Many CEOs Believe Technology Will Make People Largely Irrelevant (betanews.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report on BetaNews:Although artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and other emerging technologies may reshape the world as we know it, a new global study has revealed that the many CEOs now value technology over people when it comes to the future of their businesses. The study was conducted by the Los Angeles-based management consultant firm Korn Ferry that interviewed 800 business leaders across a variety of multi-million and multi-billion dollar global organizations. The firm says that 44 percent of the CEOs surveyed agreed that robotics, automation and AI would reshape the future of many work places by making people "largely irrelevant." The global managing director of solutions at Korn Ferry Jean-Marc Laouchez explains why many CEOs have adopted this controversial mindset, saying: "Leaders may be facing what experts call a tangibility bias. Facing uncertainty, they are putting priority in their thinking, planning and execution on the tangible -- what they can see, touch and measure, such as technology instruments."

Comments

Better be ready to be beat up when layed off worke

[Joe_Dragon]

Better be ready to be beat up when layed off workers find out it's better to be in lock up then out on the street.

"people largely irrelevant"

[sehlat]

I'll ask this question, which has come up before: If nobody has a job, then where the [bad language redacted] will they find CUSTOMERS?

Re:"people largely irrelevant"

[garyoa1]

Yup. They aren't laying off workers. They're laying off someone's customers. Eventually someone will lay off their customers.

Who do they think is going to buy their products?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, if people are "irrelevant" so are your people centric businesses! Robots don't need Tide detergent, Kellogs corn flakes, Michael Bay movies, or Samsung TV's. Who the hell do they think their customers are going to be and with what money do they imagine these customers will be buying their stuff?

Does not compute

[codeButcher]

If AI makes people obsolete, who will those companies peddle their wares to, and obtain income from? The Martians?

Re:Does not compute

[ClickOnThis]

If AI makes people obsolete, who will those companies peddle their wares to, and obtain income from? The Martians?

Let's be optimistic for a second. If robots and AI take over more and more of the jobs that humans used to do, then the products those jobs produce will decrease in price. Perhaps they'll decrease to the point where they cost little or nothing. And then we may be in a Star Trek TNG society where money doesn't exist, because duh, nobody needs to buy anything.

I admit the above may be unlikely. But for discussion, consider it as a possibility.

Re:Better be ready to be beat up when layed off wo

[sonnejw0]

Better be ready to be beat up when layed off workers find out it's better to be in lock up then out on the street.

This is why the principle of automation and machine intelligence goes hand in hand with the concept of the Universal Basic Income and free education. So we can create an educated workforce, and those who cannot work have a strong societal safety net that's easy to administrate.

Greed by any other name...

[geekmux]

"...a new global study has revealed that the many CEOs now value technology over people when it comes to the future of their businesses."

Translation: A new global study has revealed that the many CEOs are as fucking greedy as they ever were, and will stop at nothing to increase their wealth by reducing expenses.

Like we needed a study to prove that shit. Spank you Helpy Helperton for pointing out the obvious.

Ironically, another study will come along showing that humans holding the prestigious rank of CEO find themselves invaluable as compared to the technology that could be used to replace them and their inflated self-valuation.

Re:Greed by any other name...

[bluefoxlucid]

Money: irrelevant.

Wage inequality: you work and make $20/hr. They work and make $10/hr. Your 1 hour of work lets you induce them to work for 2 hours.

Technology: It takes 100 hours of human time to make a thing you buy. It costs 50 hours of your work ($1,000) because cheap labor makes it. We found a way to make it in 50 human hours (technology), so now it costs 25 hours of your work ($500).

Markets in long term: You're now spending 25 hours of your labor to buy what 50 hours once bought. You have 25 hours's worth of your labor ($500) unspent. You buy some other thing.

In other words: "technology" has been happening since humans sharpened a stick into a spear--or, hell, since humans learned to hunt effectively in groups instead of ineffectively alone. The whole point of technology is to reduce the number of labor-hours to make something so you pay fewer peoples's wages for that thing. That's how food went from 40% of the median income in 1900 to 33% in 1950, to 12% today. (Clothing dropping by trade was largely wage inequality, but China has improved its manufacturing processes sufficient to push the prices even lower while their workers's standard-of-living increases.)

Remember: wages are paid by revenue. You pay people's salary. Businesses only transfer that revenue around to carry out the transactions between you, workers, other businesses, and management chains. Even business itself is an organizational structure composed of management chains whose entire purpose is to make stuff happen with less labor--because self-organized laborers would be inefficient and everything they make would be expensive as all hell (it's called "artisan", "small-batch", or "hand-made" in general; but more importantly, logistics and business process management eliminate a lot of time costs).

The important point is rate. If you unemploy 50% of your labor force in a year, your economy crashes; if you do it over a decade or so, you end up with an extremely wealthy middle-class which somehow still complains that all the wealth is going elsewhere even while their internet becomes 1,500 times faster, cell phones become available, smart phones become available, more and better healthcare becomes available, clothing gets cheaper, food gets cheaper, they start living in much larger houses to store all the crap (read: luxuries) they're buying, more and more money goes to video games and home theaters, and in general every standard-of-living goes up and up without end.

Apparently, economists have fucked up so bad that they adjust median income for inflation to cite "real" median income, which might actually make it mathematically-impossible to demonstrate a large deviation in median income. When you see GDP-per-capita, that tells you what the per-capita income can buy. So when you see $49K median income becomes $52K median income in 15 years, but $31k GDP-per-capita becomes $57k, what actually happened is people who were making $49k were able to buy what $33k buys now, and people today can buy what $52k buys now.

In other words: the numbers don't make any god damned sense at a glance. "Real incomes" aren't buying power. Buying power income is a complex calculation.

Re: Better be ready to be beat up when layed off w

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the problem . . . . these CEOs who are so in love with A.I./ Robotics are slowly putting themselves out of business.

Once you've eliminated all the workers, and nobody has a job any more (no job = no money), who exactly is going to buy your company's products? Have you considered what happens when 90% of your customers no longer have any money?

And if you think Universal Basic Income is the answer, where do think that money is going to come from? From the businesses and the wealthy? The same people who do everything they can to hide their money and avoid paying taxes? Good luck with that.

Re:Better be ready to be beat up when layed off wo

[GLMDesigns]

You and I may be happy with this. But a lot of people will not. People need a sense of purpose; a desire to be needed; to be valuable. Some may find value in free time to pursue artistic endeavors; many will not.

Re:Better be ready to be beat up when layed off wo

[Archangel Michael]

It is not paying people to pursuit anything. The whole idea of "Basic Income" is a drive to the lowest common denominator and eventually it will fail as nobody does anything, and no income is being taxed to pay for the people who aren't doing anything. The assumption is that people who don't have to do anything, will want to do something that is productive, instead of sitting at home playing XBox, and whining about Trump.

Not everyone is cutout to be an artist, singer, entertainers, and even if a significant portion are, only the really "famous" (e.g. See Thomas Kincade) artists will ever make money, and schlocky mass produced "art" isn't all that artistic. (see also William Hung singer)

When people are free of a financial burden they will be free to innovate and pursue their dreams.

That is the theory at least. The reality is, not everyone is cutout to be an innovator. Watch a few episodes of Shark Tank to see how people waste their time on projects that have no commercial value thinking the world needs their invention.

Basic Income is a horrible idea, that is doomed for all the reasons people don't want to think about.

Re:Enjoy your mass insurrection/civil war, CEOs.

[GameboyRMH]

If you believe UBI won't work then the remaining options are:

1. A luddite economy that prohibits certain forms of automation
2. Killbot-powered genocide of the working class

I assume you're thinking #1?

Re:Better be ready to be beat up when layed off wo

[OrangeTide]

Software able to make rational business decisions based on compiling numerous sources of data seems exactly like the sort of thing we'd want instead of a CEO.

single payer health care

[Joe_Dragon]

single payer health care will help a lot in the usa and is needed UBI or not.

Re: Better be ready to be beat up when layed off w

[Anonymous Coward]

So, when automation is in full force and the only people with jobs are those that have the money to invest in automation, who are they going to sell to?

Re:Better be ready to be beat up when layed off wo

[jeff4747]

Basic Income is a horrible idea, that is doomed for all the reasons people don't want to think about.

People do not peacefully starve to death.

If we're going to continue to tie "not starving to death" to employment, we're going to need to do something when employment is no longer possible.

Basic income is one way of dealing with that. Feel free to propose a better one.

Re:What about cutting down full time to 32 hours a

[mishehu]

I'm pretty sure that STILL doesn't cover the full cost of children. No, if I made an actual net salary/profit making babies, I'd have a frickin' harem ERRR I mean baby factory running here... Face it, you can try to warp reality to fit your narrative, but it's not an incentive if the person is still running at a net loss.

Re:Better be ready to be beat up when layed off wo

[EllisDees]

Who cares if people can be successful artists. The point is that they have the freedom to choose if that's what they want to do with their lives. Being good at it is irrelevant.

The UBI solves the problem of where people are supposed to get money to buy the things that are produced when there aren't enough jobs for humans to do to support the economy.

Re:Better be ready to be beat up when layed off wo

[ancientt]

I certainly don't think I'd be useless without my current job. I love baking, drawing, painting, hiking, camping, fishing, kite flying, movies, tv shows, books, hanging out with friends, learning new skills and programming. I don't get paid for most of those and the one I do get paid for is only fun about a third of the time. Given my current level of comfort, I'd love to spend an extra thirty hours a week on more of those other things.

Take away any single one of those things I enjoy and I'll spend more time on the others. Heck, take all of them away and I'm confident I'd find new hobbies. Woodworking looks interesting.