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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
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What To Do When Machines Do Everything summary
Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig and Ben Pring
How To Get Ahead In A World Of AI, Algorithms, Bots and Big Data
15 mins
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What To Do When Machines Do Everything
Summary of 6 key ideas
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Key idea 1 of 6
New technologies have always been a cause for concern, not optimism.
Does it ever feel like you have more employment worries than ever before? These days, it can seem like there’s a new trend emerging every day that threatens our jobs and brings us closer to bowing before our robot overlords.
Now, you might think these are new anxieties. But the fact is, we’ve been at this crossroads before. You can look back at history books or old business pages of any newspaper and see that workers have been feeling threatened by “new machines” for centuries. The only thing that’s changed is the type of machine prompting these worries.
For example, during the first industrial revolution in the nineteenth century, workers in England, calling themselves the Luddites, destroyed the mechanical looms being introduced to the textile industry. The Luddites believed these machines were threatening their jobs – and sure enough, the machines did replace them.
Also during the early nineteenth century, 80 percent of US workers had a job in agriculture. But that figure has dropped to less than 2 percent due to the machines that perform the major tasks associated with farming, tending to livestock and toiling the land.
Therefore, in 2013, when a study at Oxford University predicted that half of all American jobs were under threat of being automated over the next decade, people were right to be concerned.
But what about the optimists who argue that computers are making us more productive? Unfortunately, the statistics tell a different story.
Despite the billions invested in the consumer technology of smartphones and apps, as well as business-minded hardware and software of PCs and databases, productivity hasn’t changed much. Plus, when you compare the increase in annual wages in the United States from 1991 to 2012, it was roughly half the increase that took place between 1970 and 1990.
So what does all this add up to? Let’s keep digging and find out.
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What is What To Do When Machines Do Everything about?
What To Do When Machines Do Everything (2017) takes a realistic look at what lies ahead for traditional jobs when industries adopt the next wave of automation: How can automation be incorporated into current business models? What should workers and managers expect? And what will happen to the economy as a whole?
Best quote from What To Do When Machines Do Everything
Have PCs, smartphones, and e-mail shortened your working day? Ours neither.
—Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig and Ben Pring
Who should read What To Do When Machines Do Everything?
- Readers interested in artificial intelligence or new digital technologies
- Entrepreneurs interested in automating their workforce
- Students of business strategy
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