Are We Headed To An IQ Economy?

Artificial Intelligence and technology are rapidly changing jobs and the future of work.  The job environment that will exist when you reach financial independence or retire will be very different, perhaps to your advantage.  This post is the first in my series discussing the future of jobs and how AI will impact them.

Unless you’ve been under a rock for a while, you’ve been exposed to the idea that we’re all going to lose our jobs to robots.  The robots are coming.  Some alarmists take an absolutist approach to this future, saying that none of us will have jobs in 10 or 20 years.  Others take a more balanced approach.  Like anything, the reality is nuanced and likely somewhere in the middle of the extremes.

But let’s be honest in many ways the robots are already here to a degree.  I’m getting old and can still barely remember a time before ATM machines.  More directly, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are built into cloud services at Google and Amazon, and help us do tasks faster than we could have ever imagined even 10 years ago. 

I dictate some of my blog posts now as a first draft, and then clean it up from there.  Mainly because I’m a horrible typist, but also because I can. 

And here’s the thing, automation has actually created more jobs than it’s taken away.

As this Forbes article notes:

“Contrary to many articles written a few years ago, AI and robotics are not doing away with jobs, they’re creating them. We now have demand for people to build AI and robotics, sell them, train them, and repair them.” 

But I know what you’re thinking, everyone out there doesn’t have the skills to build AI and robots, much less sell them and train them.  Very true.  There’s no doubt that automation will affect people very differently. 

According to this study:

“Almost no occupation will be unaffected by technological change in the AI era. Some of the most vulnerable jobs are those in office administration, production, transportation, and food preparation. Such jobs are deemed to face “high risk” with over 70 percent of their tasks potentially automatable. All of these either involve routine, physical labor or information collection and processing activities.”

Notice their words – “almost no occupation will be unaffected“, they didn’t say eliminated, or even changed drastically.  Because the reality will likely be all over the place.  And of course many new jobs will be created.

 

An IQ Economy?

If you were given a software tool that automated many of your tasks and allowed you to do a week of work in a single day, is your manager going to tell you to go home for the other four days?

Probably not.  It’s more likely he or she will just expect 5 weeks of work by Friday. 

Welcome to capitalism, enjoy your stay.

In the last 15 years with the advent of the Blackberry and smartphones we’ve clearly seen that when you have spare capacity, you do more work.  We’re expected to be on call and available at all times now.  This is mostly true for knowledge workers but increasingly for others as well.

This is the paradox of productivity.  The never ending acceleration of new software tools and technology is ultimately great for gross domestic product, but how has it worked out for individuals and employees? 

Ask the guy typing away madly on his laptop at the airport gate. 

Let’s look at accounting for example.  As this article highlights: 

As AI and machine learning advance, more and more of an accountant’s traditional tasks may be taken on by robots. A McKinsey report on “Where Machines Could Replace Humans — And Where They Can’t (Yet)” shows that work activities with about 70% of time spent processing data are highly susceptible to automation. The work activities that are less susceptible to automation include tasks that involve human connection, emotional intelligence, and complex analysis such as managing others, applying expertise, and interacting with stakeholders.

They go on to say: 

In particular, the use of AI and machine learning will increasingly give you the gift of time. You’ll no longer need to spend as much time entering and processing data. This means you’ll have more time to offer value-added services that your clients desperately need to help them grow and stay in business.

Bold emphasis mine.  So what they’re really saying is that for white collar workers, more automation will create different work.  As computers and AI are able to do more of the mundane, human tasks will be forced to move up the scale of complexity and difficulty.  This will produce a greater divide between those who can make that cognitive move and those who can’t. 

This possible future has been called the “IQ economy” by some.  A future where human labor will still be needed, but to do ever-difficult tasks that require a high IQ and strong analytical thinking skills.  AI and automation will accelerate intelligence amplification and augmentation.

For white collar workers this will no doubt continue to result in more work, more difficult work, and more “productivity”. 

My brain is already exhausted just thinking about it.  

Is it possible for AI and automation to free up some time for white collar workers and allow them to actually use that time to do something else besides work?  Like go home and relax? 

Likely not. 

As I’ve previously discussed, did washing machines, microwaves, robot vacuum cleaners, and all of the great modern tools of domesticity free us up for more leisure time? 

Yeah, no.

 

Robot Palm Reader

What will automation and artificial intelligence do to jobs in the future?  Anyone who says they have it figured out is pulling your leg. 

I love the topic though, partly because I’m interested in both technology and sociology.  At the 50,000ft level, I’m a strong believer in our ability to adapt.  Throughout human history we’ve shown an amazing ability to adjust to new realities and thrive within them. 

The industrial revolution put many traditional industries out of business, and pretty quickly.  But most of those people adapted just as quickly.  And the country kept thriving.  “But it’s different this time, it’s too fast”, you might say.  I’m not so sure of that. 

The Co-Director of Stanford University’s Human-Centered AI Institute and the Stanford Vision and Learning Lab, Fei-Fei Li, says:

“I often tell my students not to be misled by the name ‘artificial intelligence’ — there is nothing artificial about it.  A.I. is made by humans, intended to behave by humans and, ultimately, to impact humans lives and human society.”

What she’s getting at is that we will always need people to connect the technology back to people.  The future world of automation will not likely be a clinical, cold place where all human experience is filtered through a silicon lens of 1’s and 0’s, and where no one has a job.  

What are we creating these technologies for if they cannot relate to the human experience?  The connections are where the new opportunities and jobs will be. 

This is the first in a series of posts I plan to do about AI, automation, and their impact on the future of work.  There’s lots of angles to this subject to explore, and I hope to get great feedback from you, my readers, to open up new avenues of thought.

Your turn AF Readers – What do you think about the IQ economy and my prediction?  Do you see it playing out differently?