I stumbled upon an article over the weekend, about four-legged robot patrolling Bishan Park to remind people of safe distancing measures. It is Spot®, the exciting robot dog from Boston Dynamics.
As a Technologist, I am impressed and feel proud. It gives me some personal sense of pride on how my country has adopted technology in one of its ways to assist with tackling this Covid19 pandemic.
At the same time, it has also made me think hard.
We now live in unprecedented times, in a technology driven world. Innovation is rapidly disrupting how we do and think about work. Traditional jobs and ways of doing things may become obsolete soon. More and more companies are leveraging on automation and are taking advantage of AI, Robotics, IoT, Big Data, etc. This has shifted on how organizations and businesses are doing things and will relentlessly reshape the workforce. Many may still not realize that we are in the midst of a technological shift.
Technological advancements will no doubt help us in many ways we could ever imagine. More things can be made possible, we can be more efficient, and things can be done better and faster. However, technological advancements will progress to job automation and it will be inevitable that traditional jobs eventually can be replaced. Almost any job can be automated, equipment and machineries can be easily controlled remotely, data can be easily obtained, and events can be calculated. The market will continue to displace people out of the workforce as automation and technology improves.
This will present us with not only economic but also social issues, and it is pressing us hard. Our economy is evolving in ways that will make it more and more difficult for people find jobs and support themselves. The market rewards businesses for making things more efficient and in today’s context; efficiency does not love manual jobs.
There will be a huge shift in skillsets required but I believe there will also be lot of opportunities in these areas. However, retraining the workforce can be a challenge.
What can we do to cushion these shocks?
How do we manage the workforce transition?
What will the future of work look like for us?
Are we prepared? Think about it..
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