In the midst of one of their early conversations, Luke Skywalker reassures Yoda of his bravery, saying "I'm not
afraid." Yoda replies knowingly "oh,
you will be. You will be." Perhaps we all need to accept that we may experience fear?
I have written
about the changes in technology, and the great changes and challenges that lay
ahead of us as individuals, a workforce, an industry, and a nation. My thoughts on this started with Attorneys Obsolete? last year. In 2015,
I penned Three D Employment, a post that addresses some of the impacts
that technology may soon have on our work-world. Most recently, I
asked How will Any of us Adapt? The implications of technology on our work, the workforce and our economy have interested me for some time. As goes the workplace, so goes the ancillary of workers' compensation.
I spend a great
deal of time reading. It brings me relaxation and I have always enjoyed
it. Classes are another story for me. Frankly, many classes do not appeal to me; it is
harder for me to learn that way, compared to reading. Last week at the NCCI Annual Issues Symposium, I sat in on a couple of classes anyway. I was enthralled. They were outstanding!
The first
was presented by Robert Hartwig of the Insurance Information Institute. I
have seen him speak before, and he is always good. This program was the best I
have seen him deliver. The second that I attended was presented by Salim Ismail. He is with Singularity University, an author and one of those silicon valley technology gurus you read about. This was my first
exposure to him, the University, and several concepts. He was incredible.
Today I focus on
Mr. Ismail, because of the impressions he left on me. I was not alone, there
were many an "Amen" heard from my surroundings during his
speech.
In my three posts
above, I thought I did a pretty good job of raising issues related to the
coming impacts of technology. I also felt like I had a pretty firm grasp on
where things may be headed. I was wrong. My thoughts barely scratched the
surface. New ideas are going to keep coming. The pace is going to increase. Our economy is heading for a significant shift regarding how people earn livings.
New products are coming to market faster. There are new ideas, and we do not all adapt to them easily or cheerfully. This is illustrated in an interesting article on Forbes which details some ideas that historically drew criticism prior to acceptance.
The title of Mr.
Ismail's presentation was "Disruptive Convergence, Jaw Dropping Insights
into Breakthrough Technologies." Despite the breadth of his topic, I
walked away realizing that the audience did not fully appreciate that his
predictions and expectations from technology are harbingers for our entire
existence, the entire planet, and will touch us at virtually every level of our
existence.
He says that we
will lose two billion (that is not a typo, BILLION) jobs near-term. Before we
could panic, he assured us that the economy will create enough jobs to offset this
and more. He reminded us that in the 19th Century, 50% of workers were employed in
agriculture. There was a revolution, and technology decreased the number of
hands needed to feed us. As a result, we did not see 1/2 of the country
unemployed as they were displaced from agriculture; instead we saw people shift
to other occupations. Mr. Ismail projected that this same kind of shift would
occur again in this next technological revolution. But it is likely to affect us more rapidly than the agricultural revolution. That was a reasonably slow evolution, over the last half of the 19th Century, caused by new technology. By comparison, we are in the midst of a revolution instead.
Mr. Ismail
brought some humorous points to the fore brilliantly. Unfortunately, he also belittled a few individuals with whom he disagrees. Certainly
we can agree or disagree with one another, but hopefully we can do so respectfully. I mentioned already that this program was
life-changing. I was very impressed, but the belittling comments were distracting.
He predicts that
life as we know it will change radically. He related his belief that his
three-year-old son will never obtain a driver's license. As I have written, self-driving cars will become a paradigm in our future. But, Mr. Ismail predicts
that it will become THE paradigm. And, he predicts that it will do so in the
next dozen years. Drivers' licenses an anachronism in the next twelve years.
Driver-less cars will not be a reality, but will be the reality.
Vehicles will not
be owned by the vast majority of us in the future. In a nation that worships the auto in our
lives and pop-culture, the concept of not owning a car is simply unfathomable for many.
But he says it is coming. Mr. Ismail notes that vehicles in our present day paradigm
spend more than 90% of their useful lives sitting and depreciating.
He suggests that vehicle
sharing will increase dramatically, with the advent of driver-less cars. Cars will be owned, but we will use them for a price at times we need them. They will be less private, far less personalized and our society will be different as a result. Less will be needed. They will likely be connected to the Internet. They will communicate with each other. It will be different.
Mr. Ismail predicts
that our society may reach a point where many people will not work because they do not
need to do so. Technology, in his perspective will eradicate our need for
productivity. We will build machines, but those machines will build everything
thereafter, including new production machines. He sees a future in which the government
provides every person a living wage with which to provide themselves food and
shelter.
He explained that
Switzerland is debating a new socialization in which all citizens are
paid a living wage regardless of whether she or he works at all. A point that
was not addressed is how this might affect government. Our societal governance
survives on tax revenue. Currently the main paradigm in the U.S. is an income tax,
though there has been much discussion of the benefits of consumption taxes
(sales).
If we evolve, as he predicts, to a paradigm in which work is less common, it will be
less valued, and this will affect how it is compensated or valued, which may
likewise affect the revenue to government under an income tax paradigm. This shift may drive the U.S. to a consumption tax of some form.
If we reach that
point, what will we do with our time? Eugene Delacroix said that
"we work not only to produce, but to give value to time." If we reach
the point were work is not required to survive, how will we give value to time?
Will there be more artists, musicians, writers, and beauty in our world. Or, will we all spend
more time watching reruns of Gilligan's Island? That dichotomy is likely worthy of some consideration.
Ismail believes
that legal structures and constructs are reactionary. He believes that these
constructs cannot keep up with evolving technology, with its accelerating pace. An example cited involved
"bio-hackers" who have developed an injection for the human eye that
results in "night vision." He contends that this cannot be
controlled through legal constructs because governments cannot react quickly
enough to the developments.
Humorously, in support of this critique of government regulation, he notes that the self-driving Google car now on the road has rear-view mirrors,
but no steering wheel. Both are irrelevant to a driver-less car, but the law
requires rear-view mirrors. Without the foresight to predict the advent of this driver-less paradigm however, no regulator thought to make a steering wheel legally mandatory.
Mr. Ismail addressed
change as well as any speaker I have heard. He noted that business, the
"corporate culture," does not like change. He explained that when change is proposed it
is the company's "immune system," that is internal resistance, which
will most likely kill change (we so often hear something "won't work" and "this is how we've always done it").
He explains that it is because of this truism that Tesla, without an existing
immune system or culture or habit, can jump successfully into the electric car market while seasoned vehicle monoliths like Ford and Toyota struggle to
leverage electricity as a technology.
Mr. Ismail cited
example after example of "disruption" caused by advancing technology.
He explained that technology is developing in an exponential manner. The
development is not linear or mathematical, because progress is occurring in an environment or model where the pace between developments doubles, generally every two years. Thus developments
are coming faster. Just as Moore's law described the progression of computing
power and miniaturization, Mr. Ismail's doubling progression model describes
the development of progress and innovation.
As an example, he
noted the three-D printing is not a new invention. He says that is a thirty
year-old idea. However, when conceived, it had to be developed. There was
capability added with each iteration of the concept, essentially doubling in
effectiveness and functionality every two years. The progress in the early
portion of development is still seemingly slow, but as time passes the increase
in functionality spikes upward in nearly a vertical line. Thus, recently the
first item ever manufactured by humans not on Earth was printed with a three-D
printer on the international space station.
Technology is
changing the economics of our world. Mr. Ismail cites Kodak and the paper
photograph paradigm of the Twentieth Century. He describes it as a paradigm
fraught with scarcity, of time, and resources. There were limits in how much
film could be loaded, or even carrier with one, limits on turn-around because
they required development and printing, and cost of the actual printing. There was waste of these relatively
expensive and time-consuming prints. The technology shift to digital photos
removed the delays, rendered it possible for a single photographer to carry the
capacity (film) for millions of photos easily, eliminated processing delay and cost, and rendered disposal of excess
photos simple, quick and free.
When we look
around us, we see changes. We all recognize the impact that disruptive
convergence of technology has wrought in our existence. The Kodak and digital
photography illustration is insightful and illuminating. Land-line telephones,
records, CDs, DVDs and the Blockbuster store, all victims of the same disruption.
Recognizing that we have seen the process, despite the fact that many of us
deny or ignore it, Mr. Ismail provided a chilling prediction: the "most
disruption is ahead of us, not behind us."
He predicts that
industries will be changes. There will be ripple effects, such as the auto-body
shop discussion in my previous posts. Changes will come as technology and
disruption comes to functions in our society, though these direct effects will
be of concern, the ripple-effects or indirect impacts may be far more
important. It is perhaps more simple for Ford to perceive the competition that
Tesla brings to the market for cars. It is perhaps less obvious for the
insurance industry that driver-less cars will mean less accidents, thus less
exposure, thus less need for both the product and adjusting claims against
it.
The coming
technology will mean much for us. He notes that biometrics and truth
verification are progressing. Mr. Ismail predicts that within 5 years it will
be impossible to tell a lie without detection. Will that change litigation? He
says that medical diagnosis with a handheld device like Dr. McCoy used on Star Trek to make diagnoses is not only coming, but will be here in a few years.
Doctors will scan you, get a diagnoses, and address care. He questions whether
it could be a cure for hypochondria? He did not mention malingering, but I
heard the word twice while leaving the program.
The key to the
success of many of these progresses is leverage of non-owned assets. Mr. Ismail
explains that Airbnb has become the largest hotel company in the world, but
that it owns not one hotel room. The company has revolutionized hospitality
using other people's assets, letting other people own the risk of financing and
building that structure. Likewise, Uber has revolutionized transportation,
but owns no vehicles and has no driver employees.
He admits that
there will be privacy concerns presented by these technologies and others. The
increasing digitization of our world makes misappropriation easier as data
and value are aggregated. This will make for challenges. Securing our information and data may be a field in which we will see expansion of jobs.
Essentially, his
message comes down to a few statements. Change is coming, and it will be
exponential in scope and pace. The change that is coming will overshadow the examples we have
seen thus far. A new paradigm of "ExCo" or "exponential
companies" or "exponential organizations" will continue to grow
and expand as influences in our society. We will see paradigms shift and ideas
or assumptions will be challenged. There will be ripple effects that will be hard to predict and may be intense.
After this
presentation, I rode the elevator to the parking garage with several glassy-eyed
executives. Some said it cannot be real, and others said that he just cannot be
right. One said that it was real, but insisted "not in my lifetime."
I have seen that
glassy-eyed look before. At the turn-of-the-century, trying to explain the
benefits of electronic filing to attorneys, those looks and blank stares were
not uncommon. I remember one attorney complained in 2006 that e-filing would
require him to purchase a computer. The point of that is that some of us will
accept and adapt to the coming disruption more easily than others.
Technology will
surpass (pass or run over) some of us though. Mr. Ismail said that when he
performs conferences for corporate boards, he suggests to people that they
either need to become ready for change and adaptation or they need to accept
their inability to do so and retire.
The pace of
change is increasing. For those of us who have tried to adapt to new
technology, and failed, the bad news is it's going to get harder and harder to
keep up. For those of you who have successfully kept pace with change thus far,
congratulations! However, you may find your success more and more difficult to
maintain.
If there is an
upside, it is that my children, who take to technology on an intuitive level,
will finally have to work to keep up. I do not enjoy wishing this pain on them.
But there is some feeling of satisfaction that they will have to face a
challenge, and will have to use their wits, education and focus to work their
way through it.
So I cower here
under my bed, in the dark, and send out this post to those of you who were
brave enough to get up and go to work today despite the gloom and doom that
the impending quantum shifts portend. Welcome to the future. Your time is now. Will you adapt to the
changes, grasp the coming disruption, or is it time to retire?
We could perhaps take our resolve from yet another Yoda quote. He seeks to focus on the accomplishment, in this case our acceptance and mastery of this coming technology and the shifts in our reality. We may be willing to try to adapt and leverage, but as Yoda says, we must "do or do not. There is no try."
#workerscomp
#FLJCC
#NAWCJ