Don't bet against humans

The Industrial Revolution was a period of rapid social and technological change that has shaped the world we live in today. It was a period of significant innovation. Many tools we use today were inventions of the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution transformed economies, ushering in large-scale industry, mechanized manufacturing, and the factory system. New machines, new power sources, and new ways of organizing work made existing industries more productive and efficient. 

Textile workers operating an early power loom couldn't imagine how the industrial revolution would improve their lives. The Industrial Revolution raised the standard of living, led to higher wages, healthier diets, better housing, and better working conditions with shorter working hours after labor unions were formed. 

I believe emerging technologies are bringing forth similar concerns seen during the Industrial revolution in 1760. Workers in 2021 are understandably afraid new technology will displace their livelihood as machines replace workers. Just as a family of yarn spinners could not fend off the spinning Jenny and the power loom, now is the time to evaluate the situation, see the change coming ahead, and figure out how to adjust.  

I don't believe emerging technology will be the end of our world, but it will undoubtedly transform it again. It will likely change our world in ways we can't conceive of yet. The new jobs we'll need are just beginning to appear. We will need new talents and new skills to run and control and adopt emerging technologies. We'll have to train AI to do things, maintain it, and figure out how to get it to produce results most efficiently. Solution engineering and rocket ship mission schedulers will be needed in this never-ending process of continuous improvement. You can't stop evolution. Take action now to keep up with the times. Modernize yourself, or you may suffer the consequences of this modernization.

What part do cognitive technologies play in improving society at large? How is it supporting our most vulnerable people and protecting our planet for future generations? Why is it influential technology leaders have referred to artificial intelligence as one of the biggest threats we will face in our lifetime. Cognitive computers will change the current market. 

There will undoubtedly be flaws. But I hope that AI can help usher in successive waves of continuous improvement, just like the industrial revolution did, by reducing perspiration and raising inspiration. And why not? We have employees stuck in bureaucratic, manual processes and outdated, manual ways of working. This leads to frustration, disengagement, and waste. We need to get computers to do the machine work and humans to do the human work.

My team works with cognitive intelligence to automate IT functions. IBM is deploying cognitive intelligence to help humanity. In my "smaller world," we're deploying AI engines that correlate data to drive insights or automate processes. IBM Watson processes natural language found in help desk tickets; AI also detects anomalies in the data found among the tools we use to monitor our application stability. Artificial intelligence will continue to grow in my team and should grow in yours as well. It will benefit us as individuals, our communities, and the marketplace.

Despite IT capital investment of billions per year and apps in the hundreds per company, we still have employees spending a significant portion of their time answering emails and doing tasks that add no value. If AI can help us with that problem, I don't see how our fear is anything more than science fiction. We will always need a human to set and understand the business.

An IBM Institute for Business Value survey stated: "Half of the CEOs said innovation was the single most important activity for success in their organizations."

Embracing innovation without addressing the underlying culture of the rest of the enterprise frequently ended in waste. I'll continue to bet on the human aspect to be creative and innovative in a way a machine can not. I believe emerging technology is the opportunity, not the threat, of our lifetime.