spinofflive
Companies are striving to humanise computers in such a way to make some work obsolete. Photo: Soul Machines
Companies are striving to humanise computers in such a way to make some work obsolete. Photo: Soul Machines

FutureJuly 29, 2019

Say goodbye to 9-5: How robots are transforming jobs for the better

Companies are striving to humanise computers in such a way to make some work obsolete. Photo: Soul Machines
Companies are striving to humanise computers in such a way to make some work obsolete. Photo: Soul Machines

The rise of the machines will radically transform the way we work. Jobs will disappear. New ones will emerge. But what if the perceived threat of technology is really an opportunity to be more human?

The machines are coming for our jobs, but we don’t need to freak out about it. Because, let’s face it, most of us don’t like our jobs that much anyway, and there’s other stuff we’d rather be doing. The rise of the machines – automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and robots – is real. Digital humans, powered by AI, will be working alongside us in the future. If you work at Air New Zealand, ANZ or Vector, you’ve already got a digital colleague. They even have names: Sophie, Jamie and Will. If your job is repetitive and programmable, one of these hyper-realistic digital humans might even replace you in the future.

Digital humans, created by New Zealand company Soul Machines, are already capable of replacing and supplementing real humans in some roles. But the technology is just getting started. Soul Machines is currently developing digital humans for the healthcare, human resources, education and entertainment spaces.

“We are already working with some of the world’s leading brands in a wide range of industries and use cases,” says Soul Machines co-founder and chief business officer, Greg Cross.

“It’s an opportunity for almost endless imagination.”

A version of Ava, the virtual assistant, created by Soul Machines. Photo: Soul Machines

Digital humans are just one example of how automation is disrupting the way we work. Robots are picking kiwifruit in the Bay of Plenty, milking cows in the Waikato, transporting containers at Ports of Auckland, and assisting with surgeries across the country. Self-driving vehicles and smart self-checkout shopping carts are just around the corner.

A Productivity Commission report in April, titled Technological change and the future of work included the prediction that 46% of work in New Zealand was at high risk of automation. That risk went up to 70% for labourers, machinery operators and drivers, and clerical and administration workers.

The OECD estimates 14% of existing jobs could “disappear” as a result of automation and 32% are likely to be radically reshaped.

But New Zealand’s futurists and technology experts don’t think the so-called “robot redundancy” or “jobocalypse” is something to freak out about. They’re optimists who believe humans and machines can co-exist peacefully and productively.

Soul Machines co-founder and chief business officer Greg Cross. Photo: Soul Machines

The soul in the machine

The great unknown is just how powerful AI will become in the future. This will determine the extent to which it disrupts the way we work. Right now, AI has what’s called “narrow” intelligence. It’s programmed to complete specific tasks. For example, there’s an AI that can play chess and that’s all it does. There’s an AI that can drive cars, but it can’t teach calculus to high school students… yet.

Humans have what’s called “general” intelligence, a unique cognitive ability to think and reason across different domains and acquire knowledge to apply to unfamiliar tasks and problems. 

If AI stays within the bounds of “narrow” intelligence, its impact on jobs will be significant, but limited. The thing is, companies like Elon Musk’s OpenAI and Google’s DeepMind are working hard to build a general AI, the likes of which would be indistinguishable from the human mind. Build that, and AI taking our jobs might be the least of our worries.

Cross says that he’s more interested in building a world where humans and machines work collaboratively, where AI enhances our jobs and helps us to do them better. “We believe very strongly that the work we are doing is about human and machine cooperation, not humans vs machines.”

That’s the future that Sarah Hindle, Tech Futures Lab general manager, imagines as well. She says the conversation around automation has focused on what jobs the machines will take over. But the better question to ask is: how do humans and machines work together in the workplace? Take the example of mental health services, something that’s “woefully lacking” in New Zealand; a digital human can be used as the first point of contact for a patient. It can ask questions, give advice, and provide preliminary diagnoses. And it can do this from any location at any time, on-demand and at a minimal cost. The feedback collected from the patient can be passed on to a human therapist who can assess the case and provide higher-level care.

“Often those digital humans are really good at making initial diagnoses,” Hindle says. “I don’t see it as replacing mental health services as done by humans, I see it as complementary.”

Asked if this human-machine symbiosis would be possible in the future, Cross says: “Absolutely. We are already doing this.”

Mental health is just one example of how AI can help to relieve pressure on overloaded services not by replacing us, but by working with us and freeing us up to focus on more important tasks. Cross says digital humans could also fulfil roles that many humans don’t want to do, like being teachers and doctors in remote, rural areas.

Tech Futures Lab general manager Sarah Hindle is passionate about creating social benefit through emerging technology.

More jobs than we can imagine 

Hindle also believes that the rise of automation, known as the fourth industrial age, will lead to a wave of job creation – jobs we can’t even imagine. “If you think of someone entering school now, something like 70% of the jobs [they will end up doing] don’t even exist yet.”

Just 20 years ago, no one could have predicted that a “social media manager” would have been a viable career for a graduate today. And who knew someone’s job title could be “influencer”?

“When I left high school a few decades ago, the tech industry barely existed,” Cross says. Now he’s helping to run a company at the cutting-edge of technology. 

“There will, of course, be many changes in the job market and industry in the fourth industrial revolution. Due to an unprecedented number of technologies coming to market at the same time, it will mean some jobs go away, it will mean the creation of new categories of jobs, it will mean reskilling and educating parts of the workforce. It may even mean a fundamental change to how we define the work week or the contribution of value to our societies and communities.”

Human-centred skills

Something that everyone seems to agree on is that innately human traits will continue to be valuable, and may even become more so in the automation age. Traits like creativity, imagination, empathy, intuition – the things that make us human.

“If you think about intuition, for an AI to display intuition you’d have to write it as a process,” says New Zealand future thinking, strategy and innovation consultant, Roger Dennis. “How do you take intuition and write it as a process? Same with empathy.”

Work will also evolve to account for the increasing demand for flexibility, autonomy and purpose, says Future of Work Collective co-founder, Sandra Chemin.

“Nowadays we have a lot of people who are very unhappy in their workplace,” she says. “So we really need to change the way we work and allow people to find what is meaningful to them.”

That could mean rethinking the 40-hour, nine-to-five, five-day work week, something which has barely changed in the last 100 years. It could involve allowing more staff to work remotely, establishing company “hubs” in regional centres, or simply getting better at guiding staff towards more fulfilling work. Over time and with the right education, this could mean fewer people on factory lines or in call centres, fewer corporate suits in poky offices, fewer taxi and long-haul truck drivers, and more people working in jobs that give them a sense of purpose – jobs they actually like.

“Automation will change the nature of work by making work more innovative and novel,” says AI Forum NZ executive director, Ben Reid. “People that are in jobs which are very repetitive and very linear process-driven, those jobs will become more interesting.”

We’re already starting to see this shift towards more meaningful work, according to Hindle. 

“I think people coming into the workforce are looking for organisations that are trying to make contributions to social good. Coders want to know the end use of their project – what is my coding going to be used for? Is it going to be ethical? That kind of purpose and ethics is really interesting.”

New Zealand innovation consultant Roger Dennis says human traits will become even more valuable in the new age.

The future is now

Roger Dennis isn’t falling for the hype. He says the rate of progress is more evolutionary than we like to think. Take banking, for instance: “When was the last time you went to the bank to sit down with a teller and withdraw or transfer money?”

The point he’s making is that the switch to ATMs and online and mobile banking has happened at such a moderate pace that we barely recognise it as revolutionary today. And yet, despite ATMs arriving in New Zealand in the 1980s, you can still see a human bank teller today if you want to.

The future of work is going to be radically different, but we can see it coming. AI, digital humans, robots and machines are already working alongside us, seamlessly changing the way we live and work.

“You’re seeing quite major technology shifts coming through but there’s not going to be any big bang sudden changes,” says Dennis. “[They’re] going to be gradual changes.”

This content was created in paid partnership with the Future of the Future festival. Learn more about our partnerships here

Keep going!
Space 10 is a future-living lab in Copenhagen dedicated to finding global, sustainable solutions to the major challenges of modern urban living. Photo: Space 10
Space 10 is a future-living lab in Copenhagen dedicated to finding global, sustainable solutions to the major challenges of modern urban living. Photo: Space 10

FutureJuly 25, 2019

The corporate rebel who convinced IKEA to imagine a future without furniture

Space 10 is a future-living lab in Copenhagen dedicated to finding global, sustainable solutions to the major challenges of modern urban living. Photo: Space 10
Space 10 is a future-living lab in Copenhagen dedicated to finding global, sustainable solutions to the major challenges of modern urban living. Photo: Space 10

From travelling the world pondering her existence to convincing a Swedish furniture giant to back a venture looking at the future of living, Carla Cammilla Hjort has lived several lives. Hjort, who is speaking at the Future of the Future conference next month, told Charles Anderson her story.

Carla Cammilla Hjort grew up as a dancer in her native Denmark. It was her real first experience of being creative in a creative world. She danced until she was 17 years old and then, on the cusp of going to university, she decided not to. Instead, she sat in a travel agency and booked 36 open-ended plane tickets, before getting into psychedelic drugs, philosophy and living life as a self-described “rebel”.

“It made sense to me to ask the big questions about who I am and why I am here,” she says from Copenhagen.

And so began a four-year journey around the world where she learned not to feel so attached to the things she was doing and the things she was feeling in any one moment. It taught her not to take anything too seriously, which then allowed her the confidence to pursue anything she wanted. It was the start of a life lived in accordance with “the rebel way”.

“The rebel way, for me, means you take the time to get to know yourself and nurture the journey and give it time and space. And also, to find the courage to live by a truth and your passion.”

Creative entrepreneur Carla Cammilla Hjort is the founder and director of Space 10 (Photo: Supplied)     

That passion saw her return from her travels and nurture a desire to make music. She invested in her first DJ equipment, but she couldn’t find anywhere to play. There was an untapped niche for the sort of music she and her friends wanted to hear. So, she started putting on parties herself and performing. Before she knew it, she was being booked out for weeks at a time and travelling all over the world as a DJ.

In 2006, partly funded by her music success, she started a studio that would help foster the type of creativity that she wanted to see in the world. Art Rebels became a network for artists, musicians, designers, filmmakers, cultural activists, web designers, and other creatives to create positive change. A year later, she set up the Trailerpark Festival, an annual music, art and technology event. Then, in 2008, she founded Rebel Agency, which worked with corporations, NGOs and government agencies to empower them to act as fast and passionately as a startup. It is this merger of creativity and entrepreneurialism that she wants to create on a broader scale.

“In so many ways there has never been a better time to be a creative,” she says. “For many years you have lived in a sad place as a creative. It was difficult to make a living.”

But now the sort of creativity Hjort manifested in her ventures is in high demand. “All these big companies ruling the world are getting scared now. The times are changing and a lot of them are pretty lost and confused and nervous. Their same recipe is not working any more and that’s why being creative as a lateral thinker is of really high value.”

That sort of thinking makes you an asset, she says. “It makes you able to challenge status quos and see new ways of behaving. You might see patterns and connect the dots, or make new patterns entirely.”

Carla Cammilla Hjort speaking at the Trailerpark Festival (Photo: Trailerpark Festival)

The pattern she saw several years ago was an opportunity for an innovation lab that would challenge the way we thought about the future of living. It began with a phone call from IKEA, the Swedish furniture behemoth that has 423 stores in 52 countries and last year made over NZ$4 billion in profit. The company’s top management were coming to Copenhagen for a strategy meeting and were looking to meet inspirational leaders. They had seen what Hjort was creating and wanted to meet with her.

She took IKEA’s chief executive on a journey through her work – the bringing together of innovation, creativity, design and entrepreneurship. Impressed, he asked if she would work for them and Hjort suggested that she design a collection. It was a big success.

A few years later that chief executive got back in touch. He had been made the global chief executive of IKEA’s parent company. They were wrestling with some hard questions – including what the company could look like in 20 years if it did not even design furniture They wanted Hjort’s help.

“It was a pretty open brief,” Hjort says. “I started thinking what can I do with my skills and community to design for the future of the world.”

She honed in on IKEA’s mission to create a better everyday life for people. “That was my golden key to unlock a lot of things.”

Instead of pitching an idea, she pitched a process and method for working with ideas. Her pitch was for an innovation lab that would tackle the future. It would examine what travel might look like in the future, what food might look like, what energy production would look like. Then it would try to unlock their potential through technology and design.

She came away from that pitching session with a three-year contract, and Space10 was born. Nestled in the heart of Copenhagen’s fashionable meatpacking district, it has become a hub of futurist thinking. Its mandate is to explore and design innovative and responsible business models that enable a more meaningful and sustainable life for people around the world. Its projects span almost everything.

The lab came up with “Tomorrow’s Meatball” – a project that explored some of the trends that are revolutionising food production, including lab-grown meat, algae harvesting, and even 3D food printing. Alternative ingredients such as proteins from algae, beet leaves or insects were used to create customised nutrient mixes that were “printed” on demand to meet the consumers’ aesthetic, cultural and nutritional preferences.

Its SolarVille project is a 50:1 model village that produces self-sufficient and sustainable electricity. It uses a combination of solar panels and blockchain technology to distribute solar energy efficiently. Hjort says this could be a solution for the 1.1 billion people on earth who have little or no electricity at all.

Space10 has also looked at urban farming and empowering people to grow their own food en masse in their own homes. Artificial lights and computerised automation make it possible to give plants exactly what they need in terms of water, minerals and oxygen. So Space10 built a prototype hydroponic farm in its own basement using materials 80% purchased from IKEA – meaning anyone else could do the same.

Even furniture that can harvest energy has been explored. What if we could harvest the wasted heat from things such as your morning pot of coffee, or the casserole cooling on the kitchen counter? Enter a Space10 prototype that used thermoelectric pads built into surfaces to capture heat that would otherwise be wasted and convert it into electricity that can recharge your phone or keep your laptop humming along.

An urban farming project created by Space10 (Photo: Space10)

Hjort says the projects that permeate Space10 are not just about good design, they are about good storytelling.

“We are not inventing anything. We are innovating by finding new ways to change old systems. We all know what needs to be done. Stories help that innovation emotionally connect. That is the only thing that is going to change our behaviour. We need to feel it and believe that this idea is really for me. The rest is a lot of hard strategic work.”

Hjort can’t say what the next step is for her – it is still in innovation. But she can say what that 17-year-old self who sat at the travel agency might think. “I think she would be pretty proud and excited and also tell me to remember to ‘always be a rebel’.”

Carla Cammilla Hjort’s five hopes for the future

  1. To see more women get in power – New Zealand is a wonderful example of that.
  2. I hope to see that we manage to transition into a green energy world – it’s possible it needs investment.
  3. I hope that we find a way to break this consumerism, hyper-capitalist attitudes and system. I hope the next generation will have fun with figuring out another way that is smarter.
  4. I hope that we will take care of each other when the shit hits the fan. The climate crisis will create millions of refugees. I hope we will find a way to come together as a global society to help those in real need instead of just those in our own backyard.
  5. I hope for a more equal and fairer world. With more love. It’s an old cliche, but we haven’t learned.

Carla Cammilla Hjort is one of six global thought leaders who will speak at The Future of The Future presented with Spark Lab, to be hosted at Auckland’s Aotea Centre on 15 August. To learn more, see www.futureofthefuture.co.nz

This content was created in paid partnership with the Future of the Future festival. Learn more about our partnerships here

But wait there's more!