The Future of Work in the Era of AI - Article Written in 2017
In early 2017, I was commissioned by the South African Professional Association of Executive and Personal Assistants (PAFSA) to write an article on the future of work in the era of AI. I am republishing it here again, as it was in many ways accurate, almost prophetic. We simply need to abstract specific product names and their creators.
In particular, I hold my closing statements very true and relevant today and into the future, summed up into an invitation: in the era of AI, and other empowering (and potentially dangerous, in the wrong hands) technologies, let’s be the best humans we can possibly be, to and with each other!
The Future of Work Illustration:
This is the illustration from the original article, the way the magazine’s graphics editor(s) saw the future of work in the age of AI, after reading my article draft. I’ll leave the interpretation of the illustration to the observer.
What I mean when I say that the original article was prophetic, as long as we abstract product names: For example, if you replace “Alexa for Business” with “Claude Cowork”, the statements I made stand on pretty solid ground.
Due to the limitations of space in a print magazine, the article only touches on multiple topics which deserve(d) more substantial description of my considerations in the text. There are a number of context expansions I could, and maybe should today, do throughout.
I ask you here to read the article with a kind heart and flexibility in thought - hindsight is a powerful weapon. This was written nine years ago.
The original article title was “Secretary and Personal / Executive Assistant of Tomorrow”, with a leading paragraph: Over the next several years, let technology do everything it can within your organisation . Its domain of competence will keep increasing at breakneck pace and it will take one after another from your list of to-dos.
And now, finally, to the article:
When Ms. Ana-Maria Valente, the Director at PAFSA, kindly invited me to write up in brief form my thoughts on the future of today's Secretary/PA/Executive Assistant role, I was simultaneously honoured, humbled, inspired and freaked out. To bring enough well thought-out arguments to such an important discussion in less than a thousand words is not a small feat, probably impossible for me.
I do hold a rather radical view on the future of this, and nearly every other, type of work as we understand it today. And it's not good news in an immediately apparent way. But seen from a fresh perspective and with an open mind, I firmly believe that the news is in fact not only good, but amazing.
Becoming the best possible versions of Human
Most of the professions in existence today will diminish or disappear over the next several decades. And thanks to the particularities of the IT revolution, a large majority of them will not be replaced by any new professions, the way it happened during, as an example, the industrial revolution.
That will set us free to pursue a much bigger goal than most of the population of the planet ever dreamed of − bettering ourselves and our societies. Becoming the best possible versions of Human.
The future of work is actually the very topic that nudged me towards futurism as an interest and a field of research.
In 2010, as the seriousness of the development of self-driving vehicles became clear to me, I got worried (an attitude which has evolved quite significantly since). You see, if vehicles drive themselves, we don't need taxi, bus, delivery van or truck drivers. If cars don't spend 90% of their time sitting idly in parking lots, we don't need that many cars. Which means that we don't need as much manufacturing capacity. Nor as many companies or people producing car parts. And so it goes, like a long, branching tree of dominoes, each one that topples pushing another to the floor. That is hundreds of millions of jobs worldwide.
We've had waves of technology augmenting and supplanting human effort before. They always caused temporary upheavals, but eventually people would move up the skill ladder and all would be good again.
The human condition improved every time a part of our work was transferred over to technology, but our social contract stayed basically the same − we sell our work for money in order to afford the goods and services we need to live within our context.
We let those unable to join this contract fall through the cracks, to a lesser or greater extent. The context varies wildly from Finland to Bangladesh, but the basics of the social contract are more or less the same.
Well, that's about to change.
The new kind of 'change'
The revolution facilitated by the exponential development of information technology is unlike any before. This time it's not our muscles that are getting augmented and supplanted, but our brains. And this time, the reach of the new technologies is quickly approaching geographic universality and their distribution takes practically no time. Contrast that with the fact that a car is still not available universally, over a hundred years from its inception.
Also, information technologies are changing practically every industry, from energy production and distribution to medicine, crop and meat farming, already mentioned transport/logistics, anufacturing, retail, banking and financial services.
One unifying characteristic of these at first glance unrelated, changes is reduction in necessary resources, by orders of magnitude. Another is massive improvement in the quality of products and services provided.
So, how does all this connect with the future of the specific professions we are talking about here? In my mind, the link is two-fold:
Firstly, there is the overall reduction in the need for human labour. That one is obvious, but will not happen overnight. It will take between ten and thirty years from today (still soon enough for all of us to seriously consider as we're doing our long term planning).
Secondly, less obvious, but more likely to affect the profession in the next two to five years, there is the development of artificial intelligence-based virtual assistants.
Siri was the first widely known virtual assistant. Its (her?) capabilities were pretty laughable at the beginning and aren't much more impressive today, but Siri set the stage for the AI assistant development battle that's raging today. Mostly still behind the scenes, but about to explode onto the world stage in full force.
Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, IBM, the US government and above all China (both the government and several of the largest Chinese companies) are, along with many others, investing billions and vying for dominance in shaping the world of tomorrow.
This is the space race of our time.
And make no mistake about it - no mistake about it! - the efforts are paying off already and will in a year or two stun everyone not following these developments closely.
No human can possibly translate back and forth between forty or more languages. Monitor stock exchanges or currencies. Keep track of all the airports, all the airlines, all the flights and their combinations, prices, seat availability, transport options at the destination, meeting rooms, hotels, co-working spaces, spas, sights and shops. Figure out the best connections of all of that with a person's needs and deliver it all instantly.
AI can.
In a few short years, we'll have virtual assistants that (who?) know us better than we know ourselves. From the type of music we like and that we prefer our Monday appointments to start from 10, rather than 8am, to how our mood and level of energy change with every type of meal and after different types of exercise we enjoy. They will analyse the tone of our voice and correspondence, heart rate, skin temperature and other physical signals of our bodies, and guide us to being more focused and effective.
The more connected our organisations become, the more efficient virtual assistants will be in helping us stay at the peak of our professional performance.
I'm not talking science fiction here. This is no longer a question of if, or even of when. This is the reality of our near future. As a result of this leap in productivity, hundreds of millions, and then billions, will lose their jobs in the coming decades.
What should we do?
So what should we do about it now? I say, embrace it!
Rather than breaking the weaving machinery of today, learn about it, understand it, and use it in our daily work. Organisations which resist (or only half-heartedly implement) the cutting edge of information technology will have no chance whatsoever at being relevant on the global stage.
Fear of the unknown or misunderstood, fear of change - it is a powerful motivator. But it rarely leads to positive outcomes. Fear usually brings about destruction and suffering. So, let's consciously undertake to move in the opposite direction. Let's understand and prepare for the inevitable in a constructive manner. Access to information today is incomparable to any period in history. We can and should use that to our benefit.
You are perfectly positioned!
I'd say that Secretaries, Personal/Executive/Admin Assistants are perfectly positioned to help their organisations realize this and reap the benefits of being among the first-movers.
Start by reading about Amazon Alexa for Business, following futurist blogs and YouTube postings (London Futurists already have a sizeable archive), Singularity University and tech magazines. The resources are plentiful and free. Learn and then spread the knowledge.
Use the time and energy you gain to focus on the humans around you. Develop and promote understanding and empathy, help inspire joy in cooperation and celebration of achievement.
The giant leap
The technological revolution we're experiencing today can lead to a world of total abundance and close to zero work bourne of necessity. We as a civilization will need to come up with a new way of distributing the resources of the Earth, which has the potential to be fairer, more socially and environmentally responsible/sustainable than any system we had devised before. Universal Basic Income is one idea for at least a part of such system that's gained in popularity over the past several years and several governments and many NGOs are already experimenting with it. It may serve us as a good temporary/transitional solution.
Each individual could soon become free to explore the limits of their own skills, knowledge, creativity, empathy, contribution to their families and communities.
That is a gigantic leap from today's world in which slavery still exists.
It may be difficult to even imagine. But isn't it an image of a world worth living in?
Well, it's not going to happen spontaneously. We'll have to contribute as much as we each can. That's why I'm writing these words. And you can start by doing some research and engaging in the conversation.