At this morning’s (3 November) first session at #TrendingFF16 in London, Global Trends director Dominic Harrison addressed the new wave of cognitive capital.
Harrison discussed how new technologies invite us to cultivate multiple economic personalities and upgrade our knowledge assets to counter the encroaching threat of automation.
He opened by citing the example of Amelia, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform which can automate knowledge tasks at work, acting as a sales clerk, personal assistant and insurance claims handler.
Amelia’s makers claim she is getting closer to human capabilities, becoming fluent in natural conversation, developing empathy, understanding context and becoming emotionally engaged – but unlike humans, she’s scalable.
Technology like Amelia could change the way we live and work – and we are told it will replace human labour entirely. In China, reports show business groups welcome the prospect of human free services while in Sweden, half the workforce is at risk of automation in the next 20 years.
Anticipating the fallout, groups like Basic Income are forming around the concept of a simple income to sustain people. In the US, 47% of total employment is in the high risk category of becoming automated.
“How we maintain our lifestyles and incomes is going to be seriously impacted,” said Harrison, discussing the widespread assumption that the state won’t help those affected in old age.
“The whole concept of work-life balance becomes somewhat antiquated”
Workers need to adapt to protect themselves from becoming obsolete in a world of automation through maximising cognitive capital, through productivity gains, lifelong up-skilling (as legacy skills become redundant) and multiple economic personalities.
“The whole concept of work-life balance becomes somewhat antiquated,” Harrison continued.
The impact on this is that one in three 18- to 34 year-old GenYs expect to start their own business in the future, with the motivation cited as a desire to be more creative. Two in five say they have already changed their career at least twice, with 43% expecting to change careers imminently.
One in five global 45- to 64 year-olds do not expect to retire.
The sharing economy, like AirBnB and TaskRabbit, where people rent or lend out services or skills for cash, is “still very much in the foothills” according to Harrison, but is likely to expand.
The key predictions for the future include the importance of Madonna workers, able to constantly reinvent themselves, with a global nation of shopkeepers developing and a work-life balance of integration.
Harrison advises brands to look at their CSR policy and consider whether it is ‘human enough’.
“Maybe a ‘not made by robots’ sticker is only a few months away,” he speculated.
