The future of work & why it matters
My brother used to work at a warehouse. He was a forklift operator, he maneuvered a large machine that grabbed boxes and readied them for shipping to customers. The pay was good, certainly enough for him to pay rent, for his car, food, and vacation now and then. His job changed a little every few years as the machines he used got upgraded, the forklifts became smaller and easier to maneuver, things became more efficient eventually he was trained to use a tablet computer that scanned the barcodes of printed labels that told him exactly where to find and move each box.
One day, he came into work and he and his coworkers were gathered together. They were told the warehouse was going to be fully automated and their services would no longer be needed.
This happened two and a half years ago and he still has not found a full-time job. Jobs like this are hard to find and when one can find them, they are contract or temporary jobs that offer no room for job security or advancement.
This is because he has become one of the many people who have found themselves “innovated out of job”, the many hundreds of thousands of smart, able-bodied people who through no fault of their own find themselves casualties of technological change. By accident of a rapidly changing economy driven by market and technological change, two people in the same family are embarking on very different paths in their future of work.
Innovated out of a job
In 2013, researchers at the University of Oxford estimated that 47 percent of US employment is at “high-risk” for complete automation within two decades. Should their estimations be correct, we can expect that roughly 65 million Americans will not only be out of a job but will have been asked to leave their jobs because their skillset had become obsolete, taken over by automation.
Given that these are conservative estimates, perhaps it is time for us all to get worried.
As a person who is the business of designing; thinking up, reimagining systems, and creating the things that don’t exist yet but will exist in the future. And as a person who cares deeply about people, and as a good sister, I can’t help but ponder how the ideas we put in the world and things we create have inadvertently and permanently affected the livelihood of others.
History of Work in a Nutshell
One need only look to history to see the patterns that point the way to our potential futures. But, first, a quick history lesson to set the context. The history of work as we know it today is fascinating, and it was driven by three distinct eras that were ushered in by the introduction of new technology.
1750- the mid-1800s was the first industrial revolution that was brought on with the advent of machine manufacturing. This changed the way most people lived from a primarily agrarian, agricultural and rural way of life-based on direct trade of good and services to a wage-labor system in which time was exchanged for the currency which could then be exchanged for goods and services,
The second Industrial revolution roughly 1870-1914 was characterized by the production of steel and iron and culture-changing inventions such as the automobile, and telephones. This era saw the rise of Cities as people abandoned farms to seek fortune in the big cities. Migration from all points fueled massive cultural change In 1900, 40% of the US population lived in cities, compared to just 6% in 1800.1943 was the year the first computer was invented at the University of Pennsylvania. And with its invention, the age of information was born. This was the start of the 3rd industrial revolution
The invention of the computer was shortly followed by the invention of networked computing and the world has never been the same
The Information Age
In this tiny blip of 77 years, slightly less the average human lifespan, our entire world has undergone a massive change in the way humans in every corner of the world communicate and conduct every aspect of their lives.
In the mid-1980s desktop computers made their debut in offices. The good thing is that productivity increased, information was suddenly more available and new jobs sprang forth. And suddenly well-paying jobs as typists, typesetters, factory workers, and so many others became obsolete.
For those who worked in office jobs, the addition of desktop computers aided inefficiency of their work but also signaled the emergence of electronic surveillance via keystroke. Writer Barbara Ehrenreich coined the phrase “the electronic sweatshop” to describe these phenomena.
The 1990s brought the World Wide Web and 2G cell phone technology to the workplace. The capability to share information in real-time with other locations throughout the world changed how, where and with whom we could conduct business. This brought the rise of multinational corporations and waves of outsourcing labor.
Today almost all jobs are tethered to a computer or connected device in one way or another. The lines between your personal life and your work life become blurry.
Many jobs can now be performed anywhere by anyone, thanks to technology. Flexibility becomes the cause celeb of modern workers. The separation between work and life introduced during the Industrial Revolution seems to begin to erode as devices allow us to check-in at the office any time, anywhere. In fact, the term “ work-life balance” emerged as the availability of computers increased and the size of those computers got smaller.
It’s been 300 years and 3 industrial revolutions from the shift from people working a plow from dawn to dusk to staring down a connected device 24 hours a day.
The New Dawn
Which brings us to now, we at the start of the most impactful industrial revolution of all the 4th Industrial revolution; The next phase of technology in which computing is ubiquitous, with broadband capability in more places in the world than ever before, embedded technology in almost every device you can imagine and artificial intelligence and machine learning reshaping information collection and delivery
And this revolution is more complicated than the others that preceded it. This is because we are now operating at the speed of computer time and we also have some unprecedented factors to contend with.
Challenges of the 2020s that will drive the future of work
Global economic disparity will continue
Billions of people are left out of the dominant economic systems.
However, the good news is everyday education and literacy rates are rising and the economic prospects are looking good. Particularly for people in India, China, and Brazil. Poverty around the world is declining. The question is, how might the jobs that have been created in these economies not be reduced to repetitive, dangerous or exploitative tasks? The challenge an opportunity we have is to maintain the integrity and culture of countries that have been functioning just fine without the interference of hyper-capitalized and consumerized products and services and instead co-create and enhance infrastructure capabilities using technology to deliver a higher quality of life.
The Complex Systems we create today will affect us for decades to come
We are now living the realities imagined and discussed by the MIT mathematician Norbert Wiener in the late 1940s in his books on “Cybernetics”. These books provided a foundation for research into analog and digital computing, automation, and neuroscience. All important and impactful technology drivers that have and will continue to transform the future of work
We are in an epoch of systems and capabilities that only exist because of connected networks and computational systems. We have been living with widely used artificial intelligence systems for almost two decades and we are shifting from programmable systems to self-generating systems.
The Paradox of automation says that the more efficient the automated system, the more crucial the human contribution of the operators. Humans are less involved, but their involvement becomes more critical
And while the robots might not be taking over everything, we need to be careful to NOT reduce humans to robot-like tasks by automation and AI. We must seek to put creativity and cognitive choice to the human operator of the system. Additionally, we must consider cognitive and temporal ergonomics - optimizing systems-based interfaces to adjust to people based on a comfortable workflow, taking into consideration the cognitive load and capabilities of people.
Climate Crisis is the new normal.
Sea rise, drought, and fires will change the entire global landscape and have unavoidable ecological, economic and social implications. The adoption of more renewable energy and commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions are working - we have peaked and greenhouse emissions are on the decline. So how might we continue this trend?
Workplaces will be multi-generational for decades to come
For the first time in history, we are a 5 generation workplace. People are working longer than ever before - retirement is not a possibility for many people.
2.52 Billion people are Gen Z and they will make up the largest workforce ever.
This diversity of age in the workplace will be the new condition from now on. While this creates some great opportunities it also opens the door for culture clashes.
The generations in the workplace will also create new frictions in the perception of what the purpose and value of work are.
Governments must lead the way
The scale of the changes we face is not going to be solved by the private industry. They simply can’t and private corporations today are driven by profit and their metrics of success are tied to growth and markets. The French economist Thomas Picketly writes in exquisite detail about this in his book Capital. So this leaves us with governments as the only entities who have the mandate and scale to grapple with how to shepherd these massive shifts in how we work and how to deal with those who will be out of work. The focus will need to be more on government, policy, and regulation.
We need to offer low-cost or free reskilling to those who need it.
We need a digital privacy bill of rights to regulate who has your biometric data and what they will do with it We must use policy and regulation to ensure being “Innovated out of work” is not the norm
So what can we do?
I will talk more about this later in my upcoming book. But the things we need to do are not going to be easy. But we have to start somewhere. And that means being a better ancestor and a person who uses their power for good.
Don’t get caught in the empathy trap
Mind where the ideas come from
Designing with instead of designing for
Design your way out disaposability
Be mindful of what stories you are telling
Put the creativity and cognitive choice to the human operator of the system
Recognize, not everyone is or wants to be a techie
Make designing for Temporal and cognitive ergonomics the norm
And always remember.
You or someone you love could be the next one innovated out of job. We are a village and if one of us suffers all of us suffer. So we need to care about this
What’s Next?
We are in the first stages of changes that will reach all of humanity.
The question we must all grapple with is what do we want that future to be? For you, for me and for people like my brother, who happen to be the majority.
To do anything else is to risk our own humanity. We have the opportunity to shape a future that is fair, equitable, democratic, inclusive and just. Not just for those who are like us, but, for everyone. Will we be brave enough to accept the challenge?
