Work’s better With machines
but humans should get smarter
If humans want to stay employed in 2030 after losing their jobs to automation, they need to develop job skills that would be of value by then, including creative drive, logic, emotional intelligence, technology literacy and project management, a survey by tech giant Dell has revealed.
A total of 3,800 business leaders and employees across the world, including the UAE, were surveyed on which jobs will be lost to automation by 2030 and what the most valued jobs skills would be for humans. The survey, titled ‘Realizing 2030: A Divided Vision of the Future’, revealed several jobs that respondents believe will be outsourced by automation, some of which include educating children, customer service, marketing and communications, administrative positions, caring for the elderly, financial administrator and human resources officers. A total of 96 per cent of respondents believe that organisations will outsource tasks to machines and automation by 2030.
“Until 2030, we are not going to know what kind of jobs will be available in the job market. This is a fact, which has put a lot of pressure on
humans and how we sharpen our personalities and qualifications,” Mohammed Amin, Senior Vice President — META, Dell EMC, told Khaleej Times.
“From my experience, I’ve found out that everyone accumulates their experiences and information early on, even if it doesn’t look important for today to prepare for the future. What we are trying to do with machines is download thousands of years of human experience and information, which will allow the machine to be intelligent enough to take decisions on our behalf in the future.
“With robotics and machines taking over jobs, especially the tough jobs, it’s going to elevate human beings for more creativity and emotional intelligence and to start being more innovative.”
The 2016 Future of Job report by the World Economic Forum said that seven million jobs will be lost due to automation. However, two million jobs will also be created.
A total of 43 per cent of respondents also said that companies should hire a Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer to oversee human and machine partnerships and to accelerate their digital transformation. Additionally, 54 per cent of businesses also believe that companies should teach all of their employees how to code and understand software development.
“We believe that, in the future, humans and machines will coexist. Machine learning will help us take over so many things. This is why you need to start having an AI officer in your business today, to decide how to take the right decisions today to ensure we have the right formulas for the machines, so we can coexist and cooperate together,” Amin said.
The survey showed 50 per cent of respondents said that “they don’t know what the next 10 to 15 years will look like for their industry, let alone their employees”.
Dubai recently launched a not-for-profit educational de- sign institute, which is helping students gain knowledge, a degree and build a career in future jobs. The Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation (DIDI) offers programmes that brings together technology and design — aiding pupils in gaining skills that can be used in several future jobs, such as creating a design for virtual reality and mixing technology with fashion.
The Associate Dean of DIDI, Hani Asfour, believes humans need hybrid skills to “secure a better future”. He said combinational skills, such as in multimedia and strategic design — especially when based on critical thinking and creative output — are recommended because these are two things machines are not yet able to achieve seamlessly.
“Our focus is on design, so jobs that are quickly being automated are basic website designer and logo designer. In the next 3-4 years we would expect machines to design basic apartments, optimising layouts in coordination with MEP services, churn out variations on a product design, put together web architecture and generate basic fashion patterns. The biggest and fastest visible growth is in 3D fabrication, so many people working in manual prototyping or model making are rapidly being replaced by machines,” Asfour said.
“The third level is to work in jobs that span across disciplines and fields, such as bridging between strategy and design, or design and technology. That is why at DIDI students combine design with technology from day one, and then after year one, combine two design disciplines (Product Design, Multimedia Design, Fashion Design, Strategic Design Management) to customise their degree journey, and future-proof their career.”
Several schools across Dubai are also preparing the young ones skills that are considered to be of value for jobs of the future, including teaching them robotics from an early age, as well as coding.