Automation will change dynamics at workplace

Internet of things and automation could make significant disruption in human role at workplace and reverse the role bet-ween man and machine, with machines driving and controlling human activities in future.

A Gartner report lists top predictions for IT organisations in coming years that could change the dynamics of workplace.

“The ‘robo’ trend, the emerging practicality of artificial intelligence, and the fact that enterprises and consumers are now embracing the advancement of these technologies is driving change,” said Daryl Plummer, analyst and vice-president, Gartner.

Automated composition engines could give a tough competition to content writers on field. Analytical information based on data can be turned into natural language writing using these engines. This means that business content, such as shareholder reports, legal documents, market reports, press releases, articles and white papers, are all candidates for automated writing tools. Gartner report predicts come 2018 and 20 per cent of business content will be authored by machines.

As we move on to the era of machines interacting with each other, enterprises will need to begin viewing things as customers of services — and treat them accordingly. Mechanisms will need to be developed for responding to significantly larger numbers of support requests communicated directly by machines, which will also call for building strategies to handle these requests. Garner predicts by 2018, 6 billion connected things will be requesting support.

Hinting about the forthcoming autonomous programs getting involved in financial transactions, Gartner predicts autonomous software agents that work completely on their own, without human intervention to drive 5 percent of all economic transactions by 2020, calling it the underpinning of a new, so-called “programmable economy.”

Machines won’t just stop there. Apart from controlling your financial transactions, they will also hold control over your activities at workplace. Supervisory duties are increasingly shifting into monitoring worker accomplishment through measurements of performance that are directly tied to output and customer evaluation and could be done by smart machine managers tuned to learn making staffing decisions and deciding management incentives By 2018, more than 3 million workers globally will be supervised by a “Robo-boss”. The report further suggests that smart machines will threaten human role at fastest-growing companies. Startups eyeing the speed, cost savings, productivity improvements and ability to scale smart machines will prefer them over tasks such as, recruiting, hiring, training and growth demands of human labor. Speaking of possibilities of a fully automated supermarket or a security firm offering drone-only surveillance services, Gartner says, by 2018, 45 percent of the fastest-growing companies will have fewer employees than instances of smart machines. On the bright side, smart machines like customer digital assistant will mimic human conversations, listen and speak, provide a sense of history, recognize individuals by face and voice facilitating better user experience and technologically informed purchasing decisions.

Interestingly, employees working as emergency responders, such as police officers, firefighters and paramedics, will be required to wear health and fitness tracking devices.

as a condition of employment. Their heart rates and respiration, and potentially their stress levels, could be remotely monitored and help could be sent immediately if needed.

Source | Asian Age | 9 October 2015