Technological advancements to reshape working hours

ISTANBUL

Amid the advancements in AI and robotics that have swept the world in recent years, a lot of uncertainty-based concerns about the future are reaching the level of anxiety, with millions afraid of losing their jobs.

AI tools, frequently used in almost every field, and robots make many tasks easier, from the industry to the kitchen.

But will they one day stand before us and take our jobs?

According to futurist Gerd Leonhard, things may go a little differently. "In 10, maybe 15, 20 years, people probably will have less work as humans. So, we can only work three or four hours a day for the same money because the machines do most of the work.

"And then we have to figure out how to use a tax or a system to get enough money to pay everybody basic income, called basic income," he told Anadolu on Friday during Türkiye E-Commerce Week.

The two-day event is organized by the Trade Ministry, the Electronic Commerce Operators Association (ETID) and the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB). Anadolu is serving as the event’s global communication partner.

He said a lot of jobs will go away because machines will finally be able to do them, "But the good news is that if your job is like 30% routine, then you can make other things."

People can do other better jobs, he said. "If your job is 90% routine, you're out of a job, like in the call center. So, in the call center in the next couple (of) years, we will have almost 100% possibility of people calling and talking to a robot and solving problems."

"Then there will also be new jobs like interface designers and people who are supervising the robots. But in 10, maybe 15, 20 years, we probably will have less work as humans," he stressed.

He said a 30-year-old worker has to wonder if his job will be there, because AI is learning how to do it, "You have to learn how to be better than the machine, more human," said Leonhard.

“I think a lot of work that is currently not paid, like having children, taking care of your grandmother, cooking or doing social work and a lot of those jobs will be paid because now people have enough money to pay people for health care," he explained.

"The new jobs are really all about the things that we can do. So, for example, being a therapist is a very top-level skill that is about understanding humans intuitively. It's not about the logic that a machine has. So, a machine would make a very bad therapist because it doesn't exist, it doesn't have feelings," he highlighted.

He added: "A machine would make a very bad writer because it has no emotions. It doesn't exist. So, all the jobs that require us to be more human, more intuition, imagination, negotiation, understanding.

"Teachers, painters, artists, designers … that require human understanding, the machine is more like this and we're more like this," he said.

People cannot compete with the machine on logic, because the machine will have more logic; they have to compete on the broad aspect, he noted. "Real creativity is not about the logic, it's about discovery. The most important thing really is about creativity."

Collaborating

Leonhard said he is excited about the possibility of technology solving big problems like cancer, medical problems, obesity, diabetes, like solving energy, nuclear fusion, like solving travel and space travel. I'm optimistic about that. We are inventing all these things."

He said people are not going to collaborate to make the technology actually work for everybody and to agree on what they should do and not do. "Because in 2030, roughly, we will be able to do pretty much anything, like upload our brain to the Internet and do all these things."

He added: "I think the future is better than we think. You know, we have a lot of fear about the future now, which is justified, right, because it doesn't look so bright right now.

"But we also have to believe that humans are capable of creating new things. So, we're not stupid. We can be lazy, but we generally know how to do things. We know how to collaborate. We just have to get better at it," added Leonhard.