Artificial Intelligence - and the future of jobs

Image source

Artificial intelligence (AI, also called machine intelligence, MI) is intelligence demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural intelligence (NI) displayed by humans and other animals. Source

A friend of mine once asked me why I love watching science fiction and tech movies and I told him I love them because I see them as prophecies of the future. Now yet another prophecy is coming to the business world: AI (Artificial Intelligence). If this prophecy should come to fulfillment, who will be the losers or winners? Read on
Image source

Change is one sure thing that is constant in this world where we live in and industries in their several dispensations have not been spared from its disruptive blow. Productivity during the agrarian age solely relied on labor and strength, then came the industrial age accompanied with steam engine invention by James Watt. With it came the power to wield heavy mechanical machines that could do ten times what any Hercules at the time could do. As if it was not enough, then came innovations like electricity, computers, etc. In addition, they ushered in factory automation which threatened people who take pride in craftsmanship the existence of available jobs. Towards the last lap of the 20th century, the internet came into the scene and with it came softwares and mobile apps that businesses cannot do without. With the internet, retail stores were threatened, book keepers started losing their jobs, specialized services which were once provided by the so called experts were no longer needed as people are now a click away from Google. As more businesses turned digital, more jobs were lost and new jobs were also created, but this time not within the traditional scene.

Image source

***ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ***refers to the ability of machines to exhibit human-like intelligence. It aims at autonomous machine approach to problem solving. As it stands, heavy investments on Research and Development are being made on the AI tech scene into its practical application to business processes. According to research, an estimated $26-$39 billion have been channeled into AI in 2016 and these investments were carried out by big tech names like Apple, Google, Amazon, etc. According to CNN, there was a recent study which successfully demonstrated an autonomous robot perform soft tissue surgery, stitching together a pigs bowel and doing so even better than a human surgeon. Self driving cars were also deployed on the streets of San Francisco by Uber.

“Everything we love about civilization is a product of intelligence, so amplifying our human intelligence with artificial intelligence has the potential of helping civilization flourish like never before – as long as we manage to keep the technology beneficial.“ -
Max Tegmark, President of the Future of Life Institute.
Source

Your job as a medical practitioner is at risk of lose, your job as a cab man is also at risk, even the top level management job is also at risk because if this AI bots can act intuitively based on learned data that predicts more accurately changing situations more than a human could, what then is the function of decision makers and managers? Some of the most popular examples of artificial intelligence that’s being used today include;

Siri: The friendly voice-activated computer that we interact with on a daily basis. It's Apple's personal assistant that helps send messages, find information, add events to calender and gives directions.

Alexa: A tool used to decipher speech from anywhere in the room. This has made it a revolutionary product that can help us scour the web for information, schedule appointments, shop online, set alarms and do a million other things. It also help power our smart homes.

Tesla: Possibly one of the best cars ever made. It also has predictive capabilities, self-driving features and sheer technological “coolness".

Amazon.com: Amazon’s transactional AI is something that’s been in existence for quite some time and with its algorithms refined, the company has gotten acutely smart at predicting just what we’re interested in purchasing based on our online behavior.

Netflix: This provides highly accurate predictive technology based on customer’s reactions to films.

Pandora: The musical DNA. Helps in recommending songs that people inherently love but that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Nest: The Nest learning thermostat uses behavioral algorithms to predictively learn from your heating and cooling needs.

What then is the way out?
Image source

You can decide to seat back and argue that Nigeria is still millions of years away from adopting AI technology or cease the opportunity which it presents.

MGI advices: rather than try and compete with the AI, the only way out is to re-skill.

Thanks

REFERENCES
Wikipedia
Future of Life
Forbes