Technology is transforming every industry from their roots of fundamental operation to the leaves of their working culture. Technology is going to dominate our lives completely like we have never seen before. Almost everyone on planet Earth will be impacted by technology directly or indirectly. Most importantly, it has become much more relevant for entrepreneurs and service seekers alike, especially jobs involving the creation of capital. There is absolutely no doubt about it.
Until now, how to navigate the bright, yet complicated future had been scattered throughout the book. It’s time all of those points are raked together and each of them scrutinized to pave a roadmap toward the big future.
The future of everything will have one thing in common—work reduction, one of the three Ws discussed earlier. Work reduction will take place in multiple ways, but certainly more automation will be a part of every industry. The question in everyone’s mind is: does it mean our jobs will be taken away? Let me try and address the elephant in the room.
The answer to this question is yes. Most jobs as they stand today will disappear in the future. Pretty disappointing, isn’t it? How can the future be big if jobs are eliminated?
The headlines of the following news articles from some of the reputed news outlets are the harbingers of what is to happen.
“Robot Automation Will ‘Take 800 Million Jobs by 2030’: Report”
—BBC News (2017).
“Robots Could Take 20 Million Manufacturing Jobs by 2030”
—CNN wrote (Tappe 2019).
“Pandemic Wave of Automation May Be Bad News for Workers”
—New York Times headlined in July 2021 (Casselman 2021).
Admittedly, the picture I painted might be toward the grimmer side for you. However, the title of this book states the opposite. That’s because there is good news within all of this.
The good news is what we reviewed thus far is just one side of the tech coin and sadly the side that gets most of the spotlight in the media and elsewhere. The other side of the tech coin is bright and extremely hopeful. You should know how to see the other side and that’s exactly what I attempt to do.
Let’s start this discussion with a few common misconceptions or myths related to technology.
Myths of Automation
Myth 1—Automation Is Here to Eat Your Lunch
The facts we often forget are that automation is the generic term used for a plethora of things that cover AI and robotics and that automation is man-made. It’s not some evil force conjured up by demons or a set of tools aliens sent to destroy earth. Automation was purposed to help us, not to hurt. The reason we want our printer to automatically order cartridges before they run out is not to take away that pleasurable task of buying cartridge but rather to help us by ensuring consistent supply of ink. You can extrapolate this example to everything automation touches, domestic or commercial.
The robotic helper on the factory floor or inside of a dangerous mine is to help ensure your safety and improve your productivity. It has no intention or incentive to take away your job. The purpose of the virtual financial risk analysis bot or the construction designer bot is to improve your efficiency. AI isn’t conscious enough to take your job away; though this idea sounds the dumbest, let’s clear that up because when it comes to intention, AI is spotless.
Automation Has No Intention to Eat Our Lunch
Although automation is designed to help us, it is more effective than humans. After all, its purpose is to improve our efficiency. For example, a robotic arm on the factory floor operated by a robotic operator may do the job of five workers. This is effectively eliminating 80 percent of the jobs: four out of five. This is an unfortunate and undisputable side effect. The point I want to drive is: automation will reduce the work, not eliminate it. Every profession in the world will need people; we will need less to produce more results. So, our lunch is not completely eaten by automation: each portion of the lunch is getting smaller. This is the first important thing.
The Portions Are Only Getting Smaller
The million-dollar fact we often ignore is there will be more lunch boxes, many times more, than boxes gone, although each lunch box might have smaller portions. Instead of grabbing one lunch box, grab two, maybe three or more. Let’s take the factory floor example again. While the robotic arm has consolidated five jobs into one, thanks to automation, we are now able to produce more. More production will lead to cheaper prices. Cheaper prices will make products more accessible to everyone. What does this all mean? The demand goes up and also the overall quantity we produce. While the five jobs are consolidated into one, the overall production might have gone up by many folds. The net result is that the total number of jobs could be the same, maybe slightly less, or in fact, they may even be more than “preautomation” levels.
Automation Equals More Demand; More Demand Never Equals Less Jobs
Most people do not factor in the increase in productivity and affordability the mere increase in demand through automation has brought. Now, add the overall population growth to this equation. Global population is growing at a rate of 1 percent each year (Roser, Ritchie, Ortiz-Ospina 2019). The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs predicts that the population levels will reach almost 10 billion by 2050 (2019). The growth in population directly means there will be more demand. More demand means increase in production. To keep up with that level of production, the industrial setup that sources the raw materials also needs to be revamped. Moreover, the products these industries make create more service-oriented jobs that were not there. That equals newer types of jobs and hence more number of lunch boxes. It’s just that the jobs at a specific level were axed to replace a job in a significantly different domain of expertise. The only bad news that’ll follow is that while some workers should upgrade their skills to work in the automated setting, others must learn new skills to take on the new set of jobs created. However, the central principle of automation is about creating more jobs, not less.
The factory floor example is just one use case. There are several others where jobs are almost completely eliminated. Take truck drivers, for example. Long-distance trucking will become autonomous very soon. Sure, drivers may still be needed on local roads. However, a greater number of hours driven by robots (trucks) and less by humans shouldn’t blow our minds in the future. Will increase in transportation needs in general offset all the autonomous hours logged by the trucks? Will all the truck drivers have enough number of hours to drive to earn the same level they make today, if not more? Add drones and robotic transport to the mix. While nothing can be exactly predicted, a simple back-of-the-napkin sketch tells me that a significant number out of the 3.5 million truck drivers in the United States will lose their jobs.
This applies to various other sectors, too. If grocery stores become autonomous, despite there being more stores to meet the increased demand, will that number offset the number of jobs taken away by automation? The contribution of online and omni-channel shopping certainly does paint a grim picture for the brick-and-mortar stores.
Technology constantly creates new types of lunches even though it takes away many. But it’s merely the titles that go away. Automation transposes and transports the titles to places which will only become evident on the journey. In order to adapt to the change, you must consistently develop your taste and get used to eating new types of lunch. That is the only way to survive the future. If you can figure this out, you will not just survive, but you will beat the trend.
Enough Lunch for Everyone. Some Will Need to Develop New Eating Habits
Let’s look at some of the recent trends. Recently, many taxi drivers lost their jobs to ride-sharing services. But millions became their own taxi drivers through the likes of Uber. Technology created new lunch boxes: the ones who developed a taste for it can eat. And think about what it did to lifestyle in general. How often do you still call a taxi? You need a ride, just Uber. How often do you even drive your own car? And how many people are making extra cash through part-time driving?
Let’s take another example. It is evident that AI is replacing financial advisors. But who is building those AI-based advisors? Do you think some software developers are building those in a vacuum or are they built autonomously? The fintech revolution is not aimed at eliminating financial sector jobs, but rather converting them into the fintech world from traditional financial world. All the fintech applications need financial analysts—the same analysts who would have given you financial advice manually. And when getting an advice from an AI is so laid-back and inexpensive compared to the pricy hourly rate a human charges, more people will get the advice, increasing the demand for financial services. More demand means more jobs for financial analysts. This is simply converting the type of lunch folks in the financial services industry must get used to.
More examples and I will rest my case. Travel-tech companies such as Orbitz disrupted the traditional travel agents. Airbnb disrupted the hospitality industry. Home cooking apps disordered the restaurant businesses. Private rental car companies such as Turo unsettled the traditional rental car businesses. But they created income opportunities for an entirely different set of people along the way. There are good examples of jobs getting shifted from one subsector to another within the same industry. But what about jobs eliminated in one industry altogether, but added in an entirely new industry? It’s kind of a lunch, but in a completely different cuisine. For example, the space industry is new and booming. Do you know how many people it employs as of today? Around 183,000 in the United States alone (Space Foundation Editorial Team 2020). This number is expected to grow exponentially. Biotech is creating so many jobs every day. Renewable energy jobs are skyrocketing. AI developers are always in demand. I will give you some futuristic skills to focus on shortly, but the point is very clear. You must constantly upgrade your skills and be prepared to survive off a new type of lunch, because change is the only constant that’ll sustain forever.
Myth 2—Only Low-Level Jobs Are at Risk of Disappearing Through Automation
By now, we’ve discussed that technology will only move jobs around, either within the same industry or across industries, and it may end up creating more jobs than that exist today. But who will have to bear the brunt of a change of such a massive scale? Whether it’s a gentle touch or a vehement push, everyone’s going to be affected. The best thing to do is to move in the direction of its force, so you take advantage of it instead of resisting. That entails upskilling and cross-skilling oneself in more than one subdomain toward the direction of technology flow.
However, we can use certain principles to understand the impact of the “tech-touch.” It is a common misconception that only blue-collar jobs will be impacted by technology and automation. Whatever people’s definition of collar-jobs is, technology treats all types of jobs equally. Take surgeons, for example. Surgery is considered one of the high-level jobs in terms of expertise, prestige, and pay. But robots perform surgeries with higher precision than human surgeons. With all due respect, they won’t leave scissors inside our body. They will not operate on your left leg instead of the right, by mistake. They do not have to worry about being awake all night and making some minor, but expensive error. They can incise the site with precision. And most important of all, they can perform surgeries all day and night and won’t complain about it. However, it is not to say that they will replace all human surgeons.
Myth 3—Software Developers Are Immune to Automation and Technology
Let’s take another example of software developers. With all the hype about technology and IT being such an integral part of future technology, how can the future sustain without software developers? Well, remember AI writes its own code. That’s the fundamental premise of AI. If AI is writing its code, why do we need software developers? Moreover, with the rise in so many low-code and no-code tools, software development is really becoming old fashion. Keep in mind though that I am referring to software development only, not information technology as a whole. Although many combine these two terms, they are not one and the same. AI developers, for example, will have a bright future. Though AI might be better at innovation and replication, it doesn’t exceed humans in rational and cross-disciplinary thinking.
Beating Innovation in Its Game
To understand which jobs are impacted to what extent, it’s best to understand what machines are good at and what they are not. We know that machines can think fast and they can do laborious tasks, meaning machines have better brains than us (in general). And when it comes to muscle power, humans are no match to machines. What are machines not good at then? Here are a few.
Hand–eye coordination: It’s very difficult to build a machine with good hand–eye coordination. While advances are underway, it’s easier to hire humans where hand–eye coordination is important. Service technicians, mechanics, hygienists, dentists, fire fighters, military personnel, and even surgeons are good examples. This is a stark reminder that not all jobs are equal.
Emotional element: Machines can do a lot of tasks better than us, but one thing they lack is emotion, at least for now. Has someone called you a machine because you failed to show emotions? I have been called a machine a few times for this reason. But isn’t that the beauty of a machine? A lot of jobs rely on these emotions. Doctors, nurses, adult care workers, social workers, and teachers are just a subset. In fact, this human touch is required in almost all jobs. Again, that part will stay with humans across all industries and the rest may be outsourced to machines.
Creative thinking: While machines can do a great job in computing large sums of data, they are not creative thinkers. Advanced AI is trying to change this, but it is still going to be based upon certain algorithms. General-purpose AI is supposed to be creative, but creativity is not something that can easily be taught to the machines. Your creative mind will not be taken over by a machine, not any time soon. If you are an artist, an author, a designer, or a public relationship manager, chances are that machines will still try to copy you but barely to that level. Well, technology might assist you, no doubt, but your creative mind will keep you going. However, it is not to say that only few jobs require creative thinking. The future will push humans in the creative part of every job and use machines for the more autonomous functions.
Consciousness and ethics: Machines do not realize that they are machines, though they can be trained to say that. Machines can say, but they can’t be. On that note, artificial consciousness as a concept is under development, but it’s a long way to go before something concrete comes out of it. Let me give you a scenario. You are driving at 50 miles per hour. Suddenly, a kid flashes on one side of the road and an old woman, on the opposite. You can only save one of them, not both. What will the AI pick? Yeah—the common ethical dilemma, right?
Humans use their consciousness-driven selective ethics and make some on-the-spot decisions, despite the consequences. However, this is a popular ethical question, which still remains to be answered. Until those are all sorted out, humans are still required to make such decisions. Call it a human overwrite, if you will. Every field will need human intervention. Machines are not yet ready to run the show on their entirety. The key here is to use machines for what they are good at. Humans will do the rest. A teamwork!
In a nutshell, not all jobs will be replaced by technology. Every field will need humans. We are not ready for a fully autonomous society yet. Jobs will be consolidated. Some jobs will be moved to a different area within the same industry and some to an entirely different industry.
The History of Automation-Infused Anxiety
This discussion today is tied to the fourth industrial revolution, the one we are entering now. There is a lot of speculation in the media around upcoming job losses to automation. Why is this called the fourth industrial revolution? Simply because there have been three prominent industrial transformations thus far already. The world didn’t lose all the jobs during those reforms. On the contrary, we created jobs, global economy skyrocketed, and our general standard of living improved tremendously. Let’s look at each one of them with the lens of job loss or, rather, I should say job creation.
First Industrial Revolution
The first industrial revolution marks the beginning of the third-generation society (Society 3.0) that moved from agricultural society into an industrial one in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was mainly centered on steam power, predominantly fueled by coal. Economies transformed from high (and for the most part, only) dependency on farming to more of urban and industry settings. The first job that got impacted by this revolution was farming. Development of tools made farming easier. The end results? The number of farming jobs was cut. Vast stretches of agricultural land were converted into industrial sites, resulting in less farming land, which in turn resulted in less farming jobs.
The advent of modern tools and technologies resulted in the loss of farming jobs. But does that mean there are no farmers today? In fact, jobs are never lost, only skills are redundant. Farmers who would use muscle power to plough fields lost their jobs to people who use tillers to do the same task.
In the same manner, in the transition from agro-society to an industrial one, physical farming skills were swapped with technical machine skills. It created so many factory jobs and gave rise to multiple new jobs—rail roads, new type of construction, development of various machineries, and use of machines. We used to have only two classes of societal status before: the rich and the poor. The industrial revolution created a new societal status: the middle class. Can you imagine our life today without the industrial revolution? No human would have moved beyond physical forces, let alone build sophisticated computers. Farming and trading would be our only professions. However, finding a job would be equally difficult then, too.
But the first industrial revolution was not a smooth sailing. It created a lot of anxiety among people and rightfully so. Yes, it did create a temporary job loss, similar to how the fourth industrial revolution will result in a job disruption. And in many cases, it would result in a chaotic situation, resulting in higher numbers of unemployment-related problems. The BBC News wrote on April 20, 2012:
They burned down mills in the name of a mythical character called Ludd. In the midst of the British industrial revolution, skilled textile workers feared for their jobs. An uprising began in 1811 when Nottinghamshire weavers attacked the new automated looms that were replacing them. The machine breaking spread to West Yorkshire wool workers and Lancashire cotton mills, in what the historian Eric Hobsbawm called “collective bargaining by riot. Machinery was wrecked, mills were burned down and the Luddites fought pitched battles with the British Army.” (Castella 2012)
Your postthought argument here. For example, transformation is always neutral. While textile machines were good for mass production, they took the jobs away from the hard-earning hand-knitters. While violence cannot be justified, the degree of “exponentiality” of a technology determines the “shock value” of that generation. If the shock value is higher, the repercussions of that transformation might also be unexpected.
Second Industrial Revolution
Generally described as the era of electricity, the second industrial revolution predominantly transformed the steam into electric power bringing further efficiencies to the process. Petroleum became a more prominent source of energy leading to the invention of combustible engine. But this also meant that steam-powered engines were converted to electricity. The skills acquired over time to operate all that machinery was now gone and a lot of folks had to be reskilled. But it was not just a matter of upskilling. It eliminated a lot of jobs. For example, the invention of the light bulb eliminated the jobs of lamplighters and “gas-lighters” responsible for lighting our cities at night. You can call this particular phenomenon “the automation of street lights.” There were reports of gas-lighter strikes resisting this revolution.
But imagine what the second industrial revolution brought along. Automobiles, airplanes, mass production, buildings as they exist today—none of those would have been possible. Millions of jobs never ever imagined were created, jobs such as managers and machine operators. Did second industrial revolution take away jobs or added to the total? I will let you answer that question. But did it stop the “Luddites” from complaining? No.
When I was a kid, an old neighbor came home miserable from work. He feared he would lose his job to a robot (traffic light) the local government was going to install. He was a policeman in the traffic department, and his job was to control traffic, standing under the hot sun the entire day directing traffic at intersections. Needless to say, the traffic light never took away his job. He was moved to a different area which was less challenging than spending the whole day under the hot sun, breathing in the exhaust fumes from the vehicles and hearing the whirring and humming noises from them until he retired with a complete set of benefits. While it didn’t eliminate his “job” per se, his skill became redundant.
Third Industrial Revolution
The third industrial revolution, also known as the digital revolution, happened in the second half of the 20th century and transformed our society from analog to digital.
The third industrial revolution both added and took away a lot of jobs. For example, “computer” used to be a job before computers became widespread. People would get employed as computers, making a living doing what today’s computers are designed to do, however, with less accuracy and diligence. Those human computers lost their jobs to actual computers. But was that a total conversion? Of course not. They were simply moved to different areas to do different types of jobs, either using the same skills or through upskilling.
The digital revolution-led fear of job loss can still be felt in our homes. My dad used to work as a clerk in a shipping company. When his company bought computers, they all feared that their jobs would be taken away in a flash. But they never did. Sure, they had to learn to use computers. Instead of using a typewriter, calculator, and a lot of manual calculations, my dad performed those operations on a computer. Computers ended up making their jobs easier, sending my dad home happy at the end of each day. He worked in the same company until he retired.
Digital revolution without doubt eliminated a lot of jobs. However, many more were created in the course of this transformation inciting thousands of people to upskill their talent. Computer analysts, data entry specialists, software analysts, software developers, web designers, and cyber security analysts were the professional names of many people who later gained expertise in “using computers.” Information technology employs an estimated three million people in the United States alone. In the grand scheme of things, did the third industrial revolution eliminate jobs in total or was the net result the addition of jobs? That surely is a rhetorical question.
Fears are associated with the fourth industrial revolution the same way they did before. Will this new revolution eat our lunch or will it actually create more lunch? If history tells us anything, the upcoming chapter in our lives will undoubtedly be a mixed one for all of us. However, there’s a catch. The future will not be big all by itself. We need to make it big. Technology has all the potential to crush us if we do not know how to take advantage of it. The key is to understand what the future has to offer and then gain the skills required, not just to survive in the next-generation society but to benefit from it.
Future of Work
The change in technological sophistication changes the pattern of employment. Gone are the days when you depended on full-time employment and when you had to work in a 9-to-5 office six days a week.
Before we discuss the future, let’s take a trip back in history as we did thus far with everything else. Generations of farmers; generations of goldsmiths; generations of fishermen: people were predominantly “born” into a type of work as the “trades” were getting passed on to generations for the longest time. The concept of a “job” was rare, and the concept of job security was even rarer.
Industrialization in Society 3.0 transformed the work scene by bringing about jobs in factories as well as the offices tied to those factories, giving rise to 9-to-5 jobs. While many of these factory jobs were not known to provide a long-term safety net in the beginning, that changed over time, driven by factors such as unionization and government interference. My dad’s generation stayed in their jobs for life. Like him, most people started and ended their careers in the same place.
This was the second industrial revolution days. In the digital revolution era, which is right now, how many people stay in a job for half a decade, let alone a lifetime? How many of them work a single job for a single employer? The median number of years someone works for their employer stays at 4.1 years in January 2020, infinitesimally bigger than the 2018 data—4.2 years, according to a news release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2020).
Society 4.0 changed “job for a lifetime” trend to switching jobs every five years or so on an average. How is the future work going to look like? Will the work-span shrink further? Expand again? Let’s delve in.
I believe it will be driven by another set of 3Ws—Whatever, Wherever, and Whenever. It’s all about freedom to do what you want to do, when you want to do, and where you want to do from.
Work Whatever
Forget about getting a “job” if you don’t like full-time employment. Be an entrepreneur, doing whatever you like. Digital revolution started this trend and it is not only going to continue but will grow. Turning an idea into reality is so easy and inexpensive these days that anyone with a good working idea can become an entrepreneur. Starting a company required renting an office space, buying expensive equipment, and potentially hiring staff in the past. In the digital era, all you need to launch your company is a laptop. Well, depending upon what you want to do, even a laptop may not be needed. You can get some space on the cloud, develop your product digitally, and market it in the virtual space through social media. The investment needed could be as close to zero dollars as possible, just laying out your skills. This will only continue to become easier, as the opportunities grow exponentially in the future across all three B.I.G. technologies.
However, it doesn’t mean you have to become an entrepreneur. You can put your multiple skills into action through the gig economy, too.
Work Whenever
Employees no longer have to work a single job. In fact, employees no longer have to remain as employees. Switching jobs every five years or so is already becoming an old trend. The postpandemic, postrealization ethos of work is: become your own boss and work whenever you feel like it. Well, you could technically do that if you are an entrepreneur. But thanks to gig economy, you can do that without having to start anything on your own. You technically partner with a company on a temporary basis. For example, you can partner with Uber to be their driver. You work whenever you have time. You have something to take care of? Just clock out and take care of what you need to. There is no boss looking over your shoulder and no one controlling your hours. Taxi drivers through the likes of Uber and Lyft; food delivery workers, such as Uber Eats and Doordash; and tour guides and hosts, such as Airbnb, are a few examples. Companies such as Upwork and Fiverr that offer platforms to freelancers have become the new employment norm. Upwork has been named in The Times’s list of “100 Most Influential Companies” of 2022. In this modern marketplace, you don’t necessarily have to stick to one job. You can put your multiple skills into action. You can take up that logo design work in the morning when you are home, be a tour guide in the afternoon, and an Uber driver in the evening. You would be surprised to know that 36 percent of the U.S. workforce hustle in the gig economy (as of March 2022), bringing this number to an estimated 57.3 million (Duszyński 2022). And this is only expected to grow.
Work Wherever
It’s not just the 9-to-5 jobs that are transforming; the whole concept of office culture is changing. Most jobs of the future can be executed from anywhere. For example, do you remember the future miners that mine from a computer in the metaverse? Not the crypto mining, but actual mineral mining. If you work from behind a computer, how does it matter where you are located? You can work from home. And that home can be on a beach. Or you can move from one place to another, visiting all the exotic places around the globe while still working because all you will need for your future job is a computer. Whether meeting with a client or collaborating, there are numerous tools that have been decreasing the convenience margin of in-person and virtual meeting every day. Video conferencing will move to the metaverse in the future, making it an immersive experience through immersion technologies and making you feel like you are really in the same location together with others in the meeting. And this trend was further fueled and accelerated by COVID-19. Many companies, predominantly in the IT world, are announcing that work-from-anywhere is here to stay.
Think about the impact this trend will create. The first result of this trend will impact the population density. There will not be a need to live around city centers and other “official hubs” any longer. Population will be spread to suburban and even rural locations from city centers. The trend has already begun in countries like the United States.
Closing
There is a common myth that you must be a geek to survive in the tech world. That is absolutely not true. No one really knows technology to its full extent. For example, if you think a software developer is a geek, think again. A software developer has no idea of the 0s and 1s that goes inside the computer. There are many abstract layers built on top to make the job of a software developer easy. The developers simply need to learn a programming language, which does all the job in the background. A rocket scientist may not entirely understand the science behind the rocket. A biotech engineer may not know how gene editing exactly occurs in the backend. Learn technology to the extent you can. While it is true that the more you learn novelties, the merrier it is, any amount of tech knowledge will help you to the point that it almost becomes mandatory in the future.
However, there’s always a tiny corner spot for those who think technology is not to their taste. There are a lot of areas within the tech world that require least technology knowledge or skill. Take data scientist, for example. That’s a hot skill of the future, but you could be a data scientist with less and less technical skills. You only need to understand the data well. However, with only an understanding of that sort, the data skills might slowly be taken over by another advanced analysis tool and that’s how exactly skills become redundant. It will help to have a minimal understanding of how data can be used by the technology you are delivering these data to, in order to extend the skill’s expiry date. Going deeper into technology will only help secure your future. And for those who think technology is not their cup of tea, think again. Because if you don’t, you’ll have to think it over for the rest of your life.
All good things must come to an end. This beautiful, B.I.G. journey is also approaching toward one. I want to remind you that the future has a lot to offer. But it’s also going to be complicated, and it will be big for you only if you know how to navigate it. Do not let anyone make you believe that the technology is here to get you. Be smart about it. Learn how to exploit it, because opportunities are endless. There are two things that never stop in life: learning and selling. Keep learning new trends and sell yourself out there, no matter what career you pursue.