Job the big game against men robots – The Republic

How will work in twenty years? When you start on forecasts ground, one can not help but remember what foresaw John Maynard Keynes, the most influential economist of the 900, in 1930: the beginning of the next century the technology was so advanced that we can work 15 hours a week. Well, if we consider how we are now, with the short week and 35 hours that are a reminder for some, for others a goal out of reach given the prevalence of insecurity, we can ask ourselves what went wrong. Technology has made great strides, but the role of labor in modern society is not a solved problem. David Graeber, an anthropologist at the London School of Economics, argues that contrary to rise were only bullshit jobs – from telemarketing to public relations, the employee of fast food to the dog washing – works “Cabbage” maybe for those who exercise them but not for capitalism: that made them grow while reducing the industrial professions, replaced by robots to increase the return on capital and intascarne profits without improving the wages. Avoid that the masses had too much free time, this for the purpose Graeber, and meanwhile make them work 15 hours in bullshit jobs, but nailing the rest of the organization to update their Facebook profile, download the TV losing bets, and click ” I like “on the photo of the cat that looks more like Obama. In short, keeping them under de facto control. That of the anthropologist is the vision of a very radical left, of course. As indeed it is radical what futurists say on how to change our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren. In essence, the strands of thought are two: the pessimistic, which draws a world in which the work will be all-encompassing dimension because liquid, with long careers but intermittent, and the optimist who argues that technology will make us free to follow our inclinations. The assumption from which we start is the same: we are at the dawn of a historic event, a worldwide upheaval that will rewrite the rules of living and producing.

The call Industry 4.0 and is the fourth the modern world industrial revolution, produced by the encounter between an increasingly sophisticated generation of robots and the power of the Internet connection. There will force in a process of adaptation equal to that experienced at the end of 700 with the introduction of steam textile machines, or to that of half 800 with the electricity distribution and of the assembly line. The greatest impact will concern the productive apparatus backbone of the industry and the most popular work, the repetitive. “Who makes routine jobs are at risk,” says Martin Ford, author of The rise of robots, (winner of the book of the year award for the Financial Times), while the Bruegel Foundation ruled that in Europe 54% of jobs will die, and in Italy more than 56%. Secretary, telephone operator? In just a few years, and will be crafts kaput, supplanted by an app like Siri, Apple’s personal assistant, or as the robot butler who is building Mark Zurckerberg. Waiter? Very high risk of disappearing, now that orders and account will errands online. Salesman from call center? An effort started extinction. As well as the clerk in a post office, or in a library, and like so many other occupations. The financial advisor, where the software shows the best results, the reporter, the Automated Insights company has software that writes the financial news to the Associated Press. The site of the British TV BBC (bbc.com/news/technology- 34066941) is a search engine – based on the work of two academics at Oxford University, Michael Osborne and Carl Frey – with an algorithm that measures the risk of being swept away by the automation. Scares? To give faith to “Moore’s law” (Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel), according to which the chip doubles the power every 18 months (and reduces by half the price), you will arrive at the time when the technology will be so powerful to improve itself without human help. Argument put forward by Nobel physicist Stephen Hawking, and scenery which some identify in 2040, and in a world with mass unemployment, impoverished and desperate. And where only a small minority of people (those with capital to invest in automation) will be able to enjoy a total well-being.

But there is also a less gloomy. Meanwhile, the International Federation of Robotics claims that the arrival of the robot itself has created at least 10 million new jobs in all sectors. And it’s absurd to think that capitalism continues to produce goods which, with so much unemployment, no one will be able to buy. Indeed, in hindsight, noted John Lancester on London review of books, facts technological advances in recent years have not produced the productivity gains that are good for the economy, but gadgets, consumer electronics and entertainment products. The next progress, perhaps, can improve their lives. Take the health sector, where Watson, the most famous of IBM robots, is the most accurate diagnosis of cancer doctors. Or that of humanities research, where in Tel Aviv a computer is able to solve problems on the Torah as no scholar before. O justice, where the US computers are able to predict how it will end a lawsuit in the Supreme Court. In addition, the robot can do many things much better than us, but they can never develop empathy: social interaction, team building, ability to engage, to negotiate, to convince. “Jobs requiring comparison of people are those that grow more in the advanced economies,” wrote the McKinsey Global Institute. So there is room for the human factor, and those humans who can adapt. IQ, intelligence quotient, is supplanted by QE, the empathy quotient. On trades that are there have been many studies, from The Futurist (thefutureofwork.net) to Fastfuture (fastfuture.com), the site Xpat Jobs, as well as a contribution from the Ministry of Labour Use (bls.gov/emp). Of course, it will need adaptation to new rhythms. It will be complicated, according Rhys Maddocks, Director of Xpat Jobs: in 2040, to compete with the droid bionic men will undergo surgery to be more efficient. The characteristics of a male worker at that time? red-eye to work 24 hours a multiple time zones, bluetooth implanted in the ears, a larger brain but a smaller penis: because of very reduced sexual activity.

the softer version and perhaps more realistic than this adaptation is instead one that offers us the gig economy, the “on demand” economy, which has detonated phenomena like Airbnb and Uber, and where surviving legions of people who have abandoned the idea of ​​a career with paychecks and hierarchies to climb, and move on platforms to offer their intermittent work to those who buy it. There will converge Millennials and there the will draw companies to find the skills they need. A new global insecurity? Jeremy Rifkin thinks it will be a world of opportunity. And the report The future workplace (Unum and The future laboratory) provides that one of the problems in the next 15 years will have the big organizations will just attract Millennials brightest. The secret to persuade them to abandon their independence? The opportunity to do different experiences, with fewer controls and time constraints. The promise of a career to the top of the hierarchy will not know what to do. Also this will be the novelty of the work in the world of tomorrow.