Smart Machines: How will they disrupt your career?

How susceptible is your job to computerisation?

According to Frey and Osborne, 47% of all current jobs are at risk over the next two decades because they consist primarily of tasks that can be automated in that time period. (Left unanalysed are the beneficial impacts — such as new capabilities people will pick up by collaborating with smart machines.)

I recently wrote that smart machines will continue to enhance and threaten the abilities of employees to do their jobs.

By 2020, Gartner Predicts that a majority of knowledge worker career paths will be disrupted by smart machines in both positive and negative ways.

Smart machines — a broad and powerful range of new systems— are emerging this decade. They do what we thought only people could do and what we didn’t think technology could do.

Smart machines and smart advisors exploit machine learning and algorithms — they learn from results and work faster than humans – they make smart people smarter. Virtual personal assistants – focused on user behavior (habits, activities, needs) — make smart people more effective.

The smart machine market is small, but growing, threatening to upend knowledge workers careers by 2020 (see chart). Ignore at your own peril.

By Tom Austin