Losing a job is terrible. Losing a job to a machine may be worse. The authors of “The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies” grapple with the dimensions of the problem of digital innovations contributing to the stagnation of average incomes and disappearance of so many mid-level jobs that our industry depends on for growth. This month’s Harvard Business Review asks, “Will any jobs be left for people – Not just low-skilled jobs, high-skilled jobs too.” IBM’s ‘Watson’ advertising campaign features endless rows of mammogram images on computer screens with one single person monitoring the systems. I thought of my neighbor, the Radiologist, without a job. What about Real Estate jobs? Will CAD drawings, and Argus spreadsheets be in the hands of artificial intelligence? Apparently it is like any new hire, you have to figure out how to work together, but keep the upper hand or, without a bit of emotion, he could take your job.
June 24, 2015
