Jobs Are Disappearing to the Digital Revolution

Sophisticated robots and computing power are transforming workplaces worldwide on a scale and at a speed that's unprecedented. Experts compare the change to the industrial revolution more than two centuries ago - and they're predicting major social upheaval as a result. It is called the Digital Revolution

Businesses are riding the tidal wave of the digital revolution and are steadily wiping out jobs that don’t fit with electronic requirements. This is a dominant theme of our lifetimes, as new jobs are being created and others are being eliminated at a pace humanity hasn’t seen before.

Countless jobs were eliminated in the past as we transitioned through economic revolutions. And in the long run humanity was better off for it. Most Americans once worked on farms. But even as those jobs disappeared, we found new ones. And the economy and our quality of life kept growing.

Just as the agrarian and industrial revolutions made us more efficient and created more value, it follows that the digital revolution will do the same. Yes, we’ve been through revolutions before, but never one this fast. Computing power doubles every two years. This makes it harder for us to plan out our careers, and identify the skills that can’t be automated. Because these changes are happening so fast, the number of workers whose skills suddenly become worthless will be larger than in past transitions.

If self-driving cars and automated drone delivery become a reality, what happens to every delivery driver, truck driver and cab driver? Swaths of the population won’t be able to be retrained with skills needed in the new economy. Inequality will rise.

Gartner is forecasting some major changes in technology, especially in areas like 3D printing, machine learning and voice recognition. They are all powerful trends that will reduce the need for workers, and, as a consequence, bring social unrest, the analyst firm said. In the industrial revolution, and revolutions since, there was an invigoration of jobs. For instance, assembly lines for cars led to a vast infrastructure that could support mass production giving rise to everything from car dealers to road building and utility expansion into new suburban areas.

But the Digital Revolution is not following the same path, said Daryl Plummer, a Gartner analyst at the research firm's Symposium ITxpo. 
"What we're seeing is a decline in the overall number of people required to do a job," he said. Plummer points to a company like Kodak, which once employed 130,000, versus Instagram's 13. Gartner sees social unrest movements, similar to Occupy Wall Street, emerging again by 2014.
"Occupy-type Wall Street movements are going to grow," he said during his presentation of the "Top 10 Strategic Predictions." Plummer looked at trends in time frames over the next 10 years.
Here are the remaining predictions from Gartner:
    By 2016, the 3D printing of tissues and organs, called bioprinting, will cause a global debate about regulating the technology or banning it. Bioprinting is just one aspect of 3-D, but it illustrates, dramatically, the potential of this technology. "If you are an enterprise, you have got to start preparing your people for the notion that 3-D printing can go a long way," said Plummer. "If you start printing products, distribution systems change; the software for them changes, where the work is done changes."
    By 2018, 3D printing will result in the loss of at least $100 billion a year in intellectual property globally. This could be particularly hard on a small business. "It's now easy to steal an entire business," said Plummer.
    By 2017, more than half of consumer goods manufacturers will get 75% of their consumer innovation and R&D capabilities from crowd-sourcing. Companies are already soliciting customer feedback in product design and direction.
    By 2017, 80% of consumers will give up private information in exchange for some type of benefit. "People are getting more used to the idea," said Plummer.
    By 2020, enterprises and government will fail to protect 75% of sensitive data. "The reality is you don't protect it today," said Plummer, of the data. The alternative is to give up access to data that really isn't sensitive, and not try to protect all data access the board. "We should be focusing on the data that really needs to be protected," he said.
    By 2024, machines will play a bigger role in protecting humans with "non-overridable 'smart systems,'" says Gartner. Cars are already getting this technology, such as a braking system that can respond faster than a human.
    By 2020, smart machines will disrupt knowledge workers in both positive and negative ways. Imagine training your replacement, a machine, to take over your job. The thing to watch, says Gartner, are revenues earned by IBM from Watson, the Jeopardy-playing supercomputer. Gartner expects Watson to account for 1.5% of IBM revenues by the end of 2015, and 10% by 2018.

Washington Post: http://wapo.st/1OQQfzA
Computerworld: http://bit.ly/1R8vdtI