Perhaps Change Your Company’s Approach … Now!
Up to now, technology has taken time to be adopted, and where we could change our approaches and redefine our workforce. With the car, we did not need horses, and with the printing press, we did not need scribes. These changes often happened over decades and even centuries. The transistor did not see a radical change in our lives until the microprocessor and integrated circuit came along, and the Internet took decades to scale to the network we have now. Media outlets, such as newspapers, have thus had time to move their content to an online mode.
But, AI will disrupt in the fastest way we have ever seen. Companies are investing billions across the world, and with an aim to replace many of our existing jobs. This will not take centuries or decades; this will have an almost instant effect on the jobs market. So what will the state do? If they do not start to plan now, the whole fabric of our nation-states could fall apart. We already have seen this with the rise of populist politicians and the move away from trust in the state. Nation-states that do not plan for an AI-driven future at the current time could fall completely. And what are politicians actually doing just now? They are trying to constrain its growth and tell it that it must act within its rules. This will not work, and AI cannot be constrained.
I thus hope politicians and decision-makers read the article, or they will threaten the whole existence of the nation-state which looks after and cares for its citizens …
Many parts of the article stick out:
“Gen AI and other recent trends affecting the labour market point to the importance of upskilling, reskilling, and training to empower the global workforce.” …
“There are a number of growing occupations. Those would be a lot of healthcare jobs, STEM jobs, transportation jobs, delivery.”
As technologists, we will keep developing, keep advancing, keep inventing, as this is what we do. There is little to stop this. Once country could ban research in AI with a particular domain, but another country will just take its place. Our whole society is drive by research, IP generation and advancements, and it is almost impossible to switch this off on a global scale.
And, so, the legislators will define that AI must be moral and ethical, and it will do this, but it will replace jobs by doing things better than the human.
Your company needs to understand the changes now, and make plans. I like the approach that Booch had, and where they could see the move from fossil fuel engines to electrical ones, and where the started a massive retraining programme to move many of their employees towards understand electrical engineering.
So, get into STEM, and upskill, reskill and retrain … this needs to happen now, and there is no time to lose. If you have a company, think about retraining before it is too late. And, tell your politicians that we need action, otherwise we risk the whole concept of the nation state.
