The past 10 years have seen tremendous technological advances. Life for many of us has changed dramatically, from online services to ever-evolving smartphones, wireless internet, high definition TVs and even driverless cars.
But the impact of technology is not all positive. Gillian Tett, US managing editor of the Financial Times, told a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos in January 2015 that there is some bad news too: “There are estimates that within the next 10 to 20 years, 45% of jobs in America will be replaced by digital machines – and that’s just America,” she said.
Tett was chairing a debate on 21 January discussing inclusive growth in the digital age or – as Tett paraphrased – the question of how on earth do we create enough jobs when the world is full of robots, barcodes and smartphones?
Panellists, however, had a more optimistic view of the future.
Vishal Sikka, chief executive officer and managing director of software company Infosys, who has a doctorate in artificial intelligence, said he did not foresee a situation in the near future where people would become irrelevant. “There are always things that require human judgment and oversight,” he said. “Technology may create a temporary replacement of jobs but it also creates a set of tremendous opportunities.” In the long run, he said, technology always makes people more productive.
Sikka’s view was echoed by Hans Vestberg, president and chief executive of Swedish multinational Ericsson, said technology has the potential to transform society over the next five years as well as sectors such as transport, logistics, software and finance.
Vestberg forecast that while most people in the world do not yet have a smartphone, by 2020, 85% will have 3G or 4G. “People will be connected; businesses will be transformed,” he said.
Vestberg acknowledged this would create challenges, but said most developments are positive for our planet. One challenge for companies, he pointed out, was the need for new skills. In his own company, he said, the workforce is growing but changing. He said Ericsson hired about 19,000 new members of staff in 2014, but 14,000 people left the company, because it is changing so fast. “It’s the only way for us to remain relevant to our customers,” he said.
Peter Gauer, chairman of Bloomberg, agreed. He argued that institutions, including educational establishments, will have to change to take advantage of the technological renaissance we are all in the midst of. Grauer said political leaders needed to change some of the fundamental premises of such organisations, in order to create an environment where technology can be used to create jobs and minimise income disparity.
But instead of waiting to see how the technological revolution is going to affect people’s lives, Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the Initiative on the Digital Economy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argued that people should start changing their attitudes towards technology. “We have more powerful tools than we’ve ever had in history,” he said, adding that the real question is what we want to do with these tools. “We decide. And once we realised that, we can shape the world to create shared prosperity.”
Ajay Banga, chief executive of MasterCard, went further to highlight the productivity gap caused by people not having access to technology. Currently, he said, 2.5bn adults around the world don’t have access to any form of financial services: “Just translate that into lost productivity for a second and think about having to pay a bill and stand in a queue because you can’t pay it the way you and I are used to; or not being able to send money to your mother or brother without some unbelievable cost involved,” he said. “That’s a pretty unproductive group of people – that’s half the world’s adults.”
He also explained that unemployment can be caused by people’s inability to access certain networks. He said: “I believe the reason that jobs aren’t there or that people face difficulties is that they’re missing from a network. So if governments invest in technology, education and infrastructure and if we as the others can help network people, then you have a real chance to talk about a future that will be very different from the very gloomy prognosis that 45% [of jobs in America will be replaced by digital machines].”
Content on this page is provided by MasterCard – supporter of the Guardian Public Leaders inclusive growth hub.
