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If ones lively hood is at stake, that is of course deeply upsetting. Even so, mankind has been inventing stuff that makes any job easier and quicker to do for centuries. History shows that certain job roles diminish where other and new job roles will grow and appear. If your job is at stake, that wont do you much good, I appreciate.

The thing with AI is in particular allows for jobs to be done that are way beyond the human skills and competence. As a downside if you like, that also means certain current job roles diminishes. But developing the algorithm, interpreting results, fine tuning the process and software, data mining are job roles that already are popping up all over the world.

So the role of back office is changing rapidly due to Ai and other new technologies.

Good luck.

Jeroen

I agree that "Change is the only constant.", but it is robbing someone of their livelihood. We cannot expect a entry level analyst or support engineer to give astounding work in short time. It takes grooming, self realization, awareness and ones own interest to find the right path in their career.

But by automating such entry level jobs and some jobs that a mid technically proficient developer or support engineer can handle, it is even more pushing against the human factor. Classical example will be the surge of online banking which though is not automation per se rather digitization, the human factor is completely gone. My personal banker is just a voice that I hear at the other end of my mobile call. I know nothing about that person, nor have seen him, nor shared pleasantries for more than 5 years now.

Yes, some form of technological advancement is needed but make sure those advancements aid the person who is doing his/her job. Not replace his livelihood. The AI algorithms are coded by human hands and brain. It is bought to life, but then thats how far it should go.

If I mimic a biological system and make it do no matter how mundane job it is, it is not worthwhile. If I am put in a situation to select between waking up a support engineer at night to solve a server problem and a automated solution, I will select that midnight call to wake him/her gladly and do it out of passion for human intervention.

AI and RPA should aid, but the way they are utilized is something that we should be wary about.

As usual its all in the eye of the beholder. Most of us would like insurance companies to offer low premium, Telecomoperator to provide low tariffs, banking at no cost, competitive airline tickets etc. etc. Very few, if any at all, succesfull economic models have been based on keeping everybody employed, no matter what.

Where do you draw the line of what can or is allowed to be automated? Or offshored, which is just another way of efficiency gain.

India did well as the Western world offshored tens if not hundreds of thousands of jobs in the last decade. Still, unemployment in most Western countries is actually pretty low, for some countires an all time low. So just because one type of job disappears doesnt mean the labour market shrinks perse. But its a reall bugger of course, if it is your job that disappears. E.g. gets offshored, gets automated.

All these are hugley competitive industries and cost control and efficiency is a constant pressure for all of them and many other industries.

Im actually convinced that AI is doing an awfull lot more than bring simple straight forward efficiency. It allows us to analyse and draw conclussion that are simply way beyond the reach of any human, or even large teams of humans.

Currently data scientist competences are the most sought after in many parts of the industrialized world. And that is just one new job role, many more are emerging as well. But yes, it will have an impact on careers, might require people to be reschooled/trained/move to a different location.

Jeroen

I just read an interesting article. Unfortunately in Dutch. Written by a fromer minister of social welfare. He suggested that the (financial) gains from innovation cant just be pocketed by employers/corporations. He suggested part of it needs to be used to those affected. So training, schooling etc. its an interesting concept and to some extent we have labour laws in some European countries that aim to have similar effects. Employers have an active role and responsibility to ensure their staffs stays employable. If not with them, at least on the labour market at large.
Jeroen

AI is here to stay, no doubt about that. Only thing is that alternative plan should be made for people who rely on entry level low paid jobs, which robots with AI will takeover.

Even in developed countries, graduates start off with such jobs until they find a well paid jobs in their respective fields, if they can't get any job after college who will pay their loans ? This seems to be a recipe for disaster for our economies.

People seem to think we are doing well even after computers took some of our jobs, this might be partly true, but technology is already creating lot of instability for our economy. Mass production has led to irreversible ecological destruction which we don't care to have a look at.

we need better leaders who are more than just good public speakers to handle this. Hope they don't make a bot for the next president.

I am not quite sure whether that statement is correct. First of all, typical front and back office type of jobs have by and large been outsourced already, largely to India. Only when a bank or for instance an insurance company wants to provide customer service in its native language they would have to staff with locals. Very often in developped countries these are part time jobs, very often held by students!

The guy who came to our new home a few months ago for our broadband connection, installed the cable, routers, WiFi boosters and programmed the TV, was a law student doing this sort of installation work 1-2 days a week. It actually makes a lot of sense. Somebody who is at college/univiersity tends to be a quick learner, reasonably articulate and will leave after a few years when he or she graduates. (so you dont have to increase his/her wage to often, once left you get a new graduate on the beginning end of the salary scale. For the student its an interesting job, very independent, you get some training and a cool van to drive around in. Works for both parties.

It really depends on the field you have graduated in and whether that is in demand. Also, my own experience is that in India a lot of folks stay very close to the original field they studied and graduated in, get a first job and more or less make a career through various vertical promotions in more or less the same field. Nothing wrong with that, as it seems a lot of employers recruit for that as well. So they are looking for design manager with xx years of experience in yy discipline.

In Europe and the USA as well, you see people more weaving through very different jobs and roles. (Me being a similar case). Neither my eldest son or my daugther both with University degrees have ever held a job in their respective field. But are still doing very well career wise! Apart from my son, none of my three kids and most of their friends ever had a long term labour contract. They are always hired for a year, maybe with another extension. Was very different when I started to work. Doesnt seem to worry them at all and they still can get a mortgage. But flexibility and going from one job to the next at various employers is very much what the labour market is like these days, especially if you have a college/university degree.

Some jobs, require very specific training and or certification of course, e.g. a pilot or a surgeon or a speech and language therapist.

The one thing that is happening is that job roles are being inflated in terms of formal educational requirements. So jobs that 10 years ago were advertised as requiring a completed secondary school education, might require a college degree these days. Not quite sure why, whether that is a reflection of the labour market, or more of the recruiters? I dont know

So formal education is still important although many (western) companies these days tend to recruit for attitude rather then for formal training. So you will see jobs advertised with a requirement to have a college degree without being specific in which field. Or along lines of requiring "acadamic approach" required.

So whereas I cant say that AI is causing all of these changes in the labour and educational market it does play a role how society at large is changing rapidly.

Jeroen

Guess this TED talk has not been posted here yet

https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_sus..._true#t-935209

Today most rely on phones/internet to :

1) Order a cab (the very job of locating a cab, booking it and ensuring safe drop is done by software)

2) Order food (type of food, type of hotel, estimated delivery time all produced by software)

3) We play chess more with machines than with people.

4) Order groceries, clothes, electronics etc via online platform.

5) Most calculations of tax, transactions and balances are done by machines.

A.I is intelligence given of taught by mankind to the machines.. we even rely on Internet to look up the smallest of things today and the dependence is ever-growing.

A.I is here.. all one has to do is open their eyes and run away from it. Yes I hate technology.

So how come you are in the Internet?

Jeroen

New documentary from the "AI-is-evil" side, featuring interviews with Elon Musk, Ray Kurzweil, etc.

http://doyoutrustthiscomputer.org/watch

Alight. Mark Zuckerberg has openly admitted that he didn't take a broad enough view of how his platform could be misused. That's a very generous way of saying he was clueless about the implications. I mean, it is his own platform, which he knows best.

That is why I told last year that we can't take his views on AI seriously. He only cares about the commercial aspects of AI, and not the social/technology impact on the world.

AI is achieved using machine learning. AI is the end result, ML is the method.

Data analytics / Big data / Machine learning really is more of higher mathematics and statistics. None of the engineering courses teach mathematics that is relevant to these fields. Do not see many engineering students showing the same level of interest towards mathematics that they pay towards programming / app development.

Will it be more useful for people who have PG / Phd in mathematics / statistics to learn programming skills to enter these fields rather than engineering graduates trying their hands learning higher mathematics?

Actually, the all the prerequisites for ML is indeed covered in engineering mathematics. That is basically statistics, calculus, linear algebra & programming. However, it is taught mindlessly without any exposure to their real world application. Therefore, most students never develop any understanding or interest for it.

Will have to disagree. In IT oriented (Computer Science/Computer Engg) engineering, Mathematics comes up in the first semester on a generic basis (common to all engg streams); never after that. But never really taught from a statistical point or from using logic to drive programming.

P.s. It's been close to 17 years so my response is based on outdated information :)