This article examines how AI is predicted to impact us in the future.
Picture if you will a dystopian near future in which artificial intelligence (AI) has stolen your job (the one you were wrongly told would be safe from the ravages of technology), and that of everyone around you. No longer will we have city traders managing funds on behalf of their clients. Algorithms will work 24-hours a day, leaving you to have a lie in, possibly permanently. Universal Credit will be truly universal. Solicitors? Forget it - intelligent expert machines will listen to clients and recommend the best course of action, use AI to predict outcomes, calculate settlements and the courts will be full of robots politely discussing the fine minutiae of law as they trawl their limitless database of information, in super quick time. As the speed at which virtual courts have been implemented, will courts even exist outside of the cloud?
Great swathes of middle management jobs are predicted to be overtaken by AI. Even high-skilled surgeons will not be exempt – imagine a world where ‘never events’ no longer exist because robots are able to perform surgery with 100% accuracy, every time; an impossible ask of any human being let alone a doctor who is averaging 80-hour weeks due to NHS staff shortages.
Technology
Industrial robotics has the potential to change manufacturing by increasing precision and productivity without incurring higher costs. 3D printing can generate a new ecosystem of companies providing printable designs on the web, making customised products. The ‘Internet of Things’ offers the possibility to connect machines and equipment to each other and to common networks, allowing for manufacturing facilities to be fully monitored and operated remotely. In health care and life sciences, data driven decision-making, which allows the collection and analysis of large datasets, is already changing R&D, clinical care, forecasting and marketing. The use of big data in health care has led to highly personalised treatments and medicines.
AI
AI is a collective term for computer systems that can sense their environment, think, learn, and take action in response to what they are sensing and their objectives. Forms of AI in use today include digital assistants, chatbots and machine learning, amongst others. Some of the forms of AI are:
Automated intelligence: automation of manual/cognitive and routine/non-routine tasks.
Assisted intelligence: helping people to perform tasks faster and better.
Augmented intelligence: helping people to make better decisions.
Autonomous intelligence: automating decision making processes without human intervention.
The waves of change are coming
PWC, who seeing automation and AI close on the horizon, conducted a study entitled ‘Sizing the prize: PwC’s Global Artificial Intelligence Study: Exploiting the AI Revolution’, involving 200,000 roles in 29 countries to understand the pros and cons of this technology, believe that AI will leverage digital data to revolutionise all aspects of our lives. Their assessment is that change will come in three distinct waves, and with each wave resulting in more jobs currently performed by humans becoming automated:
Algorithmic wave in the early 2020s – it is expected this will result in 3% of jobs being automated as algorithms assist humans to gain rapid insights they could not previously
Augmentation wave in the late 2020s – In this period, machines will continue to work with humans to assist them in their decision making but will now begin to learn from their mistakes (adaptive systems).
Autonomy wave in the mid-2030s – during this wave, autonomous machines will take over approximately 30% of jobs that currently exist.
The Covid-19 pandemic is likely to have accelerated these changes.
Don’t panic….yet.
PWC foresee a gradual replacement of the need for humans in some jobs as machines become better at performing tasks for themselves. However, it is important to understand that the scale of impact will vary from industry to industry. Transport, for example, is expected to see half of its jobs done by automated machines, but healthcare is expected to see only around 20% of jobs taken over by AI.
How will AI and automation impact professional roles?
The global banking sector, according to McKinsey & Company, is keenly pursuing automation technologies as a means to allow humans to focus on ‘higher value’ projects, while the robots do the transactional work. We have seen this with the rise of the chatbots, which according to McKinsey, have not proven particularly effective in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. They believe automated technology in the finance sector is rapidly maturing and will lead to 10 – 25% of banking functions becoming automated, freeing workers to move onto new growth opportunities.
In the field of law, AI is already transforming discovery; the process whereby documents are reviewed for evidence within a case. eDiscovery now means that AI-driven software can sift through thousands of documents in a fraction of time it would take a human, using natural language and self-learning technology. Also, software can review previous cases and statistically predict the outcome of legal proceedings before they are played out. So, are we about to have robot solicitors anytime soon? Perhaps to a very limited extent. Wevorce.com is a US divorce service that is already utilising an AI-powered machine to guide clients through the divorce process (although a human law professional is on hand when needed); such a solution is therefore already available to handle the legal process of divorce.
Admittedly this is not going to completely replace a solicitor given the wide range of legal knowledge they possess, but it shows the direction of travel for the legal profession. AI will undoubtedly play a huge role in the legal sector in coming decades; therefore, it is imperative that firms prepare adequately to compete.
Adaptive Workforce and Skills Shortages
The level of digital skills shortages in the UK and skilled workers may decelerate the pace of technological change and inhibit growth. Rather than address this challenge, a Government announcement was to introduce Latin as a subject in state schools rather than Javascript or Python.
In conclusion
The rise of AI and automation should not cause professionals to lose sleep at night. Despite the fairly pessimistic views of futurists such as Elon Musk, there is a huge upside to this emerging revolution, but it needs to be embraced by everyone, not repelled; after all, it is already here. David Halliwell, Director of Knowledge and Innovation Delivery at Pinsent Masons, is a firm believer that law firms need to be active in this space otherwise the technology players will dominate. “[law firms] run the risk of being cut out of the picture by technology providers who will be able to go directly to in-house legal teams and provide them with solutions that don’t need to be underwritten by a law firm” he states.
I can’t guarantee your job will be safe in 30 years time, but by being part of these new waves of technology, your career and business can flourish. After all, look at what the internet revolution has done for us; the technological revolutions just on the horizon have the potential to do even more if we embrace them.
In later articles I explore the discriminatory or equalising effect of algorithms and the use of AI in the workplace.
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