Weekend Update: Soccer and Robots

I spent the weekend on two things, (really three if you add in making some BBQ) - watching way too much soccer (it is awesome to have the EPL back and to watch my Liverpool Reds open with a win) and reading about robots and automation.

I want to call out two longish pieces on automation and its potential impact on work, workplaces, and society that are definitely worth your time to check out. The first, and useful to set some historical context, is an essay from Daniel Askt titled, 'What Can We Learn From Past Anxiety Over Automation?', a really interesting look at what many leading scientists, economists, and other wonky types were thinking and predicting about the 'threat' of automation in the middle part of the 20th century.

It turns out that in the 50s and 60s the worries over the increasing pace of technological advancements and the potential disruptions to many forms of work and workers sound much like those same concerns about modern innovations and increased automation. Check out this passage from the piece, and ask if this exact same argument made in 1966 could be reasonably accurate today:

In 1966, the Commission on Technology, Automation, and Economic Progress issued a sensible report rejecting the argument that technology was to blame for a great deal of unemployment, although, with the wisdom of Leopold Bloom, it recognized technological change as “a major factor in the displacement and temporary unemployment of particular workers.”

And who were those workers? The answer will be all too familiar: “Unemployment has been concentrated among those with little education or skill, while employment has been rising most rapidly in those occupations generally considered to be the most skilled and to require the most education. This conjunction raises the question whether technological progress may induce a demand for very skilled and highly educated people in numbers our society cannot yet provide, while at the same time leaving stranded many of the unskilled and poorly educated with no future opportunities for employment.”

It all sounds pretty familiar, right? Technological advances tend to reduce the demand for unskilled or relatively lower-skilled forms of labor, as better, faster, cheaper forms of capital are introduced as replacements for human labor. The macro-education system is called upon to adapt and adjust, as the aggregate skills of the workforce need to shift towards those higher order and more technical skills that employers are demanding.

Fast forward from the 1960s to the present day where the disruptive nature of technological progress on the workforce remains a subject of intense debate, interest, and importance. And that leads me to the second longer form piece I'd like to highlight which comes from the Pew Research Internet Project and is titled AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs.

Pew conducted a survey and produced a detailed report that covers numerous experts’ views about advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, and their impact on jobs and employment. And interestingly enough, these experts were split almost down the middle on whether or not the inevitable continued advances in AI and robotics would displace 'significant' numbers of both lower skilled as well as higher skilled, or 'white collar' workers. Here is an excerpt from the Pew report:

Half of these experts (48%) envision a future in which robots and digital agents have displaced significant numbers of both blue- and white-collar workers—with many expressing concern that this will lead to vast increases in income inequality, masses of people who are effectively unemployable, and breakdowns in the social order.

The other half of the experts who responded to this survey (52%) expect that technology will not displace more jobs than it creates by 2025. To be sure, this group anticipates that many jobs currently performed by humans will be substantially taken over by robots or digital agents by 2025. But they have faith that human ingenuity will create new jobs, industries, and ways to make a living, just as it has been doing since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

Similarly to the divided opinions of 'experts' in the 50s and 60s, there is simply not a consensus leading technology thinkers today about the ultimate effects of technological progress on work and the workplace - at least in an overall, society-wide sense.

There is however, general agreement, (and there was back in the day as well), of the micro or individual likely impacts of increased automation, AI, and robotics on workers. Perhaps these comments from Robert Cannon  in the Pew report sum up these predictions the best:

Non-skilled jobs lacking in ‘human contribution’ will be replaced by automation when the economics are favorable. At the hardware store, the guy who used to cut keys has been replaced by a robot. In the law office, the clerks who used to prepare discovery have been replaced by software. IBM Watson is replacing researchers by reading every report ever written anywhere. This begs the question: What can the human contribute? The short answer is that if the job is one where that question cannot be answered positively, that job is not likely to exist.”

So again, the way we describe the types of effects and the nature of the impact of technological change on work and workers hasn't really changed all the much in the last 50 or 60 years. Machines disrupt work, particularly work that is process-defined, repetitive, and where words like initiative and creativity are missing.

But was has changed, and some modern commentators argue that the pace of this change is accelerating, is that the definition of jobs that are process-defined, repetitive, and non-creative is getting closer and closer to home for many folks that have always considered themselves 'knowledge workers' or 'professionals.' 

In the 50s and 60s, automation (mostly) threatened manual laborers and lower skilled manufacturing workers. The advances in technology hadn't yet infiltrated the professional offices of that time. Watch a few episodes of the TV series Mad Men and you will see lots of office workers typing up notes, filing things, preparing correspondence for other people, and more of less passing around papers. Today's offices? Well not so much. 

The difference today, and to some the more profound worry, is best summarized in this observation from the piece from Akst:

Instead of automating repetitive tasks, technology today is climbing the cognitive ladder, using artificial intelligence and brute processing power to automate (however imperfectly) the functions of travel agents, secretaries, tax preparers, even teachers — while threatening the jobs of some lawyers, university professors, and other professionals who once thought their sheepskins were a bulwark against this sort of thing. Maybe this time, things really are different.

So while we have been as a society collectively worried (and changed) by advances in technology and in the automation of some kinds of work for at least 100 or maybe 150 years, we still struggle in predicting what these changes might mean.

It seems comforting to fall back on the 'Technology always changes work, but it always creates lots of new opportunities as well' argument and try to cling to the notion that after the turbulence of change, things will turn out all right in the end. After all, proponents of this line of thinking say, technology has displaced millions of farmers and factory workers in the past, and the overall economy did not implode.  

In the past, the former agricultural workers were able to (largely) migrate to manufacturing jobs. When the manufacturing jobs began to get displaced, many of these workers ended up in service jobs, lower paid and less secure kinds of jobs. Now that automation is threatening these service jobs, (have you seen the burger-making robot?), where can these workers go? Especially when more and more of the 'white collar' jobs that might have been reasonable landing places, (clerks, claims processors, customer service agents), are themselves increasingly becoming the realm of technology, algorithms, and machines. Every displaced worker can't suddenly become a coder.

What if, indeed, this time things really are different?

I might hit some of the possibly answers to that question in a follow-up post later in the week if I can.

Have a great week everyone, and definitely read the two pieces that I linked to and cited in the post, I think you will find them both incredibly interesting.

VIDEO: The robot coffee table (or chair, or foot stool...)

Fading out at the end of the busy week and just about ready to shift into long, holiday weekend mode here in the USA and I wanted to wrap the week by sharing the coolest thing I saw online in a while. 

And no, it has nothing to do with SHRM or HRCI or HR certifications of any kind. Did that story jump the shark in about seventeen minutes or what?

This is about robots of course, and for a change it isn't about how robots are coming to take all of our jobs, and make us their servants, or how we puny humans are destined to be rendered obsolete my more efficient technologies. Check the video embedded below, (email and RSS subscribers will need to click through), to see an incredibly neat and clever potential application of robot technology called Roombots, a set of connected and complimentary components that can work together to help adapt your environment, surroundings, and everyday objects like chairs and tables to you and your needs.

Developed by scientists from the Biorobotics Laboratory at the École Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, these Roombots could be the precursors to a more fully automated, adaptive, and flexible set of solutions that have the potential to transform basic household elements like tables or flower pots.

Imagine having your table top to always be exactly at the right height for what you are doing, or having your plants and flowers re-position themselves to take advantage of sunlight or to get out of the rain.

It would be really cool to have a little personal Roombot squadron at your disposal don't you think?

What might you do with all that power?

I am thinking of something already: "Roomobots, fetch me a cold one - the weekend is underway!"

Have a great weekend!

The machine gets its 'Seat at the table'

At the risk of having a $100 fine/mandatory donation slapped down on me from Professor Matt Stollak, I felt compelled to crack out the (tired) 'Seat at the table' line, the often-repeated metaphoric goal or target for HR leaders, and that is still referenced by many a conference speaker, when I caught this interesting piece from Betabeat - V.C. Firm Names Robot to Board of Directors.

You can probably tell where I am going with this take just from the title of the Betabeat piece, but in case you'd like some details, here is the gist of the story:

In case you needed more proof that all our jobs will one day be occupied by robots, a Hong Kong V.C. firm has just named an artificial intelligence tool to its board of directors. The company’s also insisting the tool will be treated as an “equal” to the other board members.

A press release from Aging Analytics UK, a company that conducts research on biotechnology and regenerative medicine, made two announcements this morning: first, that they’ve launched an new A.I. tool called VITAL (Validating Investment Tool for Advancing Life Sciences); and second, that they’ve licensed VITAL to Hong Kong V.C. firm Deep Knowledge Ventures, where the tool will become an “equal member of its Board of Directors.”

VITAL uses machine learning to predict which life science companies will make for successful investments, the press release explains. That’s why it’ll be of use to Deep Knowledge Ventures, which “routinely invest[s] in both private and public companies specializing in biotechnology, regenerative medicine, oncology, drug discovery, bioinformatics and personalized medicine,” according to their website.

On the (board) meetings investors will firstly discuss the analytical reviews made by VITAL. All the decisions on investing will be made strictly after VITAL provides it’s data. We say that VITAL has been acknowledged as an equal member of the board of directors, because it’s opinion (actually, the analysis) will be considered as probably the most important one. So basically yes, it will be incorporated into meetings.

Awesome, right? The robot, or really not so much a robot, but a smart machine with a bunch of algorithms is going to be an 'equal member' of the board of directors, and have its 'voice' heard at the ACTUAL TABLE, (no word if it will really have a seat as well, but so what?).

You could just let this story go as kind of a goof or a publicity stunt, but if you take maybe five minutes to think about it, it once again validates everything we think we know about why so frequently HR leaders are not equal members and participants in the organization's strategic planning processes.

VITAL, the robot director, only applies data and logic in making its recommendations. It has no inherent bias. It is not even aware of how the other directors perceive its abilities, even the crusty old directors that 'Don't get all this newfangled technology'. It is not scared to issue its advice, since robots probably can't get scared, and it 'knows' it is operating from facts and a kind of defensible set of processes. VITAL isn't out to 'prove' anything to skeptics, or people with 'business' sense.

VITAL actually sounds like the perfect Director, when you think about it. 

Would you listen to a robot boss?

We mostly expect robots, algorithms, and increasingly powerful and sophisticated machine learning systems to continue to replace or at least augment human workers in the actual production of things, like assembling products and moving materials, or even acting in service roles as order takers or personal assistants. We don't, yet, really think of the robot as 'management material', i.e., we are (generally) not in possession of robots with the needed level of sophistication and insight to act as managers - particularly in the areas of coaching and people motivation.

Robots can only do so much, and even if we could program a kind of clever robot manager, would real live human workers actually take direction from a robot? After all, it is pretty hard to get many workers to take direction and respond to their human managers today. But if we could develop robot managers, ones that were somehow better than people managers, the entire project might still fail if no one listens - one of the reasons human managers fail as well surely.

Recently some research conducted at the University of Manitoba set out to explore this question - would people 'listen' to a robot manager, and would they continue to perform an unpleasant task simply at the robot's urging. The experiment consisted of two teams of workers, one managed by a person, and one managed by a small robot, who were tasked with manually re-naming computer files for up to 80 minutes. The workers could quit at any time, but if they attempted to quit prior to 80 minutes, their manager (robot or human), would attempt to convince them to carry on working.

A good summary of the experiment is on the HBR site, and I want to call out the basic conclusion below:

The results, however, were quite surprising. Although the person clearly had more authority, with 86% of participants obeying all the way through to the 80-minute mark, 46% of people did obey the robot until the end. The most striking thing was that people engaged the robot as if it were a person and argued with it, proposed compromises and used logic to try and sway its opinion, with many continuing the task despite this. Post-test, some reported that the robot may have been broken, although they continued anyway, following a potentially-broken robot to do something they would rather not do.

The implications of these results are significant. While it does appear that – for the time being – a human has more authority, on the surface the results show that many people will follow robots placed in positions of authority to do daily mundane things (such as renaming files), even against their own judgment – our participants were informed that they could leave at any time, and many raised this point in argument, but continued regardless. From the research side, these results motivate a great deal of follow up work, for example, we hope to explore how the robot itself (shape, size, voice, etc.) impacts authority, or how such a robot could be used for more positive purposes such as assisting in rehabilitation and training.

Really interesting findings I think, almost half of the workers were willing to take direction and continue a mundane task when prodded by a robot, many even engaging with the robot as if they were akin to a 'real' manager. What also is kind of interesting is that just like many other disciplines where robots have an advantage of human laborers, there are bound to be areas of management too, where the robots will have the upper hand.

Simple kinds of oversight duties, keeping abreast of task completion, engaging and directing workers on what to do now, what to do next, keeping up with and admin side of running a team, etc. - these are all conceivably managerial tasks that could be ripe for automation.

It will probably be some time before you or me are taking orders or direction from a robot, but it also seems like just as robots are replacing work in areas that we never before would have imagined they will eventually take over for (some) managers.

And I bet many of us have had managers in the past we wish would have been robots.

Have a great week!

CHART OF THE DAY: Find your job on the When Will Robots Replace You Chart

You know the robots are coming for all of our jobs, right?

The question is not 'if' but 'when'. Sure, it will take some time, and I suppose there will always be some jobs that will, at least for the near term, always be the exclusive domain of humans, but lots of really smart people are predicting and anticipating a future where robots/automation do many of the jobs that people do today.

In fact a recently published paper from researchers at the University of Oxford has attempted to quantify the amount of jobs that are likely or most susceptible to being eliminated and replaced with some kind of automation.  Check the chart below for a graphical look at the kinds or types of jobs that the researchers have concluded are the most likely to be automated away:

The main finding that you can see in the chart data above: 47% of total US employment is at high risk of getting replaced by a robots, "meaning that associated occupations are potentially automatable over some unspecified number of years, perhaps a decade or two."

So the takeaway, or advice for you, or more likely for your kids is you probably want to think about focusing your efforts on the kinds of jobs that skew more to the far left on the above chart. Finance, arts, science, engineering - these all seem like the types of vocations that at least in the near term are probably going to remain the domain of puny humans.

And if you or someone you care about is working a job that falls more towards the right side of the chart - jobs like office and admin support, retail, or customer service/support, then you'd be well served to start figuring out how you can make some changes, and fast. 

How long before the robots really come for these jobs?

My guess it will take a little longer to actually start happening than most predictions suggest, but once it does start happening, the takeover will proceed much, much faster than we think.

Happy Thursday.