How Automation and AI are Creating Jobs | Accelerate Success with Lorraine Moore

Too much sinister commentary abounds regarding the loss of jobs through automation and artificial intelligence (AI). Sensational headlines and statements suggest that many jobs held by the middle class will disappear in 20-30 years. Automation and AI will eliminate labour activities in mining, heavy equipment handling, welding and translation services. Voice activation could replace call center jobs. The sober headlines are completely missing the opportunities – the portion of the iceberg that lies under the water.

Why do we consider the elimination of boring, repetitive or potentially hazardous occupations to be a negative outcome?

As for the dire predictions for 20-30 years from now, one has a false sense of security if he/she is holding tight to being a second or third generation auto worker, bank teller, or even physician or IT developer. The former jobs may be eliminated and most professional jobs will change dramatically.

Utilizing at-home diagnostics coupled with video calls with a physician, consumers can avoid long wait times at urgent care clinics that harbour viruses. Also, physicians could then allocate in-office visits to serious illness, longer conversations about options to address more difficult diagnoses, and prevention. Is that not progress?

My grandfather was a lot of fun when I was a child but his ability to actively communicate was hampered by hearing loss from working in a hot, dark boiler room for many hours. As a teenager, my mother worked one summer in a factory where they made cookies, including some with a layer of icing between the two biscuits. Access to free cookies may sound like a 16–year-old’s dream, but after standing for many hours on a concrete floor, in a building with no air conditioning on the hot and humid dog days of August, she encouraged us to pursue much better alternatives. My sister worked as a camp counselor at a riding camp and I launched my own business, teaching swimming in backyard pools.

If technology can augment the role of teachers, enabling children to learn at their own pace and take the time they need to grasp a new concept in math or science, why are we fearful?

I want to know that students in kindergarten to grade 12 are being equipped with the skills to compete in a global world. I would love to see Canada and the US striving to prepare our children to be world leaders in innovation, technology and productivity. We have many challenges to be tackled by clever minds: climate change, eradicating superbugs (bacterial infections), pollution, unequal distribution of food and clean water, and a growing world population. All art forms – theatre, visual arts, maker faires, music and dance – enrich our societies.

I have great confidence in the power of human potential. I do not fear our ability to create great things and solve complex problems. I do worry at times about our ability to adapt and to let go of the past.

When we resist changes to the provision of healthcare, to our children’s education (perhaps no longer in classrooms), to replacing assembly line activities with robots, to modular home construction, to the closure of steel plants, there is an opportunity cost.

In a game of tug-of-war, we are holding firm against progress and innovation relative to the rest of the world and what is possible.

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