For ordinary people, if you don’t do business, then the way to make money can be understood as career planning.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Harvard Business Review” (ID: Hbrchinese), author Ma Binglun, editor Liu Weiwei.
For ordinary people, if you don’t do business, then the way to make money can be understood as career planning. Traditional step-by-step career planning has clearly not matched the era of AI and big data, and its output is very different from the once closed information society. To put it bluntly, in the era of big data, if we don’t optimize our career plans, then we are likely to be “optimized” by the times.
AI technology has greatly changed the way of social production and has spawned many new industries. In order to adapt to the rhythm of the digital economy, new retail, unmanned, inclusive finance, including the shared economy that has undergone shuffling, have emerged, and the ideas derived from “AI will replace manpower” have also been rampant a few years ago.
When the digital reform path precipitated by the Internet industry has penetrated into the real economy, big data and digitization are not just strategic deployments that managers should consider, but they also subtly reshape the lives of all. How will the digital economy era affect daily life? Is AI a dream or a nightmare for ordinary people?
AI works for us, what do we do?
Stanford University Statistics USA 47% of jobs will be replaced by AI. In China, the ratio may even be as high as 60% or more. While a lot of work has been replaced, some industries have gradually been subverted. In the face of the unstoppable wave of automation, perhaps the most worrying thing about us is not that “work is taken away”, but the concern of “what else we can do” is put in the first place. As Robert Koepp, director of corporate networks at The Economist, the relationship between people and machines is not a zero-sum game. Augmentation can only be achieved by adding people to the machine and decision-making, that is, starting from the work that human beings are doing now, pursuing better use of machines and expanding the human working space.
Indeed, the case of AI production in recent years also shows that AI does not replace and deny human value. On the contrary, the involvement of AI allows us to liberate from the work of meaningless repetition (believing that no one likes to do mechanically repeated work) and do something that is more in line with “poetry and distance.” Big data can provide optimization efficiency, and human beings can provide expressions of thought, innovation and beauty. These human traits that cannot be quantified do not need to be regressive, nor do they need to predict trends, but will flash due to diversity.
thatWhere should the large amount of labor that was once released in mechanical repetitive work go? When social efficiency is improved and resource allocation is close to ParetoOptimality, under the regulation of market mechanism, labor will flow into the fields that AI cannot compete, namely traditional handicrafts, literary creation, artistic creation, performance and other fields. As these areas are fully blossomed, our society may usher in the “Second Renaissance”. And we are also more “human”, the cost of living.
The future requires creative, flexible work and high emotional intelligence. Only human beings can do the job that requires emotional communication. For example, in the late-night canteen and chat with the guests to give the healing boss, then the intelligent and automated AI restaurant can not be replaced.
What are the competitiveness we need to improve in the AI era?
With the rapid changes in industry and work, whether for companies or individual employees, if you follow the existing cognitive training and career planning, you may not be able to find a professional or ruthless AI after five years of training. People who are eliminated. So what is the competitiveness of talents in the AI era?
The experience and knowledge that has received much attention in the past is no longer the focus of talent research in the era of AI with uncertainty. Any skill that can be quickly obtained through training is not a shining point of talent. On the contrary, the decision-making power formed by speculative ability and logic is the most important talent trait in the AI era. At present, leading technology companies such as Google and ThoughtWorks have not looked at work experience or even programming skills during the interview. Instead, they design a lot of open intellectual questions during the interview. These companies believe that the future talents need to be good at and enjoy the “human-machine symbiosis”, the core competitiveness is the learning ability, rapid response ability and analytical ability.
What kind of preparations can a new generation of talents make for “human-machine symbiosis”?
If future work emphasizes deep integration and collaboration with machines and leverages the advantages of human high-level thinking and emotional communication, what changes should we make in our personal efforts, or career planning? The Harvard Business Review has been thinking about the relationship between people and machines for many years. The following suggestions for self-improvement come from our English editorial director Julia Kirby and Babson College professor Thomas Davenpo ThomasH.Davenport, for your reference:
1. Proactively upgrade
Is let AI do low-level work, and seize the opportunity to move to a higher level of work. AI needs training and optimization to be more “useful”, and training, explanation, and maintenance work can only be done by humans. “Human-machine collaboration” is urgently needed in the era of “human-machine symbiosis”Way of working. AI can break through the limits of human beings and empower humans. Humans can also make AI more anthropomorphic through training and iterative AI. This type of coordinated work is the direction that employees in the AI era can develop.
2. Another path
Looking for a work scene in an emotional area that AI can’t reach. Human emotions need to be expressed, and potential needs to be stimulated, and such trainers or consultants can only be served by humans.
Many managers will struggle to talk to key employees who are experiencing bottlenecks in their development. Content may need to involve abstract issues such as self-positioning in the team or their own long and short board. An effective internal performance coach can solve this problem for managers. Although not directly involved in the business, it can empower and motivate employees with the expertise of psychology and insight into human nature. At present, the gap in such positions is still very large, and as its importance is increasingly recognized, it will also be a popular choice for future careers.
3. Going forward
Going forward, means leading the next round of intrusion, but it involves working with software assistance. A look at Harman’s LinkedIn page is enough to illustrate this: his expertise in “recognition” by contacts is analog technology, algorithms, machine learning, mathematical modeling, and more. As Bill Gates recently said, programming “is still safe now.”
Nowadays, many colleges and universities have followed the trend to open AI majors, and the application situation is also very popular. Young people hope to follow the trend and become talents in the AI world. This phenomenon is worthy of recognition. To grasp the next new opportunity of automation accurately, it is not enough to master the technical means. If you want to choose this path, you have to do your best to reach the peak in your field. After all, perhaps most of the software development work will eventually be automated.
4. Specialization in the industry
In addition to programming skills, you can develop other interests, but you have to find a narrow niche field and immerse yourself in it.
In terms of professional skills, you will have a very unique personal brand. How does the machine gain for you? You need to build your own database with machines, keep up with the times, and stay in touch with systems that combine your unique abilities with the skills of others.
The French thinker Blaise Pascal once said that “man is a reed that will think.” How long have you been trapped in reality and have not thought about it? AI allows us to develop from the reeds that think like screws – human beings are always the source of the next generation of new ideas. AI will replace the human work and will undergo the first half of the reshuffle, and will be smashed in the second half. AI technology will eventually eliminate information asymmetry and create a more human society.
Author introduction
Ma Binglun is a contributor to the Chinese version of Harvard Business Review
Liu Weiwei is a senior compile of the Chinese version of Harvard Business Review