The threat of machines destroying jobs was present even before the 19th-century Luddite movement started destroying looms. What has changed is the frequency of predictions, the pace of change, and the volume of jobs that are predicted to be impacted by technology.
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% of total US employment was identified as being at risk (the corresponding figure for the UK was around 39% and for China around 69%). This publication launched all the headline-grabbing scare stories of the past 15 years that go 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 the advent of the suit, the work was utterly physically demanding. Workers carried heavy tools for hours; the quality of work was good, but very reliant on manoeuvring the tools to the correct position, which, in itself, was 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, with the suit, the tools appear weightless, they are guided rather than wielded, quality of work has improved, the work is less demanding, tools cannot be dropped, and sick days are reduced.
There can be no doubt that the exoskeletons have significantly and dramatically improved the workers’ quality of life. In addition, two people wearing the exoskeletons are more productive than three people were without them.
Destroying jobs
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. But this is not the main point. Take another step back. Before the introduction of the exoskeletons, what characteristics did employers look for in their employees? Which skills, behaviours and competencies were sort after?
The answer is relatively simple. The jobs were characterised 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 these kinds of people? Simplistically, an interview consisted of inviting people in, getting them to pick up a heavy weight and then checking if they were still standing in an hour’s time. Still holding the heavy weight? Then you have the job.
But now, wearing an exoskeleton, 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 really value in your people?
What exoskeletons did for manufacturing, ChatGPT is doing for white-collar work. Research has been carried out in call centres where artificial intelligence (AI) has been deployed to help 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%.
A real leveller
This is the real point about technology. Technology, of whatever type, is the great leveller. Technology democratises 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.
“Technology, of whatever type, is the great leveller”
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, ChatGPT 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 job destruction, but totally fail to balance that with all the jobs technology creates – consider the jobs in designing, manufacturing, servicing, training, sales and marketing that are required to create and maintain the exoskeletons.
Across the developed world, we remain at multi-decade lows in unemployment while having more job vacancies than any time pre-Covid. I am far from saying everything is perfect. It absolutely isn’t, but (whisper it quietly) at a macro level – after decades and centuries of trying – technology has proved itself to be utterly rubbish at destroying jobs!
Technology does not destroy jobs – technology democratises work by destroying skills. The benefit for organisations is that technology opens up talent pools of people that you had never previously considered. The challenge is that, if anyone can do the job by wearing an exoskeleton, reading a script or typing a prompt, do you know which characteristics, skills, traits or behaviours you need in people 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’? Don’t tell me what you did; tell me what you delivered or enabled and what value you created.
Russell Beck, director of inspiration at ImagineThinkDo, is a bestselling author, consultant and popular international speaker. He is one of the leading experts on the world of work and how businesses and individuals can make themselves future-ready. His book ‘The world of work to 2030’ won the IoL Leadership Book of the Year Award 2024
This article is adapted from a feature first published in the winter 2024 issue of Edge
