Human/Machine summary

So far, we’ve focused on the positive side of the human-machine relationship. But self-driving cars might soon replace cabdrivers, robots are already booting out personal assistants, and algorithms can now write articles for newspapers. Will we really see the “job Armageddon” that seems to be just around the corner?

The good news is that it doesn’t look that way. Real-world AI isn’t movie AI. Instead of versatile robots that beat humans at basically everything, most existing AI is extremely narrow. In most cases, it’s not the impressive robot that might replace human beings. Instead, it’s the new pair of noise canceling headphones you might be wearing right now, or the facial recognition that lets you unlock your phone without touching it.

Let’s turn to the bad news. In quite a lot of cases, movie AI might actually strike.

There are some jobs that automation will swallow. A 2019 report by the Brookings Institution calculates that approximately one in four jobs in the US are highly susceptible to automation. That’s 36 million jobs!

Were you one of those who actually loved math at school and studied science, technology, engineering or mathematics (known as STEM)? If so, congratulations, you’re pretty well prepared for what’s coming. Employees with skills or degrees in any of those disciplines will be in high demand. For the rest of us, here’s some advice.

Survival on the job market is about being adaptable. Industries sometimes die overnight. The motorcar destroyed the horse carriage industry. Similarly, lamplighters became obsolete the moment cities were connected to power grids. These things constantly happen and there’s little we can do to prevent it.

Running a company can be a daunting task. You’re responsible for the livelihood of employees and preserving a tradition that, in some cases, goes back centuries. With all the pressure on your shoulders, new technologies probably aren’t high up on your list of concerns. That attitude can be fatal. Here’s why. 

Every CEO fears that her company will turn into a dinosaur – slow and, eventually, unable to compete. The only way to avoid that is to invest as early as possible in new technologies, even if that’s an expensive decision.

From replacing assistants to building robots, companies need a framework to assess which technological innovations make sense and which don’t. Most firms still use a classic cost-benefit calculation. The more the benefits outweigh the costs, the better.

That’s a powerful approach, but it overlooks the fact that technology affects society at large. Ignoring the potential social costs is dangerous and irresponsible. For a healthy corporate culture, companies need to take these costs into account when weighing up their options.

In George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, an evil creature called “Big Brother” knows everything about everyone and uses that information against them. As the algorithms that surround us multiply and become stronger, could we be heading into a similar world as the one described in 1984? The data that we help create is already partly being weaponized.

Google employees, for example, protested strongly when the company decided to sell its image recognition AI to the US military. Many were unsettled by the idea that software built by users identifying trees and streetlights on Captchas could be used to identify people in conflict-zones. That doesn’t necessarily mean that tech companies shouldn’t cooperate with the military and government under any circumstances. But, it does show how easy technology can be repurposed.

Whether at home or at work, we’ll all be surrounded by an increasing number of machines in the coming years. When we strike the right balance between automation and creativity, the partnership that emerges makes us more productive and, in the long run, happier.

But to ensure that these human-machine partnerships remain fruitful, we need to be able to trust the machines and those who develop them.