Technology and artificial intelligence are part of our reality and go through the knowledge society. However, too ...
Technology and artificial intelligence are part of our reality and go through the knowledge society. However, too much focus on technology can lead us to underestimate the human condition.
By Martín Padulla for staffingamericalatina
There are not many human needs. We can basically divide them in three groups: basic needs, linked to food, water, air and shelter; relation needs, linked to the sense of belonging and respect; and affection needs, which are related to love. When needs are attended, a human being is fit to develop his/her potential and fulfill him/herself. Everything else belongs to the area of desire, which has an opposite path to the path of needs. It is about fleeting satisfactions that normally arise uncertainty, anxiety and anguish.
Work plays a key role when talking about both, needs and wishes. And if we think about the future of work, the issue starts becoming more complex.
We are overwhelmed by the future. Actually, the present time is so changing and vertiginous that we can already tell that nothing will be as it was. And there are different perspectives on this, particularly regarding the impact of technology on employment creation and on the labor world.
The debate is clear: whether technology, artificial intelligence and algorithms will eliminate (they are eliminating) jobs or whether they will create (they are creating) new jobs.
As in many other aspects of reality, we are witnessing two very different and opposing visions. Some seem to have brought luddism back to life. Luddism is a movement that, during the Industrial Revolution, strongly opposed to machines that eliminated jobs. Others seem to support panglossionism, a concept that makes reference to Doctor Plangloss, a fictional character with whom Voltaire turns Leibniz’s philosophy into a caricature in his novel “Candide”, and according to whom “everything necessarily serves the best end”. It has become an adjective for those who manifest unsupported optimism.
I admit a sociological bias when I state that the interpretation of every social phenomenon is strongly influenced by the concept or paradigm that is our starting point. A particular phenomenon can be interpreted in different and even contradictory ways, and this actually makes the analysis richer as it enables the possibility of addressing it from different perspectives.
Even if we start on the premise that it would not be a good idea to be close-minded around technological progress, both luddites and panglossionists look exaggerated and do not seem to grasp every dimension of change.
Some triggers to start thinking:
There are categories strongly rooted in the zeitgeist that in practice are being questioned. The idea of nation-state does not seem solid for young people. Mobility is a key factor as new generations are more nomad and less attached than previous ones. The structuring of our societies will be completely different. And different implies adaptation.
Economics and sociology are dealing with happiness as an object of study. How do inequality and low social cohesion operate in happiness? Are we heading towards more integrated societies? Or towards societies with weaker bonds? Or towards societies with links and bonds completely different to the current ones, mainly due to technology?
Branko Milanovic, the Serbian-American economist and professor at the City University of New York, claims that when a country has high levels of inequality, though it may be legally considered as a country, it actually consists of many different countries that cannot function as a society. This may explain, for instance, why middle-class youth from urban conglomerates of different countries show stronger levels of identification among themselves than with lower-class youth from their own cities.
Are we heading towards societies more focused on needs or on desires?
If we anticipate and consider valid the hypothesis of digital technologies preventing the creation of employment, history will show us that it probably is just a temporary phenomenon. As workers adjust their skills and entrepreneur generate opportunities based on new technology, employment creation will rebound.
Every warning sign turns on with the crisis of middle-classes. Apparently, the unhappiest sectors are also the most threatened ones. In addition, there is the thought that higher levels of productivity, due to new technologies, generate risks in several countries in our region. The equation is the following: in standstill contexts, with gaps between students’ formation and the needs of the private sector, technological development can aggravate the fall of labor participation and increase the concentration of income and wealth, unless active efforts are made to strengthen inclusive labor training. One of the reasons for this is that, in several countries in the region, workforce is intensive in mid-level qualifications, and is particularly vulnerable to being replaced by automation. Is it really so? Will the changes of the labor world due to technology be temporary while the workforce adapts, or shall we live surrounded by automatized processes and robots with pseudo human capacities?
Whatever the answer may be, a different articulation between education and labor appears to be urgent. Despite the fact that education does not assure social mobility nor eliminates inequality, there are no opportunities without it. It is a mandatory but not sufficient condition.
Since Schultz’s Theory on Human Capital, back in 1960, which claims that knowledge and skills have economic value and can be traded in the market, the frontier between work and capital has been blurred. This paradigm legitimates education as an investment, as the key to a meritocratic society, with equal opportunities, in which motivated and trained individuals are responsible for their position and social mobility. Human Capital’s Theory has become a symbol of modernization.
According to Milanovic, 70% of a person’s income depends on where he/she was born and on his/her parents’ social class. If this is true, then we are far away from living in truly meritocratic societies. Can we build them? Of course we can, but we need to set several changes.
Another issue to consider is relevance but, what is relevance if we do not know what jobs will the companies of the future demand? How can we create human capital that increases productivity?
Some say the key is in regulatory frameworks. We cannot regulate the future with regulations from the past.
The successful Mexican businessman, Carlos Slim, says that companies would increase their productivity if workers only had three working days per week. He believes that this would deliver more free time and greater satisfaction for workers. In addition, they would have more time for leisure and therefore could provide their knowledge and experience even after they turn 65 years old. An inevitable debate.
Even though I cannot assure that robots will replace human work, I am certain that some workers already interact with robots at work, and that this trend will go up. It is a very intense change in itself.
Are we training students to work with robots? Will we be capable of making the most of robots’ capacity to increase our productivity? Will we be agile enough to adapt to constant changes? Will we be able to unlearn and relearn quickly? Will we create the skills that, together with a greater or lower level of automation, shall reduce the carbon and hydrogen print? Will robotics provide more time for humans’ labor and extra labor activities? Could we have a great opportunity with the crisis of the future of employment?
The big bet seems to be developing skills based on demand that cannot be replaced by robotics. Abilities linked to interpersonal skills, team work, creativity, innovation, the capacity of inspiring people, communicating, getting excited, committing and making others commit.
Machines can improve or damage the future of work. This shall strongly depend on the human capacity to create more sustainable environments that consider work as an essential vehicle for human dignity. The idea of a future that may include us in a very different way than today.
Maybe the key is in our capacity to play, experiment and identify the uses that artificial intelligence may provide. Including technology to pedagogy from a very early stage, rewarding the idea of “it is better to fail quickly” to keep on creating in a disruptive way. Promoting cultural changes that promote entrepreneurship and the creation of more modern, dynamic, flexible and inclusive labor markets.
Those who manage to connect to their needs and set them apart from their desires, may detect and understand other people’s needs. If emotion is a vital element of learning, we must generate memorable experiences and use technology to educate upstanding people who shall be leaders of the human dimension of the future.
For some reason, I find the idea of a delivery robot bringing me a pizza more likely than the idea of a robot taking care of me during my elderly years. Probably, when we near the end, a human caress is as necessary as the air itself. Maybe it all sums up to needs and desires…
About Martin Padulla
Founder and Managing Director of staffingamericalatina. Martin Padulla is Sociologist (USAL), MBA (UCA) and labour markets expert. He published “Flexible Work in South America” and “Regulatory framework for private employment agencies in Latin America” two books about the new realities of work in Latin America.
mpadulla@staffingamericalatina.com
About staffingamericalatina
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