The Future of Work: Human Value in a Digital World

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INTRODUCTION

Over the last 40 years, I have observed with amazement, and occasional disbelief, how technology and innovation have transformed our everyday lives. This fascinating era has whisked us into the future with such a stunning acceleration in innovation that a tidal wave of disruptive change is ever following in its wake.

In those rare moments when my head stopped spinning, and I looked around, I saw that innovation and change play out in endless ways. That leads to a flood of questions. Why does a new idea succeed in one place but not another? What goes wrong? What actually works? And why? Does anyone really understand how a new technology will affect billions of human beings? How a single innovation can completely disrupt the global balance of power? These are just some of the questions in my head that started long ago and haven’t stopped since.

The strange, symbiotic and often dysfunctional relationships between people and technology led me to study everything I could find on the topic. This research exposed me to a fascinating history and rich debate going back centuries. My interest broadened as more and more factors came into play, and the resulting ‘scope creep’ became unsettling. History, sociology, economics, psychology and anthropology – I worried whether this journey would ever end. I was looking for answers, but I just found more and more questions. Just as I was about to throw in the towel, I reached a turning point. The mountain of data started to make some sense. And all of these sprawling questions collapsed into a handful.

•   Why do we as a society blindly accept new technology without giving much thought to consequences other than power and profit?

•   What will happen to our traditional economic systems when robotics and automation significantly displace human labor?

•   In a highly connected and automated digital world, what purpose will organizations and governments serve?

•   What will emerge from our ability to be persistently connected to anyone, anywhere?

•   What will become of jobs, careers and the idea of work itself?

And finally, these questions distilled into a single key question:

•   What is the value of a human being in a digital future?

This question casts a troubling shadow as my wife and I raise our teenage son. What education best prepares him for a future that’s so radically different? What guidance can I give him? How does he find fulfillment and happiness? How will success look? How will he earn the respect of his peers? What will he produce that others will value? Such questions of value, success, and respect inevitably converge upon the nature of our purpose in life. And for most of us, that purpose lies in our work.

Work is what we do, and work is what we have always done. Work defines us more than any other factor than perhaps age, gender, and race. So why do I not just accept that my son’s life will be a progression of my life? Just as mine was a progression of my father’s life and his of his father’s life? Before I started on this inquiry, I might have been able to settle for that safe answer. But today I know that this answer has become merely quaint. And the reason for this change is a never-ending stream of high frequency, disruptive technology.

A very, very long time ago, a hunting spear was new technology. Fire was new technology. Agriculture was new technology. We know that mankind has employed innovation and technology as long as we have walked the earth. So why is what’s happening now any different? The answer is the timing. Those innovations developed over many millennia. Now consider the innovations listed below:

1.   Computers

2.   Gene Sequencing

3.   Robotics

4.   Artificial Intelligence

5.   Nanoscale engineering

6.   Genetic & molecular engineering

7.   The Internet

8.   Mobiles

9.   Wearables and Implants

10. Trans-global commercial flight

All of these remarkable innovations and technologies have occurred within a single lifetime – that of my parent’s generation. Furthermore, each one has the catalytic power to alter the trajectory of the others radically. Such synergy has already generated outcomes beyond anyone’s understanding. This generation’s cornucopia of invention dwarfs both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment combined. Today, our powers go far, far beyond landing a man on the moon. It’s exciting. It’s terrifying. And it’s our children and grandchildren’s future.

So what human capabilities will we value in this remarkable future? One obvious answer is a mastery of technology. As the future unfolds, only those with such skills will be able to understand what’s going on and make informed decisions. Why? We have bet again and again on technology to better our existence on this planet. Indeed, technology has become synonymous with civilization. The real question we need to ask today is: Who’s in control? The answer isn’t our democratically elected leaders – it’s the technologists who ultimately control our destiny because they define the true currency of human wealth – innovation. Politicians may play the games of power, but technology creates this power and technologists refine it. But such technological power can have unintended consequences that are inherently disruptive.

Today, technology is not just augmenting the work we do; it is replacing those of us who do it. The organizations that employ us are being transformed first by technology, and then by secondary effects such as globalization, education, and even demographics. But technology isn’t the only skill that the future will ask of our children; the humanistic skills of collaborating with others will be even more valuable than today. As more and more human work is automated, it is becoming commoditized. Perhaps the most humanistic of our skills will become the most valuable. So what value will our current skills have in 2030 and beyond? Answering this simple question begins an unraveling of our basic assumptions about work, employment, and organizations. Technology is relentlessly dismantling our familiar structures, and we will never look at work the same way again.

This book is like an archeological exploration, and starts off by digging under the foundations of our society. We begin in the past and finish in the future, but the path between the two is far from a neat, linear progression. The tangled interplay between work, organizations, employment, technology and society itself is in a state of turbulent change. Our path, therefore, loops in and out of key topics several times, each with a different perspective. This is unavoidable for an author of my sophomoric skills; perhaps a more skilled writer could make the journey less bumpy. For this, I apologize in advance with the promise that the journey and the destination are worthwhile. To add to these precautions, I am not a passive observer and do not shy away from some provocative speculation. There are three concepts in this book that will likely confront conventional beliefs. The first is the idea of visualizing organizations operating within abstract dimensional space. The second is the deeply polarizing role of technology in creating a profound socio-economic division within our communities. And finally, my views on how people are subtly connected are sure to be regarded as ‘out there’ by some. On the positive side, you now have reassurance that you will be subjected to little that is conventional on the journey ahead.

So if you, like me, are blessed with children or grandchildren that will live to see this amazing future, this book will not disappoint you. If you are young enough to see it for yourself, I envy your opportunity to witness a future far different than what you may have been led to believe. Far from bleak, violent and dystopian, I have every reason to believe our future will be mind-bendingly dazzling. There are huge risks in the early use of the extraordinary powers that we will very soon possess. But so far we have managed to pull through, although it’s often been ugly. Yes, we’ll stumble again, but I hope the damage will not be terminal – the future simply isn’t something we can afford to miss.

And finally, in the midst of all of the technology and automation, may lie perhaps the greatest of ironies – the opportunity for us to be more fully human than ever before.

Now, let’s go to work!

PART 1: WORK

Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.

Voltaire, Candide, 1759

French author, humanist, rationalist, & satirist (1694 – 1778)

…SO, WHAT DO YOU DO?

This simple question is often the first asked at a social gathering. We expect this, as few questions will reveal more about who we are than our occupation. And for most of us, this is work. Men and increasingly women are socially identified and categorized by what they do that is valued by others.

Most of us spend eight or more hours a day working, typically at the office, store, factory or job site. We consider work to be the primary activity we regularly perform in return for some form of financial compensation, and it encompasses a wide variety. For example, let zoom into the local Country Club. Work is an executive playing golf with a client hoping to close a big deal. Work is the unnoticed groundskeeper cleaning up fallen leaves just off the fairway wanting decent school clothes for his children. Work is the clubhouse bartender looking for tips to make his car payment. And work is the golf pro hoping to make the cut in a big tournament. The variety of work in just this one location is remarkable. Why is one worker playing golf and the other raking leaves? The experiences of the executive and the laborer are very, very different but oddly we use the same word for their activity. What do they have in common?

As an activity, work offers several distinctive characteristics:

•   We spend more time each day working than any other activity, with the possible exception of sleep. We likely spend more time at work than with our family.

•   Work is in many ways a core aspect of our identity. What we do largely defines who we are.

•   Studies confirm that steady work in the form of a job is one of the most desirable and important factors of our well-being across the world.

•   Work is customarily perceived as unavoidable in order to earn money, and commonly suffered with reluctance.

Many of us say we have great jobs, but it is exceedingly rare to find a worker who loves their job so much that he or she would continue without pay. Those few that do are, by definition, independently wealthy. We are then left with the implication that although many people profess to love their job, most of them would ditch it without hesitation if they won the lottery. However, the lives of lottery winners are remarkable in that those who do ditch their job rarely find the outcome as satisfying as what they had envisioned. We will find out why later in this book.

Even though the daily grind of work is something we would rarely choose if we had such a choice, it is far, far better than the alternative, which is unemployed, poor and pitied. To truly grasp the essence of the work, we have to embrace its essential paradox. Like ‘love’, it often makes no sense at all.

WHAT IS WORK?

Work is far from a simple concept. Work is as much an identity as it is an activity. Individuals in society are largely defined by their contribution to others. And this often has little to do with how they are compensated for their efforts.

The concept of work is so ingrained in our individual and collective psyches that any meaningful discussion is difficult without some deconstruction of it’s meaning. A good place to begin this inquiry is to look at the concept of ‘need’ that arises from our simply being alive. To live sufficiently well enough to raise a family, we need food, water, shelter, fuel, clothing and other supplies. Do we live in a world where these necessities exist in abundance just for the taking? Far from it, according to most. Then it is no surprise that our history has been dominated by the scourge of scarcity accompanied by its evil cousin, poverty. The never-ending burden of securing sufficient resources to ensure survival has been the predominant activity of humans throughout history and continued to this day. In this respect, we are little different from other life on this planet.

Like other species, we are social beings. Many of the ways in which our ancestors interacted revolved around their relative access to specific resources. These included not only the materials listed above, but also opportunities for reproduction and advancement. And almost without fail, these interactions over time resulted in a powerful minority gaining control of a disproportionate share of resources. The vast majority was left to struggle for what remained. Why?

For at least two millennia, this systemic scarcity and inequality have been explained in broad theological terms. In Christian culture, we associate our plight with the biblical story of the ‘fall’ from heavenly grace with Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Other religious traditions offer similar myths to explain why their chosen people continue to suffer under the stern eye of a judgmental heaven. In many cases, human beings are deemed collectively guilty of some ancient sin, and that is why we’ve apparently been condemned to play musical chairs with our limited resources. Why else would an all-powerful deity intentionally limit the resources we need? By this obscure theology, the rich are apparently blessed, and conversely the poor cursed. The powerful are evidently God’s chosen ones; the weak are by definition sinners. How else does an all-powerful God condone such inequality? This bizarre equilibrium has changed surprisingly little over the course of thousands of years and is still considered unremarkable to this day.

On the secular side of the house, scarcity and poverty are often blamed on the Malthusian outcome of overpopulation. That certainly may have been true in the past, but the demographics of the last half-century refute this completely in the developed world. Why does poverty still exist in the US today? It’s certainly not because of overpopulation. Why doesn’t every working family have what they need? And conversely, why do some not work at all and enjoy vastly more resources than they need? The inequality of the human situation is a magnet for easy answers, but a comprehensive understanding remains elusive. However, the apportionment of needed resources, either by force or cooperative exchange, forms the necessary foundation to understand work.

A Brief History of Work

Work in its simplest form, labor, has been with us in some form or another since we were hunter-gatherers, and since then it hasn’t fundamentally changed.