MAN V/S MACHINE: HOW TECHNOLOGY FORCES US TO CONSTANTLY REINVENT OURSELVES

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SUMMARY
Despite breakthroughs in technology driven innovation and gains made business systems, both in terms of improved productivity and economic growth, there is no guarantee that all members of the society will automatically reap the benefits. The media loves to talk about these developments as these topics make compelling stories. Arguably, these developments seem to herald a positive transformation of society characterized by higher outputs per capita, but we must also be aware of the risks that these changes pose to society at large. As is expected of any major transformation, we know that there will be winners, and there will be people who come out at the losing end of the bargain. In order to fully take advantage of this change, we will have to learn to be more adaptable and embrace change so that we develop the toolkit to continuously re-invent ourselves.

BACKGROUND
This is a very exciting time to enter the workforce as a high-value knowledge worker. The coming decades will be witness to unprecedented levels of innovation in the way business is conducted, and most of these innovations will be powered by breakthroughs in technology. Naturally, it is expected then, that such developments will present numerous business opportunities. It is also expected that these innovations will induce quantum efficiencies in business processes and that the overall wealth will increase (Pew Research Center 2014).
Businesses are increasingly relying on technology to achieve lean manufacturing costs and increased efficiencies in all aspects of the business cycle. This trend picked up steam in the early 70’s, but the rate at which innovations are being adopted in the market has been accelerating at a staggering pace. For example, Computerized Numerical Control (CNC) machines, a well-known hallmark of automation technologies, play an integral part in the manufacturing processes of the bulk of industrial goods today. More and more tasks that involve repetition and precision are being delegated to such machines. As a result, businesses have the double benefit of reliable standards of high quality goods at reduced prices. Even the end consumer benefits, as he or she can enjoy the benefits of more advanced products at the same or reduced prices.
With the improvements in automation technology, businesses are also delegating some tactical and strategic tasks to robots. Some of these developments might ignite new business models and disrupt the older ones. Consider the concept of driverless cars. Although this concept would be unimaginable even as recently as two decades ago, Google has successfully piloted this program. Its self-driving cars have already driven over a million miles (Google 2015). It is not unreasonable to expect that this project will be successful and that consumers will be regularly using self-driving cars in the coming decades. Not only does this technology benefit many people who cannot drive, but it will also make transportation safer. But more notably, it will disrupt existing business models in the automotive and transportation industry.
Not only are these innovations driving improved productivity and economic growth, they are also driving social change too. Interestingly, Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock, foresaw these changes over four decades ago. He describes in vivid detail the changes that we are currently experiencing. An interesting angle that he provided was that he mentioned that the boundaries between the producer and consumer would be increasingly blurred, leading to a new class of people – “prosumers” (Toffler 1984).
We are already acting as prosumers today when we conduct simple tasks. For example, when we order furniture online, we do a part of the manufacturing work – assembling the furniture. No longer does a carpenter have to come to our house to do that. On a more sophisticated note, we can observe the developments in the insurance industry. With the rise of Usage Based Insurance (UBI), the consumer is contributing the value of the product by sending real time data about their driving habits by installing a simple device to his or her car. This enables the insurance company to improve its risk profile, and the benefits of this activity are shared between the company and the consumer, who gets a lower price.
Toffler also noted that more people would have transient careers, and that workers would have the need to constantly retool and reinvent themselves in order to stay relevant in the job market. Managers will be compelled to embrace technology in order to improve productivity and in this process, they will have to repurpose human labor. Retooling human labor will augment functions performed by robots and as we move into and era dominated by digital technology, workers will be increasingly required to know how to operate such technologies. There will be an increase in the number of jobs that are created, but the rate of job creation will vary significantly by category of work and industry. It is observed that jobs that involve a high degree to repetition will not have as rate of growth as those in the high knowledge worker category (Markus Lorenz 2015). Automation lowers prices, which increases demand for goods/services, which in turn creates new jobs. Advances in robotics and AI are likely to provide opportunities for labor that are not fully realized at this time. Robots and computers will enable us to do more complex work, not the same work with less effort (Pew Research Center 2014).

COMPLICATIONS
Despite the positive developments, there are many reasons for the average individual to be worried. It is certain that these innovations herald exciting times for large businesses as well as start-up entrepreneurs, but increasingly, many workers, both low and high knowledge workers, fear what this means for their livelihood.
A growing gap between the “winners” and everybody else
Not all people involved in the workforce will benefit from these changes. A distinct set of “winners” and “losers” shall emerge, and the alarming fact is that the “winners” will be greatly outnumbered by the “losers”. The effect that technology has on business is evident at the top-end of the income distribution. We notice that the top 10% does better than the rest, and the top 1% does better than the top 10%. This effect continues to the top 0.1% as well. It helps to think about “winners” and “losers” in terms of “superstars” and “average performers” in order to understand this issue in a little more detail. The effect that technology has had on any market that it has influenced is that it has converted that market into one dominated by “superstars” (Erik Brynjolfsson 2011).
A brief examination of the MBA job market vindicates this finding. The top decile, in terms of MBA candidates, generally tend to fare better than MBA graduates from other programs that have a lower ranking. But even within the top decile, there will be a significant amount of variance. The top performers in the top decile will tend to have much more rewarding careers than the average performers. And, even among the top performers, there will be outliers who will do exponentially better than typical average performers. This has been made possible by the effects of technology. The “superstars” can now take advantage of newer methods and innovations to leverage on their existing talents in ways that were not possible before (Erik Brynjolfsson 2011).
This “superstar” effect can be seen in virtually every industry these days, since no industry has been left untouched with the benefits of technology. Journalists, these days, have a greater part of their salary as a variable component that depends on their performance. Their performance can easily be measured. A common metric that publishing businesses use to determine their “superstars” is the relative engagement that their published article generates on online media. Based on such measures, it is now possible to separate the “superstar” performers from the others, and we discover that many people are not so valuable after all. Hence, employers have significant motivations to reward the “superstar” performers as a preemptive measure to keep them on board. On the other hand, the “average performers” lose their bargaining power. They may not lose their jobs immediately, but this situation affects their promotions and future income. The journalist’s example was used to demonstrate the “superstar” effect. Similar cases can be observed in other industries as well.
Increased unemployment and uncertainty
We have already discussed that, aided by digital technologies, robots are doing more and more tasks that were previously done by humans. As a result, we see a trend that technology is adding more and more value in the production process, at the expense of labor. Naturally, the factor of production that is adding more value reaps a higher share of the reward. Hence, we notice that the role of labor in the production process has been getting marginalized. Businesses have raised capital spending, but are not hiring workers in the same proportion. A larger share of total spending is getting allocated to technology (Madigan 2011).
To take matters to the extreme, some experts predict that in the distant future, everybody is going to be involved in some kind of information or entertainment, and that robots would completely take over all the jobs in agriculture as well as manufacturing. Humans would not do a single task that is repetitive simply because it would not make economic sense to do so – robots would be able to do those tasks with greater speed and precisions at a fraction of what it would cost humans to do the same. (Pew Research Center 2014)

KEY CONCERNS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The rules of the game are changing. The concept of lifetime employment is rarer to come across and it is expected for people to change career tracks several times through their working lives. Where, then, does that leave us? How do we cope? What strategies should we adopt to take advantage of this new wave? Is it morally correct to expect people at the tail end of their careers to go back to the drawing board and learn new skills as they get displaced by cheaper methods of production?
Granted that society experiences pain as it grows, and that in this transition the overall wealth of the society increases; still, this not address the fact that a large number of people end up at the losing end of the bargain. This issue is beyond our control. What we can control, is that, as individuals, we will required to embrace innovation and maintain a sense of curiosity and spirit of lifelong learning in order to stay relevant in the workforce. Adaptability, then, will be the most important trait that we, as workers, will need to develop, since the only thing that is certain is that we will constantly need to reinvent ourselves in order to stay relevant in the workforce.

REFERENCES
Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee. 2011. The Atlantic. October 26. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/why-workers-are-losing-the-war-against-machines/247278/.
Google. 2015. Google Self Driving Car Project. https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/.
Madigan, Kathleen. 2011. It’s Man vs. Machine and Man Is Losing. September 28. http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/09/28/its-man-vs-machine-and-man-is-losing/.
Markus Lorenz, Michael RueBsman, Ranier Strack, Knud Lasse Lueth and Moritz Bolle. 2015. Man and Machine in Industry 4.0. BCG.
Pew Research Center. 2014. AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs. Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center.
Toffler, Alvin. 1984. Future Shock.