Are you ready to fight a robot for your job? If you are an excellent communicator of complex ideas, it may be a more fair fight for you... at least for now. This brief video will get our conversation started:
So who is leading the charge on this robot takeover? Along with Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, (the Four Horsemen of the Technocolypse), Apple is gearing up for the fast approaching future of human/machine interaction.
Earlier this year Apple, Inc. announced that they would be joining The Partnership for AI. Last week at their WWDC conference, Apple mentioned Machine Learning and AI with nearly every new product and service. And yet, the ability to hold a conversation with Siri, Alexa, Cortana, or Google Assistant still eludes us.
Now you might say, 'I can order a pizza, ask for directions to a movie theater, and check flight times at any airport in the world, isn't that communicating with AI?' In a sense yes, but those are still narrow focus interactions. You also might say, 'but I can text a bot my questions about a company, or pay my phone bill with an IVR system, isn't that communicating with AI?' Closer yes, but the topics, and areas of conversation are still narrowly focused on key subjects.
As the video stated, computers are great at doing simple repetitive tasks. However computers still have a ways to go in terms of handling a robust conversations that varies widely from subject to subject. This my friends, is a key area that you should explore in your work to keep the bots off your back! Looking for examples?
Easy to replicate: You regularly answer incoming questions about accounts receivable. Each day you answer emails and trouble-shoot pending transactions. Although the people involved may change, the subject is always the same.
Hard to replicate: Perhaps your company is working on developing a new product. You will need to find suppliers for raw materials, vendors for third party sales, and agencies for advertising and selling your new product. An algorithm or AI bot will have a hard time coordinating these disparate events, while maintaining the flexibility to change features or design elements as the project progresses.
In the end, we are all on this conveyor belt to tomorrow, and taking a moment to recognize the importance of building the lifelong skill of lifelong learning is hopefully becoming more and more relevant for you. In my next post I'll tackle Bot collaboration and several ways you too can start becoming a machine shepherd, ready for whatever our automated future might hold.
Want to learn about how machine learning is evolving to impact the future of your career? Find more at zacengler.com
Links to posts in this series & more:
1) Ideation
2) Large Frame Pattern Recognition
3) Complex Communication
4) Future-proofing Your Career
5) A.I. Stepping Into Life Series
Follow Zac on Twitter: @zacengler