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Democratizing artificial intelligence

How we can make sure AI benefits everyone

  • min read
    • We're at a tipping point in history, but the potential in our situation is also palpable. Smart technology has been disruptive. Artificial intelligence (AI) is growing exponentially, creating radical change in how we live, work and play. Every country and industry feels its reverberations. Whole systems of production, management and governance are changing while we face huge challenges like climate change and a global pandemic. Add ongoing issues like fake news, wealth inequality and bias to the mix. We need visionary leadership and action to ensure humanity goes in the right direction as we unlock AI's potential. If we navigate this era wisely, AI will be good for society. Max Tegmark, President of Future of Life Institute, says, "Everything we love about civilization is a product of intelligence, so amplifying our human intelligence with artificial intelligence could help civilization flourish like never before – as long as we keep the technology beneficial." AI is a purpose for humanity My recent book Democratizing Artificial Intelligence to Benefit Everyone examines the smart technology era, how AI affects every part of our world and how it could benefit everyone. I also introduce Sapiens – a human-centered AI-driven platform that puts us in control as individuals. It could monetize the data and services of individuals, companies and even countries. Sapiens addresses a big gap: There is no large-scale solution helping us make the most of our lives. The Sapiens AI Assistant helps you optimize your life, get money for data and services and learns from your behavior. It supports lifelong learning, relationships and wellbeing. It gives guidance, makes recommendations and even helps you build character strengths. Why do we need this? Imagine living in a thriving, uplifting and compassionate society that creates beneficial outcomes for everyone. Smart technology helps this society solve problems and create opportunities. Cities are greener, work is low stress and living more meaningful. Jobs are well-paid, your community is rich in activities and you can easily learn throughout your life. You can focus on quality of life and work with others to further improve society, rewarded for your active participation and positive contributions. I'm developing Sapiens with that future in mind. How business leaders should respond to AI AI is progressively disrupting and changing most sectors and business models. It's activating new markets and future industries. Global management consultancy McKinsey estimates AI will add 13 trillion US dollars to the global economy over the next decade. In my experience developing AI software over two decades, business is getting better at gathering and responding to data, transforming customer retention, productivity and quality. Increased computing power, data storage and processing capability have all helped. Markets are evolving. We see faster, scalable marketplaces, more informed consumers and leaner operations. Advances in AI are birthing new industries and customer segments. Senior executives must make fast, strategic shifts to monetize new opportunities and adapt models as AI adoption spawns new industries. Early examples of new AI-driven market segments include recommendation-driven entertainment streaming and GPS-driven ride-sharing. We've seen tremendous increase in start-ups using AI, with investment growing 18-fold in six years. AI applications today mainly optimize business processes in existing industries like customer support, logistics and supply chain management. But the biggest economic benefits of AI will be in solving complex problems that could start new industries. Business leaders must keep track of machine learning developments to spot trends and react. AI in cybersecurity Cyberattacks can target all businesses, with aims ranging from customer data theft to corporate espionage. IT security economics research by Kaspersky saw the average cost in 2020 of resolving a data breach for an enterprise exceeds $1 million, and more than $100k for small- to medium-sized businesses. Large data breaches can leak the data of millions of people, opening the door for further cybercrime and fraud. AI will play an increasingly important role in protecting businesses from cyberthreats, with security tools analyzing data from millions of threats and using it to identify threats like ransomware and phishing as they become more sophisticated. Staying up to date with AI-based cybersecurity tools and using them to assist security teams helps keep businesses safe from increasingly potent cyberattacks. AI-driven cybersecurity learns how humans react, helping a business become better prepared to face future threats. Personalized engagement for consumer-facing businesses Consumer-facing businesses must offer personalized customer experiences at scale. Tech giants like Amazon, Google and Alibaba have led the way. Machine learning can accurately predict customer needs by building rich, real-time profiles as we interact with websites and virtual assistants. Accenture says investment in AI and human-machine collaboration could boost retail revenue by 38 percent. As we flick through Netflix recommendations or search on Google, AI calculations happen in data centers, with our devices communicating their results to us. This will change as machine-learning algorithms become more efficient and capable of running on low-power devices at the 'edge' (known as edge computing.) Future AI applications in money and finance AI has already had an enormous impact on the financial services sector. Mordor Intelligence estimated AI in fintech was worth nearly 8 billion US dollars in 2020, predicting its value will triple by 2026. AI-automated processes are reducing costs, increasing productivity and preventing fraud. AI could offer personalized engagement for the growing number switching to mobile, in-app transactions. It would provide another possible route for cyberattack and financial fraud, but AI can help address these risks too. Intelligent virtual assistants for banking, powered by messaging platforms, mobile devices or voice assistants, could give convenient, easy customer service for everything from account balances to loan inquiries. My company, South African AI business Cortex Logic, envisages major banks using AI-driven models to optimize home loan prices in a dynamic and personalized way. In this industry, slight increases in market share are of high value. US residents take out 4.4 trillion US dollars in home mortgages each year. By mining structured and unstructured data, banks can better segment and personalize home loan price positioning. AI-powered stock and share trading could use new data sources like satellite imagery relevant to commodity prices and social media sentiments around brands. These could complement established market signals like company performance and news sentiments to optimize investment portfolios. AI-enabled education, healthcare and wellness AI ultra-personalized solutions present a way to use smart tech for a fairer world. McKinsey estimates in the US AI-powered solutions could save 300 billion US dollars a year in healthcare costs. While in the UK, AI-driven preventive care could save 3.3 billion pounds yearly in decreased hospital admissions. These preventative care solutions also forecast disease spread and identify high-risk groups. Developing one new drug costs around 2.6 billion US dollars, but almost 90 percent of proposed therapies fail between first-phase trials and regulatory approval. AI-based solutions are helping speed up developing treatments and making them more cost-effective. AI's impact on society, government and the public sector AI is transforming the public sector with improved delivery, efficiency and safety. Many governments see AI as a game-changer and are putting policies in place to smooth its way. Professional services giant Deloitte's Center of Government Insights report examines how AI can redesign public sector work. For the US federal government alone, task automation could mean savings of 3.3 to 41 billion US dollars (depending on the type of task being sped up and to what extent). Debates around AI's future AI's progress and future direction are hotly debated. Everyone wants to ensure its path is ethical, transparent and beneficial. We're getting better at understanding the complexity and inner workings of AI. We must now develop a thorough understanding of where it's going. How will AI affect our ability to exercise free will? How will it impact our evolution and long-term survival? There are concerns about using AI for surveillance, including tech giants, corporates and governments using it to control, manipulate or profit. Other concerns center around how bias in data can make AI unreliable. Solutions to potential negative impacts include developing policies to ensure AI is directed at the common good. Skills for a human-centered AI-driven workplace OECD's Future of Education and Skills 2030 report recommends students develop three competencies they'll need to shape a healthy and sustainable future: Creating new value, reconciling tensions and dilemmas, and taking responsibility. University of Phoenix's Institute of the Future outlines ten work skills crucial for success in the future workplace in their Future Work Skills 2020 report, including sense-making: finding deeper meaning and significance in information and novel and adaptive thinking: coming up with solutions and responses beyond rules. AI is a vital companion to support people to thrive in the future of work. Democratizing AI is a multi-faceted problem. It's not only dependent on the progress of tech and policy making, but excellent collaboration between the public and private sector, academia and global organizations. We need a strategic plan to ensure we use AI for good outcomes. We must democratize AI throughout the lifecycle starting with its development before deployment and use. We must build human-compatible, ethical and trustworthy AI and address bias and discrimination. With the accelerating pace of AI-driven automation and its impact on work, we must become lifelong learners. We need to make proactive choices as opportunities shift and target areas where we can make meaningful contributions. That way, we'll shape a better future together in the smart technology era.
ai ethics

The mirror we don’t recognize ourselves in: Talking AI with Dr. Beth Singler

  • min read
    • One of many experts appearing in Tomorrow Unlocked's new audio series Fast Forward is Dr. Beth Singler, anthropologist and Junior Research Fellow in artificial intelligence at University of Cambridge. Dr. Singler (@BVLSingler) examines the social, ethical and philosophical implications of artificial intelligence and robotics. She has spoken at Edinburgh Science Festival, London Science Museum and New Scientist Live, and been interviewed by New Scientist, Forbes and the BBC. I interviewed Dr. Singler about AI and the future of work. Ken: In your work, you engage people in conversations about the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. What do people think AI is? Beth: For the public, it isn't one thing. People point to examples of AI being implemented, but it has different definitions for people. They draw presumptions from science fiction and media accounts of dangerous AI and scary robots. It's a malleable term – people say 'the algorithm' and mean AI. Many think of AI in the workplace replacing human physical work, but we see AI taking on more knowledge labor and even emotional labor. Ken: What kind of emotional tasks can AI do? Beth: We increasingly see interfaces with AI that give simulated emotional responses. AI assistants do tasks for you but pleasantly and civilly. Call center work is already highly structured and scripted – an AI assistant or chatbot can take over that pleasantry system. How workplaces implement AI will influence how we connect with other humans. Ken: Are we creating a human-machine social world we'll have to learn to interact with? Beth: Yes. We're seeing these human-machine interactions playing out in different places – in the home, workplace, and care settings. We're having to understand that relationship and teach our children to negotiate it. There are discussions on whether children should be polite when using AI assistants. We're coming up with a new social format for interactions with AI. Ken: I thought, of course you should be polite to machines – if only because one day they'll look at everything we've said and done and judge us accordingly. I want to be on the right side of them. Beth: We also see arguments that you should be civil to AI assistants because this is how we should behave to other entities, whether human or non-human – that it reflects our natures. If we aren't civil to machines, it says more about us than their needs. There are many different answers to questions of politeness to AI assistants. Ken: People find conversations with Cleverbot amusing when it asks things like, "Don't you wish you had a body?" or "What is God to you?" They don't consider Cleverbot thinks it's appropriate because a human asked IT those questions. We're looking into a strange, distorting mirror and not recognizing our reflection. Beth: Absolutely. There's a reason the Black Mirror TV series is called Black Mirror – it's a reflective surface for understanding ourselves. AI and machine responses come from data sets, and those involve biases. It's a moment to reflect, for instance, on questions of personhood before we even get to anything like artificial general intelligence (AGI) or superintelligence. Should we be civil? If we say rude or sexist things to a female AI assistant, does that matter? These questions come out again and again. I'm an anthropologist, meaning I study what humans do and think. These big questions are integral to our concept of what AI is. I've seen in my work engaging the public and seeing their sometimes hopeful, sometimes fearful responses that this will be a conversation we'll have for some time yet. Ken: I was at an airport buying a train ticket one afternoon. It was quiet, and the woman behind the counter said, "You should have been here yesterday – the automatic ticket machines had recalibrated and was giving wrong tickets. People adjust. Machines don't." I wondered if this ability to adjust is part of our relationship with machines. Beth: It's interesting how much we adjust to machines. With the airport systems that use facial recognition software, I often have to take off my glasses, change my hair or bob down. We adjust ourselves to be accepted by the system. You see this in how automation is changing the workplace. There are interviews with facial recognition software involved, so we're trying to smile more in a video interview. We're increasingly making changes to fit the machine-based system. Ken: It suggests an element of trust. Where does trust fit in our relationship with machines? Beth: Trust is key. We want to believe software that observes our responses in job interviews is fair and neutral, but we have examples where trust is let down. In the UK in 2020, an algorithm that helped grade student exam papers damaged public trust – it penalized students studying at less high-achieving schools. In my work, I see examples of people trusting too much – they have an image of a superintelligence that doesn't exist yet. Society can only trust technology it understands. Digital literacy – understanding what AI is and isn't – is key to that. Ken: We tend to understand things better as fiction. It's a way to get a grip on the world. But I get the feeling fiction's not a grip anymore, but a stranglehold. Is that fair? Beth: I enjoy science fiction accounts of AI in their many interpretations, fears and hopes. One of the hazards is a strict, negative story used too often. I'm a fan of the Terminator film franchise, but I see how dystopian imagery of robot uprisings shapes people's views of AI. And AI making crucial decisions about our future – whether we get a job or a mortgage, or how we're treated in hospital – may also be overshadowed by Terminator-like stories. Ken: And it stops us noticing when AI does good things, like in medicine and traffic control. The robots are already among us, but they don't usually walk on two legs. They're more likely to be sorting out your airplane ticket. Beth: There's a move toward making robots cuter and replicating child and animal forms to reduce those threatening associations from science fiction. Think of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator versus the therapeutic robot PARO, modeled on a baby harp seal. Ken: Is there an element of trying to make work more fun? Perhaps work becomes more like play if you have an AI assistant who helps with the emotional labor? Beth: Yes. There's a history of trying to gamify the workplace – developing 'third space' options that involve games or places where you can nap. Perhaps how we apply AI is a part of how we make the workplace more enjoyable. If our software chatted back to us, was entertaining and responded to us, it might seem less laborious. Ken: Going back to emotional labor, programs could soften the edges of work relationships, whether online or in an office – I can imagine something like an 'emotional Roomba' (robot vacuum cleaner) allowing for moments of interaction. Beth: We see examples of AI mediating between humans in conversation, like machine learning algorithms suggesting how to respond to emails or warning your tone is too harsh – softening the edges of our interactions at work is a developing space. Ken: After some emails I've had, I see the value in something like that. Beth: I also saw an application for divorced or divorcing couples helping conversations be more amicable for the benefit of any children. A machine learning algorithm warns you things like, perhaps you're being a bit sarcastic. Ken: I'm scared of an algorithm that understands sarcasm. That will be the end of humanity. Beth: There's a wonderful Tom Gauld cartoon about scientists trying to create a sarcastic bot. And the bot says to the scientist, "It's going great. This guy is a real genius." Ken: What thought about AI and the future of work would you most like people to take away? Beth: I'd like people to consider how much we should change our behavior in relation to AI in the workplace. People don't normally interact in purely rational ways. If we curtail that normal human messiness, we're not anthropomorphizing AI but robo-morphizing humans. If we make ourselves smile more to do well in an interview with facial recognition software, we limit ourselves. Although we might see AI as a human simulation, do we become a human simulation in response to AI? Listen to Tomorrow Unlocked's Fast Forward audio series for more expert views
work from anywhere

Why hiring ‘digital nomads’ is about to get smoother

  • min read
    • Last year, as the pandemic broke out, British entrepreneur of Capital Business Media Richard Alvin found his return flight from Florida to the UK canceled. He then rented an Airbnb with a pool and worked remotely from it for the next three months, in constant communication with his London and New York teams. While many businesses see the benefits of recruiting internationally and don't mind navigating time zones for meetings, some challenges – like international employment law – mean 'remote first' companies are still uncommon. But new platforms are landing that help even the smallest start-up employ the best people beyond the usual horizons. Remote appeal for workers The increasing adoption of remote working opens a wealth of possibilities for people liberated by the confines of the office-based 9 to 5. Progressive companies, largely those in tech, promote it as a new kind of 'office perk.' And with good reason: Kaspersky's Securing the Future of Work study of 8,000 respondents found for 32 percent, being able to work from anywhere was the benefit of remote working they most wanted to keep post-pandemic. Employees are acting on that desire too. The Global Workforce Revolution report by international HR and employment platform Remote found 20 percent of US and 10 percent of UK tech workers have requested to relocate since Covid. The report also found a huge 81 percent of the 1,500 UK and US tech workers surveyed would move to a different state or country if it wouldn't affect their employment or pay. The report also surveyed tech companies, finding 66 percent plan to increase options for employees to live and work where they want to. Attracting and retaining people is a motivator, with 42 percent of tech businesses expecting international remote working to increase talent supply. Navigating the red tape of global employment The borderless recruitment promised by remote working isn't as simple as posting a job vacancy and watching international applications roll in. HR, tax and employment laws vary across the globe – more than some companies can easily navigate. Larger international enterprises are more likely to have the resources to do it. But there are ways even small to medium-sized companies could take advantage of global talent without so much red tape. Those committed to teams without borders are increasingly adopting specialist platforms for international employment. Video conferencing start-up Whereby, founded in Norway, has a 'remote first' policy. They use Remote to help expand their workforce internationally. "Remote-first means our business is set up so we can work wherever we thrive," says Whereby's vice president of people and talent, Jessica Hayes. "We're not doing this because we can make more money by recruiting globally. We believe talent is equally distributed across the world, but the opportunities are not." Hayes hopes Whereby will recruit more people from Japan to support its growing Japanese user base with local insights. Working with platforms like Remote helps Whereby ensure all international employees have the same legal security and support with a permanent or contracted work arrangement. Driving the remote economy These are familiar pain points for Remote's vice president of growth, Elisa Rossi. Last year, she relocated from San Francisco back to her native Italy to be closer to family. Rossi relays how Remote's CEO Job van der Voort's experiences in a previous role at one of the world's largest and most successful remote-first companies led him to build Remote. "They decided they'd never have an office and hire the best person for the job, regardless of where they are. It's now a successful enterprise with talent across 67 countries. There are the logistics and all the operational challenges of making that happen. "We want to take a leading role in the remote economy by making it easy for people to employ anywhere. We reduce the significant complexities of global employment, like establishing an entity in a new country, figuring out tax and staying compliant." Remote's users range from three-person start-ups to enterprises with 1,000 roles to fill. Customers are largely in the US, Europe and Latin America. Their most active customers are tech companies expanding internationally, those adopting remote-first from day one and companies transitioning to remote-first. Rossi thinks Remote levels the playing field for companies of any size to benefit from global talent. Opening the best work opportunities to the world It's an issue close to the heart of Estonian entrepreneur Karoli Hindriks, who, like Whereby, wants to equalize the distribution of great work opportunities. Hindriks founded cross-border recruitment and immigration platform Jobbatical in 2014. Estonian's government consulted her in developing its digital nomad visa, which lets remote workers work freely in Estonia for a year. Hindriks explains, "Jobbatical started by asking, how could we come from a small country like Estonia and attract people from all over the world to Tallinn instead of Silicon Valley, New York or London? We found the biggest pain point for both employees and companies isn't the recruitment, but the immigration relocation, so we built tech around that." "We need big economies like the UK, Spain and Italy to consider this policy seriously," she says. "When companies and a country can make the process easy, companies can focus on hiring the best people, regardless of location. Today we cannot help with the immigration status of digital nomad workforces, and I see more companies requesting help at a policy level, so they can let people work where they are living." Getting on top of international legislation While platforms like Remote and Jobbatical can do much of this heavy lifting for companies, Whereby's Hayes recommends companies use international legal counsel too. "Employment law in every country is a complex beast. If a manager has staff in multiple countries and needs to terminate one, how can they know the legislative requirements? Or the tax perspective? Employees will have different questions too." Although Remote's Rossi and Jobbatical's Hindrix point to their companies' rigorous cybersecurity and data handling practices, remote-first employers need top-notch cybersecurity practice. As dispersed home workers can mean the business is more vulnerable to cyberattack, investing in cybersecurity tools and awareness to protect against international breaches is a must. Kaspersky's Securing the Future of Work report gives tips for remote-working employees, like updating devices and passwords regularly and using virtual private networks (VPNs.) It's also worth reading up on the importance of system hardening and team cybersecurity awareness. "You need to know the cyber-risks of remote working, how you can prepare your teams and encourage a culture of collaboration and transparency. If you're thinking about extending remote working beyond COVID-19, have the right cybersecurity training program and products in place to keep your teams and business safe," advises Kaspersky UK enterprise expert Lee Rendell. Working from anywhere is becoming a reality. If companies can keep tabs on the legal requirements and sharpen their cybersecurity game, they can take advantage of a wider talent pool and greater diversity. As more players aiming to smooth the process of hiring internationally come on the scene, the digital nomad may soon travel wherever the wind takes her.
remote team building

Remote team building just got a lot more interesting

  • min read
    • Peer through any residential street window these days, and you'll likely see a homeworker at a kitchen-table workstation tapping on a laptop, brainstorming over Zoom or sharing files on workflow apps like Slack. But it's not just everyday work processes going online. Companies are increasingly discovering remote team building, including activities ranging from video treasure hunts to interactive escape rooms to cocktail-making masterclasses. Why do they see team building as so important at times like these? Not all team building is created equal Research suggests changes in work culture seen during the COVID-19 pandemic are here to stay. A survey by US tech researchers Enterprise Technology Research predicts remote workers will more than double in 2021 compared with before the outbreak, to make up 34 percent of the workforce. While most are happy with more flexible work patterns, working from home has downsides. Social media app firm Buffer asked 3,500 remote workers worldwide what they felt was the biggest struggle of working remotely. "Collaboration and communication" and "loneliness" came joint top. Remote team building could improve upon both issues. But when I asked Dr. Christine Grant, Deputy Head of Coventry University's School of Psychological, Social and Behavioral Sciences and author of Agile Working and Well-Being in the Digital Age, she cautioned. Employers should make sure they don't overload the schedules of people already spending swathes of their day on Zoom or Microsoft Teams calls. Virtual team building business is booming How can companies best engage scattered teams who may be suffering from videoconferencing fatigue? Many employers, particularly small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs,) have been content to take an informal approach, with activities led by people within the organization. HR insider magazines have come up with plenty of ideas that can work over video, from trivia quizzes and icebreaker games to office book clubs and a good old-fashioned Friday social. For something closer to the traditional day out of the office, expert guidance can help. Andy Wells, owner and founder of London-based team builders Zing Events, has worked with most FTSE 100 companies. Before 2020, he'd already noticed an uptick in demand for virtual events and had added app activities and remote options for events usually held live. But the pandemic forced more radical change in the company's model. "The number of events we run has increased massively. We were running around 300 live events a year, but we now have over 150 virtual bookings a month. Now we're working remotely, we can meet this demand. Staff don't have to travel around the country, so we can fit several events into one day. Before, our people would have to pick up the equipment, drive to the venue, set everything up, then run the activity." Timmon Whitehead, Managing Director of another team building outfit, White Rhino, said the company decided to ramp up its virtual offerings in March 2020, concentrating on tried-and-tested escape rooms and food-and-drink masterclasses previously offered live. These proved popular, and Whitehead puts down to employers wanting to recognize and reward staff efforts at a time of crisis. "People worked hard over lockdown, going above and beyond to keep things moving," he says. "The activities are a welcome break from that, and a chance to socialize with teammates and colleagues. People may constantly see each other on video calls, but they hardly get a chance to relax and enjoy time together. Virtual activities like socials and team challenges give that opportunity, and that's why they've been so well received." Murder mysteries or cocktail classes? There are broadly two types of remote team building activity. First, those entirely in the virtual realm. These rely on a bespoke app alongside videoconferencing on a laptop or desktop. Teams chat and collaborate while solving challenges and accumulating points, usually against a time limit, with a live leader board to keep it competitive. Popular scenarios include puzzle trails, crime-scene investigations and escape rooms. Wells estimates 40 percent of their bookings in the past year have been for the virtual escape room. Part of the appeal of virtual events is affordability – they can normally be run by one facilitator, cutting overheads. Team members can take part from anywhere. The second type of team-building event involves real-world activities overseen by an expert, for example, cook-alongs and cocktail masterclasses with ingredients received in advance. Though technically simpler, needing just videoconferencing, these events involve more logistics for all. To take part in a cook-along, employees need access to a kitchen and oven and must banish anyone else who shares the house to another room for the duration. Couriering equipment and ingredients to each participant comes at a cost. When virtual meets physical The most sophisticated activities combine real-life and virtual elements. White Rhino's Around The World Team Challenge uses a bespoke app to take participants on a journey through 22 countries. Players solve clues, answer questions and complete physical challenges, like learning kung fu moves in China, registered by image-recognition technology. Tasks earn travel credits, tallied up to determine where each team finishes. "The physical element is there by design," says Whitehead. "Many people now know the feeling of sitting at their desk in the morning, then looking up to find it's six o'clock – you've been in the same place all day. Anything we can do to get people up and about and be more active is fantastic, but we're conscious it needs to be suitable for everybody." Reputable events providers have a support team on hand to help with technical issues. They pay heed to security and encryption – guarding against the sort of "Zoombombing" intrusions that captured headlines last year when gatecrashers disrupted video meetings with pornography and other shock content. To get the most out of a virtual activity, teams need to be comfortable using the technology. On this front, Wells noticed a change over 2020. Dr. Grant notes tech-savviness is often generational. While older employees may have smartphones or tablets and find them helpful, they may find it harder to use more complex features. "Young people tend to use their phones for multiple activities, including playing games during downtime," she says. "But it's not so easy for everyone to do that, and you may lose a few people who would have engaged in face-to-face activities more easily. You don't want technology to become an inhibitor – activities need to be accessible to all." The hybrid future of work Keeping participants focused on the task rather than catching up on workplace gossip can also be a challenge. While co-workers may have had much formal contact through video calls with a specific task or agenda, they may not have had the chance to meet more informally – the "watercooler" conversations vital for team cohesion. This prompted Wells' company to make a simple tweak. "Our presenters used to get to the end, wrap up and finish the call. Now we leave the virtual meeting room open, so people can keep engaging and chatting. That's gone down well." Future work trend-spotters suggest "hybrid working" will soon become the norm. A recent survey of employees, managers and senior executives across several countries suggested a typical weekly schedule may involve a mix of remote and office-based work. This chimes with team-building companies. They're developing offerings to accommodate both on-site and remote participants. Whitehead says, "We're anticipating companies will return to running live events but will offer a virtual element as well. So if people aren't able to attend, or don't feel comfortable doing so, they can take part from their own home, playing the same game virtually and contributing to the same score as team members who take part live." Whatever the shape of work to come, virtual team building will remain a part of the toolkit for companies wanting to maintain a happy, connected workforce. Dr. Grant says, "With remote working, agile working or home working, socialization can be a problem. Even if you have on-screen meetings all the time, it's easy to feel invisible and isolated. "You need regular check-ins with colleagues and managers, making sure your well-being is OK, and interaction outside meetings. The organization needs to create an environment for this. We can use technology to help, but we need to make sure we use it to our advantage and deal with its less positive effects." As they negotiate the path to post-COVID-19 work culture, employers must rise to the challenge of maintaining strong connections between teams and colleagues. The fast-evolving remote team building industry provides options to suit many budgets and needs. How will you help your team grow relationships and collaboration skills for their future?
office interfaces of future

Virtual offices may be a revolution bigger than 2020’s work-from-home shift

  • min read
    • You've just got the hang of managing Zoom fatigue, but it's time to get ready for a new ride that's going to shake up our work-from-home lives. Imagine putting on a virtual reality (VR) headset and a virtual office appears all around you. Are we ready for VR offices? The COVID-19 pandemic has meant we're all spending more time at home. Unsurprisingly we've also seen an uptick in sales of VR and augmented relating (AR) technology. Research by Verizon Media predicts we'll buy 11 million VR and AR headsets worldwide in 2021. We're also using AR to virtually 'try on' cosmetics and fashion before buying online. This shift to using more advanced tech in everyday life alongside more widespread working from home suggests we're more than ready to try the virtual office. And business will want the benefits being in the same room can bring to a global team. Founder of holographic 3D workspace business Spatial, Anand Agarawala, says, "It used to be that if you wanted to jam on an idea or get creative, you'd get in a room with someone, even to the extent you'd take a flight to do that. With VR and AR we can put on a headset and feel like we're in the same room as someone." He calls it "a 3D version of Zoom meets Slack." Affordable headsets at the right time In late 2020, Facebook announced a new VR headset, the Oculus Quest 2. It received rave reviews, dubbed a "game-changer" by Tech Advisor for affordability, high-quality imagery and all-in-one capability without the need for a tethered PC connection. And it comes loaded with Infinite Office, Facebook's virtual reality workspace. Facebook's Infinite Office combines VR and AR, or 'mixed reality.' Infinite Office brings up browser 'windows' to visually represent what you might see when looking at monitors while sitting at your desk. It uses a "gesture interface" similar to that seen in 2002 science fiction movie Minority Report, in which Tom Cruise uses his hands to swipe floating windows through the air. But you can still go to the kitchen and grab a snack in headset. Passthrough technology lets you move from VR to MR, called 'mixed reality.' You can see both virtual reality your real-life environment, thanks to an integrated camera. Infinite Office also pairs with a real-life keyboard so you can write easily in headset – something that's been a problem before in virtual reality. Unfortunately, your snack crumbs can still be a more-than-virtual keyboard hazard. More effective skills training with VR Facebook admits Infinite Office has limitations when it comes to the full immersive capabilities of a virtual office. Maria Fernandez Guajardo, Director of Facebook Future of Work, says it's just their first step into the virtual office space. "Infinite Office is … the foundational layer [with] initial capabilities to help unlock productivity and utility from Quest." So Facebook is teaming up with Spatial and Talespin, who already have immersive software, hoping to improve user experience. You can then collaborate and brainstorm 'virtually' face-to-face. Talespin offers soft skills (such as leadership and communication) training by placing you in a realistic roleplay, with impressive results. They also offer physical skills training too, recreating real-world objects, tools and places in 3D. Virtually creating a fairer world These innovations already have more benefits than letting colleagues play virtual table football. They can also improve diversity and inclusion. The VR office lets those with disabilities or impaired mobility telecommute into work without losing visibility, even if some prefer to return to their daily commute. It could also enhance face-to-face interactions for workers who are sight-impaired or hard of hearing. Facebook Reality Labs is developing AR glasses that help those with hearing loss hear better in noisy environments. These glasses identify the user's focus and coordinate this to audio inputs to 'understand' what sounds they do and don't want to hear, dialing these up or down. Michael Abrash, chief scientist at Facebook Reality Labs, told Digital Trends, "AR and VR have enormous potential to benefit everyone, but especially high potential for people with varying physical abilities." Securing virtual office data Multinational professional services network PwC recently looked into using VR for workplace training. They say, "When considering data security on a headset, it is important to understand there are normally two types of data security that need to be addressed: Security of the underlying operating system that is running on the hardware and security of the data collected by an application running on top of that operating system (data collected from inside the application.)" PwC also suggests it's crucial to consider how you'll maintain and manage a large fleet of VR headsets. "The installation of security certificates on some of the head-mounted displayed (HMDs) is not yet possible. If you are using a certificate-based security approach for your enterprise and mobile phones, you may have to address mobile device management (MDM) capabilities outside your standard platform." As the role of the office changes, the role technology plays changes too. Working from home can be isolating, and effective collaboration sometimes proves difficult. The VR office could open a global talent pool, enable more diversity and, with any luck, make the pain of booking a meeting room a thing of the past.
AI future jobs climate

Far from AI stealing our jobs, the future could be full employment

  • min read
    • In the run-up to the coronavirus pandemic, future-gazing economists were increasingly concerned with technological unemployment: The idea we'll replace human workers with automated systems, creating social unrest among surplus workers. If the prospect of guillotine-wielding retirees didn't worry you, the economists asked who would buy what robots built. Workers would stage uprisings, unable to buy anything on their way home from the barricades. It wouldn't be the first time automation has brought social unrest – the term 'Luddite' comes from a movement in the UK's industrial revolution that saw workers destroying machinery that was replacing them. Calming the angry masses Many have proposed solutions to this (speculative) crisis, most prominently Universal Basic Income (UBI:) A regular pay packet for every person, with no means testing. It would lubricate the economy's supply side and dry up the reservoirs of guillotine-building fuel. UBI may be a good idea, but not because of technological unemployment. The poster child for technological unemployment is trucking. Artificial intelligence (AI) boosters will tell you being a trucker is one of the most common jobs in the US and that self-driving trucks are within our grasp. But there's more to the story. "Trucker" is one of the most common jobs in the US because the Bureau of Labor Statistics deems "trucker" includes anyone who operates a delivery vehicle, from a van to a long-haul 16-wheeler. Self-driving vehicles are nowhere near ready to replace urban delivery drivers. It's true that if given their own lane on major highways, automated lorries could probably navigate reliably. How exciting. We've just invented a substandard freight train. Bigger fish to fry That all said, I'm a science fiction writer. My job is to imagine six impossible things before breakfast. I can conduct a thought experiment in which AI breakthroughs replace most of the jobs we're doing today. If that day comes, it will be a good one. It will free up people for the most urgent task our species faces – a project that will absorb all the work all of us and all our descendants can do, for centuries to come. I'm talking about climate change. Remediating climate change will be unimaginably labor-intensive: Relocating every coastal city inland, building high-speed rail to replace aviation and treating runaway pandemics, to begin with. If automation takes your job, you'll have another. You'll have ten. Or a hundred. Fantasy faces facts Perhaps you think I'm dodging the question. If we're stipulating a fundamental breakthrough that produces AI, what about a comparable geoengineering breakthrough? Maybe our AI will be so smart it will work out how to reduce Earth's reflectivity, creating mass cooling to counter the greenhouse effect. That's less science fiction, more science fantasy. It's too late to halt the climate processes that will flood every coastal city, displace hundreds of millions of people and sicken billions as pathogen-bearing organisms seek new habitats. These things will happen regardless of geoengineering. Why? Consider, for example, the heat we've sunk into the oceans. The seas won't cool until the energy trapped in their depths is expended. The ice caps are toast. I can speculate about AI all night long, but thought experiments that repeal the second law of thermodynamics aren't scenario-building. They're wishful thinking. Pandemic lays economic assumptions bare The COVID-19 crisis has taught us two critical things. The first: Ideological commitment to government austerity doesn't build capacity – it destroys it. California spent 200 million US dollars in 2006 to stockpile N95 masks, ventilators and mobile hospitals. In 2011, the state dismantled its stockpile to save just 5 million US dollars a year on maintenance as its tax revenues fell after the subprime crisis. The second: Sovereign currency issuers don't have cash shortfalls during crises – they have capacity shortfalls. Since the pandemic began, central bankers of countries with monetary sovereignty (issuing free-floating currencies and not borrowing substantially in currencies they don't issue) have been creating money. They just type zeroes into a spreadsheet at the central bank, and the money appears. Orthodox economics says creating money produces inflation, but it didn't, because the money was largely spent on things the private sector wasn't buying. Inflation happens when the amount of money in circulation grows in relation to goods and services for sale. When the amount of currency goes up without a rise in available goods and services, you have more money chasing fewer things, and prices rise. But the private sector had suddenly developed a disinterest in the labor of hundreds of millions of workers worldwide. When governments gave those workers money to cover their overheads, they're not competing with the private sector, so they're not driving up the price of labor. There's one exception. The demand for healthcare has spiked, with no end in sight. Central banks can print as much money as they want, but they can't make ventilators appear on the market. California gave away its ventilators 12 years ago to save money. The US central bank could have filled California's budget hole 12 years ago. Instead, they "saved" money and threw out the health infrastructure. Likewise, post-2008 austerity saw a drawdown of medical infrastructure across the European Union, particularly in the poorest countries like Italy, whose early collision with the coronavirus was made brutal by austerity-wrought brittleness. Austerity is a bad bet. Money is the one thing central banks can't run out of. But we sure can run out of ventilators and masks. A better kind of full employment If governments with monetary sovereignty can make as much cash as they need to buy things nobody else is buying without creating inflation, we won't have an automation-driven unemployment crisis. If robots can supply all the capacity for our needs, central banks can distribute money and tax some of it away if the ratio of money to stuff-you-can-buy gets out of line. Today, we have a kind of full employment. You can either be employed, underemployed or unemployed. The prevalence of unemployed and underemployed people controls inflation by keeping wages down. If you ask for a raise, your employer can threaten to fire you and hire someone unemployed. A better kind of full employment would take every person made idle by the climate emergencies we're about to face and give them essential, meaningful work for a decent wage. They'd be moving cities, building seawalls and fighting pandemics. They'd remediate habitats and care for refugees. No one is competing to hire others to do that work, but it's work that will need doing, and there'll be work enough for all. Dreaming gets real Those fretting over technological unemployment are worried about a future, speculative moment when we go through a technological singularity, driven by general AI through nebulous means. That's a long way away, but in the next year or so, the pandemic crisis will end. About 30 percent of all jobs that existed before the crisis will no longer exist. The workers who did those jobs will be unemployed unless governments step up. Governments will collapse if they choose unemployment over job creation, leaving a third of workers jobless and desperate. They may take their nations down with them. Nations with 30 percent unemployment can't function and can't create capacity that will make them resilient to the next crisis. It's a civilization-threatening downward spiral that will end the dream of creating superintelligent AI. Societies whose primary industry is digging through rubble for canned goods do not make AI breakthroughs. The 30 percent unemployment "solution" solves nothing, but what about a job guarantee? The 30 percent working under government jobs programs will have working lives decoupled from the market. The movement of markets – especially financial markets – will be irrelevant to everyone except chart-watching, twitchy nerds. Can we imagine a job guarantee? You might find it hard to believe we'll find the political will to procure the labor of people without jobs. Even in the face of a climate emergency that needs labor to prevent destruction of cities and civilization, it's hard to imagine such an ambitious program. But if we're going to dream, let's dream big. I see a path from here to a job guarantee. I don't see a path from here to AI. Universal Basic Income or job guarantee? Universal Basic Income (UBI) is easy to understand. If some people don't have enough money to make ends meet, give everyone money. That's a great idea, but it won't address inequality. If most people lack the money to keep body and soul together, giving them a monthly stipend could make the difference between starvation and subsistence. However, for the small number who already have money enough to save, that stipend is just additional savings. Ten years later, the masses have averted starvation, while the wealthy minority have accumulated much extra wealth. A job guarantee is also easy to understand. If we have a job that needs doing and a person that needs a job, we should pay the person to do that job at a sufficient wage with decent benefits. This will address inequality and create a true minimum wage. Without a job guarantee, the real minimum wage is $0 per hour: The amount you get if you want to work, but no one will give you a job. Early 20th-century economist John Maynard Keynes once proposed we could jump-start an economy by paying half the unemployed people to dig holes and the other half to fill them. No one's tried that, but we just spent 150 years subsidizing digging hydrocarbons out of the ground. Now we'll spend 200 to 300 years subsidizing our descendants to put them back in. Since neo-liberal economics swept the globe in the 1980s, business has used unemployed people to control wages. This tactic is no longer sustainable. The pessimistic future of your business is unemployment so high it will collapse the property relationships and rule of law your market relies upon. The optimistic future is simply that your firm hires in a way that makes it competitive with good public sector jobs remediating our planet.
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