🐎What can you learn from horses that lost their jobs to cars🚗?

Apr 01, 2021

Happy 1st of April 🤡! Did you know that there are fewer births in the US on April 1st, on average? It’s no coincidence. Parents don’t want their children born on April fool’s day. Ditto for the 13th of any month, which is considered unlucky. In comparison, Valentine’s day is a favorite for childbirth! 😲

Does this sound like Freakonomics? We found these insights by analyzing 25 years of US birth data. I explained why and how this is possible, to an inquisitive audience, in one of my talks. Here’s a 3-minute video clip from the session.

This newsletter will take you about 5 minutes to read.

I. Spotlight: 🐎What you should learn from Horses that lost their Jobs to Cars🚗?

Let’s say you want to sell your own designer crockery. You’re interested in making teapots shaped like peaches. Should you hire a designer to try out this concept?

Actually, you might be better off hiring AI to do this job. Here’s what AI can create today (see picture):

(Photo source: OpenAI’s DALL-E)

Not bad, huh?

Notice how the algorithm combines the shape, color, and texture of a peach into a functional teapot. This is an early version, so understandably some of the options have noticeable flaws. Built by OpenAI, it uses a novel approach that enables AI to both see and read.

AI will replace jobs across the spectrum

We’ve long heard the argument that AI will automate away the low-level, mundane tasks first. This example makes it clear that the jobs at risk are not just those that we humans might find repetitive or boring.

AI’s capabilities are bleeding into those high-end tasks that require creativity and imagination. Yes, these algorithms work only in carefully controlled conditions today.

However, AI learns fast. Scarily fast.

DeepMind started teaching AlphaGo to play the game of Go in 2014. In 2 years, it beat the game’s human world champion. What’s remarkable is that the next version, dubbed AlphaGo Zero, took just three days to reach this level. And, it was 100% self-taught.

In his recent book, Future Proof, NYT columnist Kevin Roose says that there is no such thing as “robot-proof jobs.” He warns that “elite college degrees, impressive LinkedIn profiles, or six-figure salaries are no longer shields against obsolescence.”

Technology creates new jobs, but this is often asymmetric

Despite all the apparent gloom, our future doesn’t look that bad. Technology and automation will indeed create new jobs.

However, the challenge is that these new jobs won’t be created in the same space as the jobs that were automated away. Often, it might take a while for the new roles to appear.

When cars replaced horses in the 1900s, many jobs were lost. But, the automobile industry more than made up for them. In this case, it was easy to trace the jobs lost to those created afresh within the transportation industry.

(Photo source: Stadafa)

Unfortunately, things aren’t always that simple.

With the advent of the internet, jobs across industries vanished. Take the case of travel agencies that saw an air-ticketing boom in the run-up to the 1990s. The arrival of websites such as Expedia made travel agents redundant.

Today, these travel portals employ just a fraction of the people who lost the jobs.

However, the internet has created a demand for entirely new disciplines. For example, consider the jobs of Web developers, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Experts, or Social media managers.

All of these are net new jobs we couldn’t have imagined earlier. They were created in a different sector and often after considerable time lags.

With a technology like AI, I think this asymmetry will be far more pronounced. Jobs will be created in unrelated industries. These roles will need skills that could be very hard to acquire for the people displaced. This can lead to a lot of heartburn and unrest in the short term.

That’s the challenge we must focus on rather than be worried about automation.

How do we keep people and their skills relevant for the jobs of the future? As a leader, how will you invest and help your teams make this transition - either onto new roles in your organization or in an entirely new, sunrise industry?

II. Industry Roundup:

1. The 10 breakthrough technologies of 2021

9 minutes | MIT Tech Review

In this list of top trending technologies, a few have a short-term outlook, like GPT-3 (the super-smart text AI model) or Tik Tok algorithms (that make celebrities out of average users). Other trends are far more exciting and have long-term potential. The three that I’m most interested in are mRNA vaccines, multiskilled AI, and hyper-accurate positioning. The story links to articles that expand on these.

-> Read the Article

2. A Wave Of Billion-Dollar Computer Vision Startups Is Coming

7 minutes | Forbes | Rob Toews

Computer vision gives machines the ability to see things. This space has seen stellar progress in research over the last decade. Rob Toews explains why it is now ripe for commercial success. He calls out five industries, their use cases, and promising startups.

-> Read the Article

3. Why CDOs need a change management champion in their team

3 minutes | ThoughtSpot | Cindi Howson

“Lack of right skills prohibits the adoption of new technologies,” said 55.4% of respondents to a World Economic Forum survey. The best way to bridge this gap is to retrain and upskill your employees. Cindi Howson recommends appointing a leader to manage this change and drive the modernization strategy.

-> Read the Article

III. From my Desk:

1. Article: Data science - 3 scenarios CIOs could see in 2030

5 minutes | Enterprisers Project

Executives in the future might look back at today as the dark ages of data science - showing promise, yet very primitive. I present three bold predictions on how the world might look like in the 2030s. Read on to find how brain-computer interfaces, collective intelligence, and neural impulses could revolutionize our world.

-> Read the Article

2. Article: You’ve Invested In AI, But Are You Getting ROI From It?

5 minutes | Forbes

Businesses usually track adoption to measure success with AI. That’s useful but not complete. You must quantify ROI to understand the actual value. This is not easy to do. Based on our work at Gramener, I present four steps to do this systematically.

-> Read the Article

3. Article: Why your Data Maturity is crucial for Business Outcomes

5 minutes | Gramener

45% of companies rated as ‘mature’ from a data and digital experience perspective achieved net revenue growth that was above their industry average. This article demystifies “data maturity” and explains how it can help your business.

-> Read the Article

How can you get rich without getting lucky? Clickbaity title, I know! But, Naval Ravikant does justice to it with some timeless nuggets in his tweetstorm.

Thank you for subscribing and reading the newsletter. I appreciate your attention,

Ganes.

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