Technology: making lives better?

We have got it all wrong, technology does not destroy jobs, it destroys skills. Individuals and businesses need to beware.

The threat of machines destroying jobs was present even before the 19^th Century Luddite movement started destroying looms. What has changed is the frequency of predictions, the pace of change and the sheer volume of jobs that are predicted to be impacted.

In 2011, Dr Carl Benedikt Frey and Professor Michael A. Osborne released a research paper in which they estimated the probability that technology will lead to job losses in the next 20 years.  They considered 702 occupations and, according to their estimates, about 47 per cent of total US employment was identified as being at risk (the corresponding figure for the UK economy was c.39% and for China c.69%).  This is the publication that launched all the headline-grabbing scare stories of the last 15 years that went along the lines of ‘robots threaten millions of jobs.’

Park the noise and hype and take a step back.  Think about what is happening here… and to make the point consider those working in manufacturing.

Workers in naval shipyards use exoskeleton suits.  Picture in your mind a suit, a bit like armour, with servos and motors designed to assist the wearer when lifting, carrying and guiding heavy tools.  If you want to see one for yourself do a Google image search for ‘exoskeleton naval shipyard’.

Prior to wearing a suit, the work was utterly physically demanding – workers carried tools weighing tens of kilograms for hours; the quality of work was good, but very reliant on manoeuvring the tools to the correct position which in itself was literally hard work; the work was so demanding that workers would go home so fatigued that their quality of life was poor; accidents were common meaning they would take significantly more sick days than an average worker.

Now, wearing the skeleton, the tools appear weightless, they are guided rather than wielded, quality of work has improved, the work is less demanding, tools cannot be dropped, sick days are reduced.

There can be no doubt that the exoskeletons have significantly and dramatically improved the worker’s quality of life. And two people wearing the exoskeletons are more productive than three people were without them.

We will marvel at the technology, at how it has significantly and dramatically made the lives of those workers better… and it will slowly destroy jobs.

That is the noise and the headlines.  But this is not the main point.  Take another step back and think…

Before the introduction of the exoskeletons, what characteristics did employers look for in their employees?  What skills, behaviours, competencies were sort after?

The answer is relatively simple, the jobs were characterized by the need to be fit, to be physically able, to be capable of lifting heavy objects hour in, hour out, day after day.

How would you hire this kind of people? Simplistically an interview consisted of inviting people in, getting them to pick up a heavy weight and then checking if they are still standing in an hour’s time.  Still holding the heavyweight…? Then you have the job.

But now you have exoskeletons.  Wearing a suit, anyone can do that work, no matter their physical ability.  So the important question becomes: Who do you hire now? When people are wearing exoskeletons, what are the characteristics that you value in your people now?

And what exoskeletons did to manufacturing, ChatGPT is doing to white collar work.  Research has been carried out in call centre where AI has been deployed to help the operatives better manage customer conversations.  Based on the interaction taking place, the technology prompts the operative helping to guide the conversation to a successful conclusion.

Interestingly, for the best workers, AI produced minimal productivity gains – a few percentage points here and there.  However, for the previously worst-performing operatives, AI increased their previously poor performance by 35%.

This is the real point about technology. 

Technology of whatever type is the great leveller.  Technology democratizes work

From an individual’s perspective it removes my uniqueness, it removes the ability I had that got me the job in the first place. 

Workers in manufacturing no longer need to be fit and strong; call centre people just need to be able to read a script, Excel simplifies building a spreadsheet; PowerPoint helps design a presentation, chat-gpt will give me a marketing plan and so on.

This is why the noise about technology destroying jobs is so wrong.  For one thing, headlines focus on the job destruction, but totally fail to compensate that with all the jobs that technology creates – consider the jobs in designing, manufacturing, servicing, training, sales, marketing that are all required to create and maintain the exoskeletons.

In addition, across the developed world we remain at multi decade lows in unemployment whilst having more job vacancies than any time pre Covid.  I am far from saying everything is perfect.  It absolutely isn’t, but at a macro level, after decades, and after centuries of trying, whisper it quietly, but technology has proved itself to be utterly rubbish at destroying jobs!!

Technology does not destroy jobs, technology democratises work by destroying skills. 

For organisations, the benefit is that technology opens up talent pools of people that you have never previously considered.  The challenge is that if anyone can now do the job wearing an exoskeleton, or reading a script, or typing a prompt, do you really know what characteristics, skills, traits, behaviours you need in your people in order for them to succeed in your organisation?  And when you do know, how do you select them?  This will totally upend the attraction and selection tools used by most businesses.

For individuals, we cannot beat the machines, so do not try.  Rather move with them.  You won’t lose your job to AI, but you will lose your job to someone who knows how to use AI.  Know what makes you unique.  Do not be average; find your niche and mine it to be the best.  Above all, know why you? And don’t tell me what you did…  Tell me what you delivered, what you enabled, what value you created.

This article was first published in The Edge magazine – Institute of Leadership.