50 answers to 50 questions: part two

David D’Souza posed 50 questions about the future of work. Here are my responses to the second 25.

You can find the first 25 questions and responses in the imaginatively titled 50 answers to 50 questions: part one.

26. Why do organisational IT solutions still tend to be more expensive yet less useful than consumer solutions?

This is mostly down to the dogfood problem: more often than not, the people buying the software are not the same people who are expected to use the software on a regular basis, or at the very least they’re using it for different purposes. So vendors are incentivised to satisfy the buyers and not the users.

There are other reasons. Enterprise solutions have different (usually more expensive) demands for security, reliability and hosting. Often enterprise solutions have to work on out-of-date browsers or IT infrastructure, while consumer applications can require users to have the latest operating system and browser versions.

27. Does the age of automation mean that a universal basic payment to all is required?

It’s not a requirement, but it’s something that should be considered. And by that, I mean considered properly. Like most public policy decisions, it should be run as a controlled trial and the impact evaluated properly.

28. When we do save time where does it go? For all the automation and efficiency I don’t hear many people saying they have more time to relax.

Part Parkinson’s law, part due to new work being created on the back of the time freed by automation.

29. What aspects of our behaviour is it appropriate to legislate for? Is restricting access to company communications after hours unnecessarily interfering or saving us from ourselves?

Well, there’s the definitively harmful behaviour that we already legislate for like assault, discrimination etc.

30. Will you ever want a consoling hug from a robot?

Who wouldn’t?

31. Why are so many organisations already designed and led as though the workers are robots?

Taylorism had a big impact on productivity. We’re still experiencing the vestigial effects of structures and institutional habits created in the early part of the 20th century. To put it another way, real change takes longer than we would like to think.

32. What does not having to leave your home to work, socialise or shop do to fitness levels over time?

It adds to the challenge of maintaining or improving them. I know from my fitness tracker that I move considerably less when I work from home, even though I take the dog out for a walk. I never realised the amount of energy I expend just from my commute.

33. What are the chances the world left by this generation will be better than the one left to us?

I tend to take the optimistic view based partially on the work of Steven Pinker and Hans Rosling. The world seems more violent and chaotic because we’re more exposed to bad news stories than ever before (the availability heuristic kicking in). But long term trends for global wealth, violence, disease etc all indicate that things are more likely to get better than worse.

34. Do children entering school need to read or write — or will those be surplus skills by the time they leave school?

Right now, I’d guess that reading (and therefore writing, but not handwriting) would be required to function in the world 15 years from now, if for no other reason than our generation and older generations will still be at work. Also, it would appear from the use of messaging services that young people entering the workforce today actually write and read more, but differently.

And this report suggests reading isn’t going anywhere soon: Younger adults more likely than their elders to prefer reading news

35. What are the issues that we are sleepwalking towards now that we will regret not taking action on sooner? (thanks to Siobhan Sheridan at the NSPCC for this)

If we knew what they were, we wouldn’t be sleepwalking towards them. It’s the issues we’re all too aware of but are doing nothing about that will haunt us.

36. What are the opportunities that we will regret taking?

Again, if we knew there would be regret in taking an opportunity we wouldn’t be taking it.

37. How much of our enhanced technical capability will be channeled into solving societal problems and how much into increasing profits?

Again, this assumes that the two are mutually exclusive and I don’t think they need be. Electricity generation was a hugely profitable business (and still is), but has improved the living standards of people all over the world massively. Let’s not force a false choice.

38. How do you get a mortgage in the ‘Gig Economy’?

Same way the self employed currently get a mortgage.

39. Does the Sharing Economy really share — or does it just collect a smaller margin from a larger volume of workers that are dependent? If we called it the Snaring Economy would it be such a popular concept?

Maybe my understanding of the sharing economy isn’t right. I thought it was about people making use of underused assets like spare beds (Airbnb), car time (Zipcar or Liftshare) or even money (Zopa). Essentially people renting things from each other, facilitated by platforms built on the internet. I’m not sure about where dependency fits in but I’m fairly certain that “sharing” isn’t an accurate name for it.

40. When Prof Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and others describe AI as a potentially extinction level threat why do people think they are overstating it? When did we start thinking we had a better grasp on big issues than Stephen Hawking?

Lay people may believe the danger is being overstated, but it’s being taken seriously in the right places. It has the attention of people in government who are thinking about the right kind of oversight without blocking useful progress. Elon Musk himself is backing efforts like Open AI, which are cognizant of the risks and working to mitigate them.

41. How confident are you really that the Financial Services industry is now running as it should — and what are the knock on risks given the fragility of the world economy?

I’m not confident at all because, as far as I can tell, no-one has found compelling evidence that expert investors are any better than dart throwing monkeys. The randomness of the financial markets doesn’t seem to be recognised by most in the financial industry so we have people being paid ridiculous amounts of money for guessing, often badly, and incentivised to take unnecessary risks.

The risks are, as I’ve hinted above, unknowable. But, I’d place a bet that the current way the financial services industry is set up leads to more volatility than there need be.

42. How can we help design roles and organisations that make the most of people?

If we (those of us working in HR, L&D and OD) want to have a hand in doing this then we need to demonstrate our relevance and impact. Without that, we’re left fulfilling the wishes of organisational leaders without influencing them.

43. What are the implications of the current level of gender imbalance within the tech sector over the next decade?

It means the tech sector won’t reach its full potential and some things, like abuse on Twitter, won’t be dealt with as they should.

44. Much of the technology we utilise on a day to day basis would struggle to meet most people’s definition of an ethical supply chain. When do we start making different purchasing decisions?

Ethical purchasing decisions are sometimes easy but often more complicated than they first appear. Opinions and information are confusing; seemingly straightforward decisions are complicated when you dig deeper into the relationship between the global economy and supply chains.

45. What are the best sources of information on the changing world of work and how can we ensure the independent voices are heard when organisations with the biggest budgets will be looking to exploit this space?

There are no best sources, just good sources. Independent voices are louder and more discoverable now than they ever have been before, thanks (again) to the internet.

46. People frequently talk about wanting more equality and higher living standards for others — yet how many people would give up, for instance, 25% of their salary in order to improve the living standards of others?

My guess? Not very many which is why a manifesto that includes genuine redistribution of wealth gets crushed in elections.

47. How will we filter content effectively in the future and how open to abuse is that filtering process?

Again with the multiple questions! To the first, with difficulty. At the moment, filtering both intentional (our natural inclination for confirmation bias) and unintentional (Google and Facebook filtering to your existing biases in the background) tend to keep opposing views away from you. It takes a concerted effort to seek out different views and even more effort to try and take them into consideration.

How open to abuse they are and will be is down to how transparent the filtering done on your behalf is.

48. How do the business role models of the future act?

Much in the same way they have always done. For all the technological progress, we’re still humans — evolution doesn’t speed up just because our technical advances do. And I suspect those role models will be as varied as they always have been. While we may not agree with their approaches, there will always be some people who achieve amazing things while not necessarily being particularly nice people.

49. People cry when their pets die. What will be the first piece of technology that you cry over the loss of?

None that exist at present.

50. If you had one contribution to make to making things just a little better over the next decade what would it be? ​

I’m not sure, but I’m going to have fun finding out 😃!