How AI and robotics are going to shape the workplace
Most jobs in the future don’t exist yet beyond a spark of the imagination – that’s what nearly half of young people believe. They’re probably right. The future will be full of outlandish problems no one has even thought of – but there will be more need than ever for people with the critical and creative-thinking skills to tackle them.
“We already know centennials are well aware that industries are undergoing exponential change,” says Professor Nick Colosimo, principal technologist at BAE Systems. Some 47 per cent of young people expect to work in industries that don’t yet exist, research by BAE Systems shows, while nearly two thirds (63 per cent) think that job roles will be more exciting than those of their parents’ era.
Advances in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), 3D printing and nanofabrication, automation and robotics will inevitably reshape the job market. Predictable physical and routine work will inevitably become automated. But in turn, human skills – judgment, creativity, management expertise – will be prized.
So where will opportunities lie, and how should today’s students make the most of them? “Maths and sciences are always the fundamental building blocks, but there’ll be a need for psychologists, neuroscientists, creatives and many more specialists,” says Prof Colosimo.
How people and technology relate to each other and work together requires sophisticated fine tuning, says Prof Colosimo. He remembers the days of Microsoft’s animated paperclip assistant “Clippy” in the late 1990s but he says the virtual assistants of the future will be less annoying and immeasurably more sophisticated.
As artificial intelligence (AI) evolves, how we interact with technology will become critical. And there’ll be demand for people adept at tweaking intelligent systems to “get on” with the individuals they serve. “In the future, we’ll need human machine experts to fine-tune these relationships,” he says.
The likes of Google – which now boasts an official “empathy lab” – and other big technology companies are investigating how technology will grow ever more aware of our moods – knowing exactly when to step in or stand back, or when we are confused. Our devices might eventually know our personalities or when we’re having a bad hair day – an undeniably sinister prospect for many.
“Getting the balance right is really important,” says Prof Colosimo. “Over-trust in automated systems can be dangerous as the automotive industry has learnt, but under-trust fails to exploit what machines can offer in terms of workload reduction.
