A great survey from Harvard Business Review among experts about the future of work! Many of the predictions worry me a lot, such as a 3rd world war and a surveillance state, while other topics, such as basic income, are still too far along as far as I am concerned. But what a wonderful conclusion about what you can do yourself today:
So, what can you start doing today? First, from now on, whenever you hear or read something about the future of work, don’t just look at what is predicted (and by when), but also who is saying it and why. What vested interests do they have? What society do they want, and how does it benefit them? Second, what is your utopia for the future, and what is your dystopia? What should we do — or stop doing — in the short-, mid-, and long-term to move towards your desirable scenarios, and to reduce the risk of undesirable ones? What can we do to avoid points of no return for the distant future, for instance, when we are thinking about the climate or superintelligent AI? And third, what do you have most control over from your position of power and influence in society? What forms of power and influence do you not have? Can you partner with others who have sources of influence complementary to yours, and who share the same utopia?
So we can all do something about it and do something with it. My vision of the future of work is that it is human, that AI asks us to be more human. And my utopia in this is that people work from value(s) and that they work from abundance because they want to contribute to something, and not from fear of losing their job. And that we have sufficient financial resources for everyone because we tax technology, just as we currently do on wages. What do I do myself? I try to help as many people as possible with this issue, to get organizations to think about the human value in their business model, and to inspire them. Because everyone can think about this. What is your utopia?
