Plotting our revenge: 3 ways humans might outwit AI and the robots

It's downright dispiriting. Every time a new public debate takes place about automation and the future of work, the robotics-and-software crowd can point to a few more areas where technology is gaining the upper hand. (This month's examples involve Apple's facial-recognition software and viral videos of humanoid robots that can pull off flawless backflips.)

Defenders of human ingenuity keep insisting that we humans aren't finished just yet. Our greater social skills might save us; rising global income might create more jobs, and if all else fails, we could retrain ourselves in a hurry to master whatever new skills a tech-fueled world might need. Valid as such counter-arguments might be, they don't feel like brilliant ripostes.

At a future-of-work conversation hosted this week by McKinsey Global Institute and Silicon Valley's Churchill Club, however, the humanists finally brought their A-game. Leading the counterattack was Tim O'Reilly, the founder of O'Reilly Media and author of WTF: What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us.

O'Reilly's first idea: Get busy on "stuff that needs doing," even if there's no obvious way at first to get paid for it. Somehow, if work fills an important enough need, the economics sort out favorably before long. That turned out to be the case for his own publishing company, which began cobbling together consumer-oriented software guides in the 1980s -- without a clear business plan -- and eventually became a substantial media property. Something similar is likely to happen, O'Reilly contended, if people turn their attention to big needs such as community services, climate change and health care for aging populations.

As Caribbean hurricanes grow fiercer, O'Reilly remarked, "we'll probably need to rebuild Houston every few years, until we figure we need to be moving people." Today's work in construction and infrastructure becomes tomorrow's new industries.

O'Reilly's next idea: innovate in ways that turn overlooked, ordinary goods into something exciting and valuable. Take clothing, he observed. People subsisted on one set of clothes a few centuries ago. Not anymore. Our closets and drawers are filled with an endless variety of colorful, uniquely styled garments.

We're in the midst of doing something similar with food, he contended. Coffee isn't a commodity anymore; it's become its own form of entertainment, as amazing beans from faraway lands are roasted by unique local merchants. "In a rich society, people say: 'Entertain me with food,'" O'Reilly observed. "We've de-commodified commodities." As that happens, jobs for chefs, recipe creators, food marketers, restaurateurs and others keep increasing.

Even the specter of self-driving cars needn't be a job killer, added Mark Gorenberg, the founder of Zetta Venture Partners. He estimates that as much as 30% of some downtowns could be freed up for redevelopment if autonomous vehicles catch on to the point that nobody needs parking lots within walking distances of office towers or high-rise apartments. If that much prime real estate needs to be redeveloped, Gorenberg contended, the job-creation effects could be huge.