence
if we don’t manage to teach our children
and adults
in improving their emotional
intelligence then we might end up in the
scenario people fear the most
i call it the ai dystopia
we are familiar uh with automation
in factories but the same is happening
in offices
the only difference is that the robots
are not hardware
but software you cannot touch them but
they are everywhere
instead of seeing more robots you just
see less people
data entry clerks accountants
bookkeepers auditors or even customer
service workers were highly replaced by
software
robots only a small elite designing and
building the robots
are the remaining few office workers
and the elite is small because we were
not able
to overcome the digital divide
since we didn’t manage to upgrade the
school system we kept
preparing the masses for repetitive
tasks while the most privileged attended
extracurricular activities to enhance
iq and eq but after
reaching a certain oh sorry and the
advancements
in technology enable
the computers the robots to acquire even
more intelligence
allowing them to perform even more
complex tasks
so after searching a tipping point the
few romanian workers
complained to the big boss
so what he says what are you going to do
strike go ahead there are enough robots
capable of doing the job
they strike lose their job and spend the
rest of their
life on couch playing video games while
video surveillance cameras installed
everywhere monitor every movement
and alert the big boss should anyone
make a stand against the system
scary scenario isn’t it okay
let’s rewind back to our starting point
with the office full of people and have
a look at the ai
utopia of course the robots are getting
smarter and smarter
but people are getting smarter too
we provided enough training provision
particularly for low
low low-skilled workers we we
straightened
the learning the training policies and
prepared the message for the new
requirements
and we train the people to reflect more
on the tasks they perform daily
now they’re able to identify the tasks
that are not worth
being done by humans they are the ones
identified identifying the automation
potentials
and asking the robots to take over their
jobs
or they might even build the robots
themselves in any case
we taught them how to extract the robot
out of the human
they are free to choose what to do in
their freedom capacity
we empower them to do so because we
believe that every individual
has a talent that should come to light
and it does
because we leverage eq we strengthened
people’s self-esteem and believed in
them
we flattened the hierarchies and
distributed the power
and we trained people and awakened their
curiosity
now they are actively they’re hungry for
knowledge are
actively acquiring new skills with the
newly gained skills
they are able to invent new products
and services to the arts
sports or maybe spend more times with
their families
while very important while the robots
are doing the job
what may seem like an utopia is actually
very realistic
many of the methodologies i mentioned
are not new
we know how to face the challenge we
just need to start executing
and to start executing we need to stop
fearing
fearing technology fearing ai and
fearing change
the fear of ai is something i witness
very often
most people picture the terminator when
they hear the term ai
to change that i started giving
workshops for non-tech people
explaining the most used ai and machine
learning methodologies
using examples of our daily lives and
avoiding any mathematical formulas
during the workshops i could really see
how the facial expression of the
attendees
were getting more and more relaxed many
of them approached me at the end
to tell me that they feel relieved after
hearing my explanation
having witnessed that for so many times
i decided to bring my message to a
broader audience
so i wrote a book and yes
a real book in paper
believe me writing this book was a huge
challenge
on top doing it on top of on on my uh
already full and stressful life
but the will to contribute to ai
literacy
was much stronger than the need of
relaxing
i believe everyone should be informed
about ai
and how it is impacting our lives
understanding technology is the first
step
in shaping one’s own future
i’m standing here a divided person
on the one side i am a tech expert
excited about the technological
developments
i truly believe that they can help us
tackle many of the
the challenges we have on the other side
i am a worried mother seeing that the
future sees developing professionally
is moving at light speed while the
education of her children is stagnating
i am a worried colleague citizen
and friend feeling people’s fear
about ai but i take their fear seriously
because i believe that those who fear
the most will be affected the most
but we shouldn’t let fear win societies
have been fearing automation for
hundreds of years
the steam engine the spinning jenny the
cars
the the assembly line the computer now
the ai
every revolution started with fear with
fear of what is to come
but as mercury put it nothing in life is
to be feared
it’s only to be understood
now it’s the time to understand with our
brains
and with our hearts thank you
[Music]