AI Will Be Enabler for Different Kinds of Jobs in Future
The future of work will be about lifelong learning,
and artificial intelligence will become an enabler of different kinds of jobs,
says Julio A Portalatin,
president and chief executive of Mercer, a leading human resources consulting
firm. “AI is going to be a job displacer but not a job eliminator,” he
tells Saumya Bhattacharya.
Edited excerpts:
Where is the future of work
going?
The future of work is a term that we are using to
prepare people to start thinking about how they need to position themselves for
success in the future. It encompasses the impact it is going to have on
governance, education, learning, employees and on the way, we have to think
about what success will look like in future. The first element that people tend
to talk about is technology. Let’s take one sliver of that—AI. Depending on
what statistics you look at, AI will provide skills that are currently being
done by 30-50% of the workforce. That does not mean this will displace 30-50%
of the workforce, because things don’t stay stagnant and skills change. All
said and done, AI learns from people. So, people have to think of themselves in
terms of preparing for that future in the mode of lifetime learning. The work
journey will be about lifetime learning. AI is going to be a job displacer but
not a job eliminator. Ultimately, AI will become an enabler for different kinds
of jobs in the future.
How will AI be a displacer?
An example of that would be AI’s ability to
algorithmically do the rudimentary, repeatable type of jobs. Chatbots will be
used with much more frequency in operations where there is the general
repetitive type of activity. There are other judgemental activities that are
less likely to be disrupted. AI should be looked at as an opportunity for
success and not as a threat.
What will be the impact of this
disruption on the workforce?
I think organisations will not be able to go outside
to look for skills because skills will not be available outside. You really
must think about it in a multidimensional way. How do I transition skills of
good performers today so they can be the good performers of the future?
Organisations need to think how to make this transition to bridging the skills.
How can countries like India
look at the retirement gap?
The world has got a potential crisis looming: we have
people living longer which is not a bad thing, but it presents a social
challenge. We have analysis to show there is a significant gap in what is
needed to retire and what is available to retire. Closing that gap is a really
important element. Many of the solutions to close that gap are not popular. We
are moving through a stage where the word ‘retirement’ is going to be obsolete.
Our surveys globally show that 70% of people don’t plan to retire ever. Either
they want to maintain a certain lifestyle or they want to stay active. I can
assure you there are jobs. There are just not jobs for skills of certain
people. In every country of the world, there are thousands of unfilled jobs and
that’s because there is skills gap that needs to be plugged.
ET20MAR18
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