Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Acknowledging the human costs of disruption

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Paul Wallbank

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As we talk of the dramatic changes facing business and society today it’s worthwhile noting a  much greater displacement happened in the Twentieth Century as electricity, the motor car and communications drove the greatest increase in standards of living that humans have ever seen.

Our great-great grandparents lived through a period of change far greater than that we will see as their lives and communities were radically transformed.

Many common jobs in the early 1900s had ceased to exist by the middle of the century as cars replaced horses, mains electricity replaced town gas and refrigeration changed shopping habits. In the second half of the century affordable motor vehicles and television saw our cities reshaped around suburban life, a process now being reversed.

The structural change to economies saw a shift in population and jobs; a hundred years ago thirty percent of the US labor force was employed in agriculture, today it’s around two percent. Despite the shift, jobs were eventually found for those displaced from farms.

Shifting from an agricultural economy to an industrial society didn’t come without costs however,  the price paid by the affected communities and individuals was huge as documented by Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath and Dorothea Lange’s photos.

While it’s unlikely we’ll see the deprivation of The Great Depression repeated in a modern welfare state, it’s important to recognise the real human costs of technological change. For politicians and community leaders it could define how history judges them.

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One response to “Acknowledging the human costs of disruption”

  1. Rohit Thomas

    I love reading your blogs. With respect to the post which actually does cover few areas – disruption, robotics, end of mankind, privacy, etc, I love to share few articles which came up today under my FB (1 or 2 of those have been mentioned in the last 1 week or so):
    a) “Cleverbot is not really thinking… it is learning though.” http://bbc.in/1rVW9Q9 (under BBC World News FB page)
    b) The Grid raises $4.6M for its intelligent website builder – http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/02/the-grid-raises-4-6m-for-its-intelligent-website-builder/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook (TechCrunch FB Page) (The Grid had been mentioned before also through 1 of the FB Pages)
    c) Leading scientist, Stephen Hawking has warned that artificial intelligence “could spell the end of the human race” http://bbc.in/12kG7IT (Again from BBC World News Page)

    I’ll also add the Conversation Prism (https://conversationprism.com/) that has been happening and which changed many aspects of our lives. It’s not just done by Marketing and Tech firms as it is done by all – http://www.go2web20.net/ will have loads of tools or apps including ones under the mobiles. All of them are involved with privacy issues which includes heatmaps like eye trackers and so on. Examples of heatmaps are ClickTale, CrazyEgg, etc and heatmaps do exist under email marketing tools and other apps (like MailChimp and so on). They also exist under various websites as well (Google Analytics alone won’t help as heat-maps would show where all an individual looked at on a page, how much they have scrolled, which links or buttons they clicked, how they went from 1 page to another and so on while Google Analytics would help with regards to an external site to an internal one but not much with regards to the internal pages. Heatmaps are more useful than Google Analytics).

    Heat maps are just the start as you have augmented reality too and all these technologies HAVE INTEGRATED FOR MORE THAN 5 YEARS.

    Some of those technologies related to the marketing world can be seen under the Marketing Technology landscape – http://cdn.chiefmartec.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/marketing_technology_jan2014.png.

    Anyway, 50% of the jobs that exist today in the US and rest of the world won’t exist within the next 10 years thanks to robotics and technologies that have shifted industries over centuries (from Oxford University). The economic impact of these would be $14trillion to $33trillion per year from 2025 (from McKinsey) (Can also have a look at the YouTube video ‘Humans need not Apply’ when free – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU as it will show that creative including journalism, analytical, physical and other worlds are all gone whether it be manager’s post, programmer’s job or lower level position. Trading floors already use robots where they think on own using superior AI. That has also happened elsewhere which includes the greatest chess player being defeated by superior AI robot. Elon Musk has again predicted about Artificial Intelligence becoming a reality within the next 5 years couple of days back – http://www.cnet.com/news/elon-musk-worries-skynet-is-only-five-years-off/ where you have them just like in the Terminator movie series. It’s bit earlier than what he had predicted months back though his last prediction of 20 years or so could completely take place within Asian, African and South American worlds at that point in time though rest of the world, it maybe earlier for many jobs.

    Sadly, Australia has not been great with both innovations and ICT even though it has come out with some. Plus the country is now going through a transition phase so what occurred to some people where they lost jobs due to recession could happen to anyone not just due to economic scenario but also due to robots and changes within industry).

    Anyway, some of those technologies already exist today:
    a) Education:
    Within the educational landscape, all of us can see that the traditional types of learning have been shifting. First, we have the blended learning types (6 basic types) where the precedence has shifted towards the online blended version. In addition to the blended types, we also have the MOOCs or the massive open online courses. Both are challenging the ways of education right from primary type of education.

    With tuition fees increasing around the world, MOOCs could be an option where university courses are either free or cheap on them. MIT, University of Melbourne and various others provide their 1st 1 or 2 or even 3 years of courses for free.

    b) Hospitality:
    According to YouTube, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post and various other sources, robots already exist as waiters and chefs in a couple of countries including Japan, South Korea, China, Thailand, Israel, US, etc (Japan, South Korea and China are amongst Australia’s leading trading partners).

    c) Self-service revolution:
    Self-service revolution has actually existed for nearly 100 years according to The Independent. Today, it is part of our lives – ATMs, self-checkout, point-of-sale, kiosks, Internet, mobile devices, etc. In Europe alone, according to Cordis, mobiles have been used for transportation payment since 2003. Driverless or autonomous cars would soon be there as well (Google 1 of the players involved with it and they already have good safety record). Other players are BMW, Mercedes Benz, Volvo, etc. And few of these players are allies with Uber technology. Rio already uses driverless trucks.

    d) Journalism/blogging/publishing/content marketing/digital PR:
    Robots aren’t just restricted to the physical stuff like manufacturing, hospitality, driving, nursing but they are also involved with analytical and creative areas like journalism.

    NARRATIVE SCIENCE is an example of a firm that uses automated sports and finance articles while there are many more including Associated Press and LA Times.

    Open source already exists in the legal way for books (novels and texts of any area), music, news, etc . http://libraryelf.com/base/Libraries.aspx
    is 1 of those sites with public libraries and university libraries from all around the world. This site, Scribd and 44 other sites are places for getting free books under the site http://www.friedbeef.com/best-places-to-get-free-books-the-ultimate-guide/. Also, in addition to those, there are Bookboon, BookCrossing, Wiley Online Library, KnowFree.net, SlideShare, Realtime Publishers, FreeComputerBooks.com, OnlineProgrammingBooks.com, Intelligentedu.com, etc.

    Furthermore, Google, Bloomberg, Reuters, Apple, etc. provide a lot of information for free (Apple via O/S) yet all of them make money too. Reuters and Bloomberg via financial information (80 to 90% of their revenue). That’s why The Australian and SMH business models have failed as they ask for subscription without providing much for free. 1 way of finding those articles for free is by typing the article titles under Google. Another way is by using Tor Project (Anonymity Online). Yet another way is by using the Aussie site Trove. And still yet another way is by using the various VPNs or anonymous social network Social Number.

    Even Research articles are free these days (real-time basis). 1 site is ResearchGate.net where as another Google you must be using which includes Google Scholar.

    e) Others:
    The medium of exchange has been shifting slowly more towards technology as nowadays an individual can use even mobiles to pay for goods (unfortunately Australia has only recently started that while rest of developed world has had it for about 10 years now while some of the emerging and developing nations too have had it for 5 to 10 years now). There have also been the electronic cards as well as virtual currency. Bitcoin is an example of the virtual currency.

    Trade shows have shifted from their traditional ways to the virtual or hybrid ones since 1993. For example, Marketplace365 used to be called ConventionView, the world’s first virtual trade show. Imaste is another example of this revolution.

    Admin, legal professionals and so on would be challenged by VOIPs (Google Hangout and Skype aren’t the only ones). These could be used for conferences, training, remote access of any device, etc. The VOIPs (video chats) could be done by many people at the same time around the world. Google Hangout has had it for free for a couple of years now while Skype has just recently joined the free version though again there are others within the VOIP area. It can also be used for watching movies/videos together around the world (idea generation and so on or even for fun with family and friends).

    Tesla is another example that’s into disruptive innovation. Elon Musk won’t get rich just due to Tesla cars or his other firms. He might become richer due to the Tesla batteries that’s challenging the $1 trillion electric utility sector of USA. And Tesla is into cooptition/coopetition/coopertition strategy with Toyota and others. Cooption strategy is where rivals work together and innovate and China does have that strategy where as Australia has only woken up to it. Few other examples of the coopetition strategy are Amazon & Netflix; Google, Samsung, Apple, MS, FB, etc.

    3D Printing some would have heard of but how many would have heard of 4D Printing? There are articles related to that – though the news about 4D Printing actually came about during the time when the 3D Printing news came out to the common man.

    And this goes on where each and every industry is getting shifted like has happened for centuries due to technologies and innovations.

    Thus, like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking mentioned a couple of weeks back; mankind isn’t just facing economic challenges around the world but also one from robots. Would humans be able to defeat the challenge or would robots and technologies win by 2045 as mentioned by Physicist Louis Del Monte?

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