Has the value of engineers been disrupted?
By CORE Skills Catalyst and Pilot Lead Dr Sophie Hancock and Atteris General Manager Eric Jas. Abbreviated version originally published by Engineers Australia.
This article explores why the future of engineering will require a combination of machine and human computation approaches, not only from an ethical but also from a technical perspective. How can engineering professionals contribute value to their organisations through digital technologies and ensure their skills remain both relevant and valuable?
A preeminent profession, bringing people to the forefront
Engineers continue to be relied upon to find better ways of doing things — a professional responsibility engineers have shouldered since the beginning of civilisation. From Imhotep’s design and supervision of the construction of the Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara in Egypt around 2630–2611 BC, to today’s modern society, where engineering is involved in virtually every good and service consumed or used in production.
“No profession unleashes the spirit of innovation like engineering. From research to real world applications, engineers constantly discover how to improve our lives by creating bold new solutions that connect science to life in unexpected, forward thinking ways” (The National Academies Press, 2018).
Australia has doubled its digital growth over the last five years, however asset intensive Australian sectors continue to have lower levels of digitisation than their peers in the United States (Digital Australia: Seizing opportunities from the Fourth Industrial Revolution, McKinsey & Company, 2017).
Almost every sector that encompasses engineering is facing significant challenges due to this digital transformation. Since the disruption is often coupled with increasing operational costs, it is creating large, additional demands on the people, processes, assets, and productivity within organisations.
If we are to build an intelligent, digitised nation, we are going to need innovative engineers who leverage their deep technical domain expertise along with the latest advances in technology and connect this with innate human needs and emotions.
Aurecon’s Global Managing Director — Design, Innovation & Eminence, Dr Kourosh Kayvani advocates the need for engineers who embrace more unconventional smarts.
“These engineers will need social savvy, creativity and flexibility. They must be more engaging, persuasive, collaborative or co-creative — traits not normally associated with stereotypical, introverted engineers” (Create News, 2017).
The wave of digital innovation is accelerating, reaching scale faster than ever before, but this also creates new opportunities for those who can move quickly to take advantage of the transformation. The companies and individuals that will come out on top will be the ones that equip themselves with the skills and tools to operate in a disrupted digital world.
Constructing digital capabilities
Roles in almost every field of engineering endeavour are being disrupted by productive advances in digital technology (The Digital Economy, Engineers Australia, 2017). Applications and service platforms facilitated by core ICT technologies, network connectivity, available computation and storage technologies, are infiltrating almost every corner of engineering activity, including designing, modelling, manufacturing, consulting, collaborating, and educating (Engineers Australia, 2017).
One significant area where digital technology is broadly changing work, industry, and the community, is that of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies.
AI may sound foreign to many engineers; almost alien, and therefore threatening. The term is misleading, perhaps implying that machines can truly be intelligent in the same manner as humans.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a name for computer technology that represents very sophisticated software to solve complex problems. Such computer programs are impressive, but have little to do with human intelligence, according to many AI experts, including famous cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter, one of its pioneers.
There is no doubt that many AI applications will become mainstream soon; consider fraud detection software in banking, home assistants or smart speakers, and face recognition technology among other applications on our smart phones.
Engineers have long used computer software to assist with the design of structures, but AI applications are only just beginning to infiltrate our work.
Some examples of how AI is expected to change the world of tomorrow for engineers are:
· Self-driving cars, which will impact not only the car industry but also the infrastructure that cars use, including roads, traffic control systems, etc.
· The use of intelligent structures, which monitor movement, stress, strain, and defaults in real-time, with the potential to foresee defaults before they occur; applications would include roads, bridges, buildings, pipelines, power cables, industrial facilities, subsea equipment, etc.
· Automated equipment which will fix the problem upon receiving information that a default has or is about to occur without human interference.
Engineers have the choice to see this as a threat due to potential job loss, or an opportunity to create a competitive edge by adapting to this new technology.
Machine learning is a concept initiated by scientists with the hope of ultimately replicating the human brain, including its cognitive capacities. Computers don’t get tired, they are fast, and are not hindered by emotions or other influencing factors in decision-making. It would seem a logical step to replace white collar workers by computers.
However, whilst computers are strong in the above, they are weak in providing context, purpose and meaning; and in planning and strategic thinking, which are typical emotional intelligence characteristics. It is often said that a problem is partly resolved by defining it; or in other words, by asking the right questions.
Computers cannot ask questions appropriately, they can only give answers. Humans can subsequently make sense out of an answer provided by a computer.
The above paradox that exists between humans and computers implies that collaboration between human and computers would represent an ideal partnership.
In his book “Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins”, Garry Kasparov concludes:
“I have argued that our technology can make us more human by freeing us to be more creative, but there is more to human beings than creativity. We have other qualities that machines cannot match. They have instructions while we have purpose. Machines cannot dream, not even in sleep mode. Humans can and will need our intelligent machines in order to turn our grandest dreams into reality. If we stop dreaming big dreams, if we stop looking for a greater purpose, then we may as well be machines ourselves” (Kasparov, 2017).
Therefore, by collaborating with AI and other digital technologies, humans can become better at performing in their professional roles.
CORE Skills believes that combining existing domain knowledge and company context with the right new skills will significantly empower individuals and their organisations to create and capitalise on new opportunities.
We know that to have real, meaningful, positive and lasting impact to address the digital and data challenges, the engineering profession needs both strong leadership and clarity of insight and analysis from their professional teams.
Engineering also needs an increased emphasis on the development of interpersonal skills alongside digital skills as an asset for the future.
Esteemed industry analyst Ed Merrow, a guest at CORE for Engineers Australia and NERA in May 2018, shared how his extensive quantitative research shows that successful projects, specifically large-scale engineering projects, are only successful where the leadership inspires co-operation across the project.
To deliver such an impact we envisage customising our upcoming Geoscientist to Data Scientist pilot for our colleagues in engineering. The Geoscientist focused pilot is offering the energy, mining, and technology sectors specific capability building opportunities:
● A 2-day executive education program aimed at a new type of senior leader who will successfully steer companies through the approaching transition, and
● A 12-week, one day a week professionals program aimed at re-purposing capability effectively to match evolving skills requirements.
We invite your views and experience on this evolving need of engineers. Please contact CORE Skills via the details at end of this article.
So, it is imperative that Engineers carefully consider the questions facing the future of their profession: what does the future of engineering look like?
How can engineers contribute value to their organisations by embracing digital technologies? How will individuals ensure their skills remain both relevant and valuable?
Operating at the interface: connecting human and tech
Engineers will shape our future, just as they shaped the world in the past, notably through the developments of earlier cultural revolutions.
While the profession needs to evolve in line with the accelerated rate of digitisation, this opportunity can reap substantial rewards when engineers collaborate, upskill and adopt innovative new technologies and processes to improve the value they can deliver in their roles.
Perhaps engineers should embrace J.C.R. Licklider’s concept of human-computer symbiosis, otherwise known as Intelligence Augmentation (I.A).
Licklider was a computer science titan who had a profound effect on the development of technology and the Internet. His vision was to enable man and machine to cooperate in making decisions, controlling complex situations without the inflexible dependence on predetermined programs. Licklider encouraged us to take a human and make her more capable.
Humans are quite incredible: how we think, our non-linear approaches, our creativity, iterative hypotheses, which are all very difficult, if at all possible, for computers to emulate.
In other ways, humans are so limited. We’re terrible at scale, computation and volume, and we require high-end talent management. Licklider foresaw computers doing all the routinisable work that was required to prepare the way for insights and decision making (TED Talks, 2012).
Another stream of emergent technology says that people are essential to the future of work with a focus shift from efficiency to co-creativity.
It shifts from fitting people to outdated concepts of static job descriptions to enabling augmented connections between people as the individual and collective experience of flow to a shared life-work cause. This is about outsourcing tasks to technology and then redefining our roles. (LinkedIn Pulse, 2017).
This digital transformation will almost undoubtedly be a bumpy journey for both individuals and organisations. Shouldn’t we think proactively about how we can be better prepared and therefore become more comfortable with the transitions and challenges?
How will professional membership organisations such as Engineers Australia contribute as a service of the future? The value of networks will certainly increase and the profession with less disruption will have better connection to the information flow. In general, we have moved from an ownership to access model. What does this mean for professional bodies?
In addition, this disruption will flow upstream, so that the engineer of the future will be qualified through programs that probably look quite different to established accredited engineering curricula.
The opportunities and risks for all of us are enormous. But luckily, engineers are the people who balance technological opportunity and risk.
The bottom line is that we need judgement from people, not just analysis from calculations.
As pertinently pointed out by Australian National University Dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science, Elanor Huntington:
“Now more than ever we need engineers. The next great wave of engineers will be the people who are willing and able to engage in the complexity of bringing together people, technological systems and science in a highly distributed and interconnected world” (TEDxSydney, 2018).
For more information about the CORE Skills data science programs, visit: http://corehub.com.au/skills/ or to share your view on the emerging needs of engineers, contact: sophie@corehub.com.au.
To find out about Atteris, an independent engineering and design consultancy for subsea, pipeline and sustainable energy systems, visit: https://atteris.com.au/
CORE Innovation Hub
191 St Georges Tce, Perth WA 6000
References
Create News. 2017. If engineers hope to change the future, they must first develop a new skill set — Create News. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.createdigital.org.au/engineers-solve-worlds-biggest-problems/. [Accessed 8 May 2018].
Engineers Australia. 2017. The Digital Economy — Engineers Australia. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/sites/default/files/resources/Public%20Affairs/The%20Digital%20Economy%20(Cth%2C%20November%202017).pdf. [Accessed 8 May 2018].
Kasparov, G., 2017. Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins. PublicAffairs.
LinkedIn Pulse. 2017. Jeremy Scrivens: In the Future of Work the focus shifts from efficiency to co-creativity — LinkedIn Pulse. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/second-stream-tech-people-essential-future-work-focus-jeremy-scrivens/. [Accessed 9 May 2018].
McKinsey & Company. 2018. Digital Australia: Seizing opportunities from the Fourth Industrial Revolution | McKinsey & Company. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/asia-pacific/digital-australia-seizing-opportunity-from-the-fourth-industrial-revolution. [Accessed 7 May 2018].
TED Talks. 2012. Shyam Sankar: The rise of human-computer cooperation | TED Talks. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/shyam_sankar_the_rise_of_human_computer_cooperation/transcript#t-743066. [Accessed 9 May 2018].
TEDxSydney. 2018. Why We Need Engineers Now More Than Ever | Elanor Huntington — TEDxSydney. [ONLINE] Available at: https://tedxsydney.com/talk/why-we-need-engineers-now-more-than-ever-elanor-huntington/. [Accessed 10 May 2018].
The National Academies Press. 2018. Changing the Conversation: Messages for Improving Public Understanding of Engineering | The National Academies Press. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12187/changing-the-conversation-messages-for-improving-public-understanding-of-engineering. [Accessed 4 May 2018].
