Dr Ritesh Malik, a technology entrepreneur and innovation specialist based in India, argues that “the future of work isn’t about displacement of work by machines but rather has more to do with restructuring of the human skillset”.
These words seek to dispel the myth that the future of work is a competition between technology and human capability rather than an opportunity to rethink how we as societies expend human skills. This myth that the robots will take all our jobs has been repeated so often around the world that it has become common sense and goes largely unchallenged as academics, business communities, worker organisations and policy makers debate economic policy for the future.
In Africa generally, and SA in particular, where the demographic landscape is skewed towards young people below the age of 35 being the majority, high levels of youth unemployment reinforce the need to have a plan for the future of work with policy innovations in mind that will harness the best of our human potential while not falling further behind as technology develops.
The fourth industrial revolution has become the centre of most ideas around the future of work. The moves in technology towards more artificial intelligence (AI) comes with threats to many jobs in manufacturing, retail, agriculture, mining, financial services and other labour-intensive sectors.
Single task jobs are easily mechanised and provide opportunities for AI booms that replace these simple tasks with increasingly complex systems. In capitalist societies that have largely built wealth on the back of millions of single-task jobs, the labour battles will quickly move from exploitation to displacement and the need for just transitions for people who are already underemployed into new skills that may keep them employed at the very least.
In a country where the ability to work is one of the main sources of dignity, humanity and even access to basic human needs food and shelter, we must contend with this as more than an impending economic crisis. Future mass job losses are a humanitarian crisis of a different kind.
To date, most proposed solutions focus on how the economy will be changed by tech but if we understand that this is a human crisis, perhaps our focus in designing policy and practical solutions will shift towards more human-centred solutions. If we do, the question is no longer what jobs the robots will take, but rather what human capabilities will the robots free us up to explore.
For many people, menial and low-skill work has not only become a poverty trap but has trapped them in lives that are geared towards mere survival rather than the best use of their full human potential. If a talented artist, whose current job is working a teller machine that can be replaced by AI were displaced, perhaps we as a society have created an opportunity to allow that person to pursue that artistic talent that could have been undiscovered forever.
If someone who is an intuitive counsellor could explore a career in social work rather than be a cleaner because they could not afford a quality education, our society would do well if we used technology to do the work of a cleaner and invested the money saved to educate a mental health practitioner. Yes, technology will change the landscape of work, but societies must respond with innovations that promote skills that enable the best of our human potential to emerge.
According to the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Jobs Report, the top five skills needed for the future are: analytical thinking – critical thinking and analysis, creativity, originality, initiative, leadership skills and social influence. While maths, science and technology skills are important for the future, this list shows us that the opportunities for work lie well beyond hard technical skills.
This range of skills can be learned in the creative arts, the humanities, social sciences, business and natural sciences. They can produce work in tech, the social sector, tourism, retail and the sports and leisure industries. As SA, we must apply ourselves to re-conceptualising an economy that is diverse enough to innovate multiple and new sectors and inclusive enough to cut across various existing inequalities in ways that open opportunities to many who have already been left behind of our economy.
Every industrial revolution in human history has changed the future of work. Work opportunities have been lost and new forms of work have been created. Our job, as a society entrusted with SA’s future, is to use the advances of technology to free and enable new, better and more humane work practices that free more people to use their best abilities to create the best versions of their lives and contribute to shaping a just, fair and safe society where every person has a good quality of life.
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