Doing a good job. Being a conscientious performer. Even showing loyalty when it isn’t returned or deserved. All have been described as essential to employment success. They aren’t. Not any more. What’s actually critical to surviving and maybe even prospering in today’s and tomorrow’s world of work is mastering the machine partnership life cycle.
What kind of machines am I talking about? Intelligent ones. Machines that are powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
Now to be clear, AI is an all-encompassing term that includes machine learning, neural networks, and deep learning. It is the ability of machines to be taught how to think or at least deduce the way we humans do. It is extremely powerful because it never forgets the information it’s given or the rules it is taught. This AI, however, is a very long way from artificial general intelligence (AGI) or machines so smart they are more intelligent than humans.
Well … actually, that’s a misstatement. AGI isn’t such a long way off. Most experts now predict that AI will graduate to AGI around the year 2040. But that’s a subject for another time.
As to the machine partnership, it already exists. As I describe in my book Circa 2118, this partnership will unfold in three distinct phases of human involvement. I’ll use the car to illustrate the sequence:
The Machine Associate. The first phase in the partnership occurred in the last 3-5 years, when auto companies started to load AI into the onboard computers in our cars. We now rely on that technology to help us brake when we’re not paying attention, to keep us in our lane when we’re drowsy and to navigate to our desired destination without a map. This AI is a helper, a resource to which we can assign tiresome or special tasks. We humans, however, are still very much in charge because we’re still driving the car. We’re the managing partner, and AI is the associate.
The Machine Junior Partner. This phase in the partnership is now emerging. We’ve all read about driverless cars. They’re already extremely capable and getting better every day. Their AI overlays the capabilities of phase one with the ability to transport us from point A to B, to heed and follow road signs and to adjust for and interoperate with other drivers on the road. Despite all that, however, the law in every state does not permit these driverless cars on the road without a human driver along for the ride. In essence, we humans are the fail-safe system in the car and that makes us the senior partner and the machine the junior partner in the relationship. If something goes wrong, if the machine encounters something new or different, if there’s a glitch in the software, it’s up to us to take over and drive the car.
The Machine Senior Partner. News reports are already starting to appear that underscore the fallacy of making humans the fail-safe system in a car. We’re frequently inattentive. We get drowsy. We spill our coffee in our lap and take our eyes off the road. In short, we’re far too fallible, too … well, too human, to be the reliable backup needed in a car. So, after driverless cars hit the road, after they become as common as the traffic during commute time, AI developers will take the technology to the next level. They will produce intelligent machines that are simply better at being the fail-safe system in a car. At that point, those machines will become the senior partner in the relationship. People will still continue to employ their cars for travel, of course, but they’ll be no more than baggage the machine transports.
Now, think about what that last phase of the machine partnership portends for us humans in the world of work. When machines are making all the decisions, when we become baggage and are simply along for the ride, most employers are going to see us as an unnecessary and unwanted expense. They’re going to exercise “good business judgment” and terminate us by the tens of thousands.
That reality is what makes mastering the Machine Partnership Life Cycle so essential to surviving and prospering in the world of work. First, you’ve got to pay attention and know where you are. In which phase of the life cycle is your profession, craft or trade. And in which phase is your current employer. Second, based on that knowledge, you’ve got to take steps to insulate yourself from termination. If machines are your junior partner, be the best senior partner you can be. Know the technology and how to employ it to best advantage. And if machines have become your senior partner, take steps to move away from the threat. The technology’s introduction will be uneven, so for a while at least, it will be possible to find another employer that hasn’t yet become totally dependent on it. That’s where you want to work.
The shift to an AI-based workplace is inevitable and irreversible. It will unfold as a machine partnership, and the life cycle of that partnership is already underway. The choice you have to make, therefore, is whether you’ll be a smart partner or a sacked one. And now is the time to make up your mind.