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Column Technology is a double-edged sword – it can both liberate and enslave

A specific feature of the current global crisis is high youth unemployment. What’s more, this problem affects mainly and nearly exclusively developed countries. Sergiusz Prokurat asks: how can that be?

ARE YOU A driver, invoicer, accountant, factory worker? Then you’re in a similar situation to the workers from English factories during the Industrial Revolution. If you don’t enter the world of work 2.0 technological progress may well destroy your job.

A specific feature of the current global crisis is high youth unemployment. What’s more, this problem affects mainly and nearly exclusively developed countries. Thus maybe the reasons for high youth unemployment can be found in the weaknesses of the global economy? The best educated generation in history is now experiencing that we’re living through a dramatic revolution.

We’re seeing the creation of the digital world. Ten years ago, there was no such thing as Facebook. Ten years before that, we didn’t have Amazon or the Web. New technologies have opened up new opportunities. They bring with them an ever more complex reality.

In the new digital reality companies of a new type, such as Google, thrive. This firm has been testing driverless cars for the last few years. A special machines directs Toyotas Prius and Lexus RX450h equipped with sophisticated observation systems. These cars have driven over 300 thousand miles of roads in California and Nevada, not once causing an accident or even a fender bender. This is a shocking result unattainable for many drivers. A computer, rather than a driver who has to be paid, drives safer than humans, reducing the costs of the car fleet at the company; that’s a very tempting vision.

Technological progress is causing certain jobs to disappear

It is also part of a broader trend seen since the times of the Industrial Revolution and recently returning to the fore. Machines are taking work away from humans, or to put it more subtly – technological progress is causing certain jobs to disappear, even those which were very common quite recently. An invoicer or an assembly line worker are becoming history – as once happened to the profession of blacksmith – we don’t use horses for transportation any more.

The automation of repetitive and often tedious tasks in services doesn’t only apply to office and factory workers. Also services are being automated. The same goes for posts serviced by machines, especially so due to Machine to machine (M2M) technology.

We are suffering from a disease, which you will be hearing a lot about in the coming years – technological unemployment. Unemployment caused by the fact, that the speed of falling demand for human labour as a result of technological progress will be quicker, than the speed with which we will find new uses for this labour – this was said in 1930 by John Maynard Keynes. the same conclusions were drawn by Peter Drucker and Nobel prize winner in economics Wassily Leontief, who stated in 1983, that people will share the horse’s fate after the Industrial Revolution.

Work will ultimately return. But it won’t be the same kind of work as before. No one is going to pay you a salary just for showing up at work. Employers will have new expectations for their workers, thus creating a more flexible, more freelance, more collaborative and far less secure world of work. It will be run by people with new values, driven by the coming of Work 2.0.

A whole new way of working and living

Work 2.0 is a whole new way of working and living. The new type of work is carried out by people sitting on chairs and looking into their monitors all day. Their minds are flexible and focused on multitasking. They work part-time. Sometimes 15 hours in a row, sometimes on a Sunday, often remotely. The worker bears the costs of the equipment he uses, of the insurance taken out on the effects of his work, of continuous education, of the effects of his illness. How, why, when and where of work has never been so open to individual interpretation as now. It’s a new social contract between employers and employees.

While in the old system you pretty much chose one career to follow and this choice affected your entire life, changes on the labour market have made this way of planning your future redundant. Work 2.0 is emerging as new technologies are making more and more jobs possible for automation – why would a company pay you for something their own computers can do for free and much quicker? And if your job still isn’t up for automation, your employer has the technology to outsource it to a cheaper worker at its fingertips.

Technology is a double-edged sword, as it has the ability to both liberate and enslave. Technology is changing the nature of work, enriching us, and as companies redefine how and where different tasks are carried out, they require new skills and new employer-employee relationships. However, jobs for others than workers 2.0, the global hyper-skilled, are disappearing—this transformation is leaving many people without a job for good.

Sergiusz Prokurat is the author of ‘Work 2.0: nowhere to hide’ (2013), a lecturer at the University of Euroregional Economy and ISG Paris and Director of the CSPA think tank.

Website: www.work-2-0.com Contact: sergiusz.prokurat@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/workXXIcentaury

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29 Comments
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    Mute Derek Durkin
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    Dec 20th 2013, 7:53 PM

    Karl Marx said it as well, its inevitable and plus it seems the current ideology is moving away from social welfare which is a combination that will have dire consequences for society. Central Bankers and their puppet governments know this only too well…..can’t see it ending well unless a new direction is taken very soon.

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    Mute Hyeon Bundang
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    Dec 20th 2013, 8:27 PM

    WTF are you on about? Conspiracy theory nonsense reduces your credibility so nobody will take you seriously. If a machine can replace you what does that say about you? Sounds like you need to upskill and get an education. Why are you using the internet? Should you be writing letters using snail mail?

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    Mute Foxys van
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    Dec 20th 2013, 8:40 PM

    I find his comment credible
    I also find you to be a jackass
    Heeeeeee Haaaaaaa

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    Mute Derek Durkin
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    Dec 20th 2013, 8:45 PM

    What conspiracy? …its called educating yourself…thought u’d be all about that.

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    Mute Marc Marcel
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    Dec 20th 2013, 10:59 PM

    wide open Hyeon, so you ignore theory for ‘fear’ it reduces your credibility so nobody will take you seriously. You’re going nowhere.

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    Mute Mike Hall
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    Dec 21st 2013, 12:02 PM

    Interesting….

    We get an article from the Director of a ‘think tank’ which specialises in ‘Far East Asia’ relating to Polish business and ‘entrepreneurs’ which is giving some complete guff about the effects of digital technology on employment, but has precisely nothing to say about (mostly western) Multinational Corporations moving production facilities wholesale eastwards to ‘Far East Asia’.

    No indication of who ‘CSPA think tank’ are, who funds them, and virtually no information in English.

    (We also seem to have a new neo-liberal shill commenting at the same time – Mr Bundang.)

    Looks to me like a PR effort to sell the idea that ‘technology’ is driving some need for workers to be more ‘flexible’ and adaptive to the idea that they are more disposable. Nothing to do with ‘politics’ or ‘ideology’ of course. Sure, it’s just ‘technology’……

    So, Mr ‘Far East’ expert and author of Work 2.0, why don’t you throw up some pictures of all this marvellous automated production – sans ‘workers’ – oh, say at the Foxconn China factory where Apple computer products, phones etc. are made? You know, just so we can see this ‘future’ of new ‘technology’ driven, ‘flexible’ employment?

    I think that would be the factory that has erected a ‘suicide’ net around the top of the building to prevent workers from hurling themselves to the ground and killing themselves, you know, as you do, if your employment ‘flexibility’ has quite worked out.

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    Mute Sheik Yahbouti
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    Dec 20th 2013, 8:51 PM

    If this man is so highly qualified, why is this article so banal and so poorly written? He states the bleedin’ obvious whilst missing the inconvenient fact that in order to survive we need goods which are manufactured, or produced through agriculture, which still require actual people – not robots, not sedentary computer operators. In fact most of us would be going.g naked were in not for hellish sweat shops which employ women and small children – that is reality, not this childish fantasy.

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    Mute Fergus Flanagan
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    Dec 20th 2013, 9:21 PM

    You over-simplified your response which doesn’t address the points made in the article. You basically just said “yeah but there will still be some jobs that need to be worked by humans”.

    So everyone tries to fit into the those jobs?

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    Mute Sheik Yahbouti
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    Dec 20th 2013, 9:48 PM

    No, that is not what I basically said, you have completely misunderstood. This stuff comes up every decade or so. I well remember in the seventies reading similar guff, where the worry was how we could fill all our leisure time since robots were going to do all of the work. That worked out gray, didn’t it?

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    Mute Keith Lennon 
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    Dec 21st 2013, 9:54 AM

    I agree, robots will take over some jobs. People used to milk cows now pumps to it… But there’s obviously jobs where empathy & humility is required like Healthcare, Tourism sectors & entertainment etc. The article is too simplistic & presumptuous…

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    Mute Mjhint
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    Dec 20th 2013, 8:56 PM

    We were told computers would replace humans, they haven’t. Actually during the 90s in Ireland computers created more jobs than we could fill in Ireland. Life goes in cycles. Boom & bust is the way the system is set up. It will turn again in the future as it always does. Its just hard times bring seize mentality. I read in the guardian the other day about people like Martin Amis asking that we have legislation over technology so that the state cannot over step their monitoring of citizens. These are the only concerns I have & this is were the new civil rights battle will be fought. We will see further intrusions into our lives through technology but the battle has already begun for to overcome that. Jobs will not be affected by technology they will be created.

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    Mute Sheik Yahbouti
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    Dec 20th 2013, 9:25 PM

    Well said mhjint.

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    Mute Hyeon Bundang
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    Dec 20th 2013, 7:49 PM

    The author is a luddite who is living in the past. These days I can walk into a supermarket and use the self-service machines and be out within 5 minutes. I thinks it’s fantastic – the machines are more efficient, cheaper than human labour and there are less queues. The same with self-service banking.

    Adapt to the times or face being left behind.

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    Mute Derek Durkin
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    Dec 20th 2013, 7:54 PM

    What do u propose to do with all the unemployed that technology will replace?

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    Mute Luke Sullivan
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    Dec 20th 2013, 7:55 PM

    Did we read the same article?

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    Mute Foxys van
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    Dec 20th 2013, 7:56 PM

    With his way of thinking he would want a licence to breed implemented world wide

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    Mute Marc Marcel
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    Dec 20th 2013, 8:03 PM

    we’re in need of a good cull.

    Someone is working on it, I’m sure.

    Less and less jobs, more and more babies…

    Collapse. Look, none of us will be around to witness it, so lets keep on ridin into the sunset, yea

    11
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    Mute Foxys van
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    Dec 20th 2013, 8:17 PM

    ” we’re in need of a good cull”
    Why don’t you lead the charge
    Rope/tree

    8
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    Mute Derek Hickey
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    Dec 20th 2013, 8:45 PM

    You can’t stop progress.

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    Mute Sheik Yahbouti
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    Dec 20th 2013, 8:55 PM

    Or just keep on ridin’, and forget the cull. :-D

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    Mute Derek Durkin
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    Dec 20th 2013, 8:55 PM

    Progress for who?…not much progress going on in the world today for the vast majority…there is for some thou.

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    Mute Marc Marcel
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    Dec 20th 2013, 11:03 PM

    the culling has already begun, it’s a slow job.

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    Mute Sinead Hanley
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    Dec 20th 2013, 11:40 PM

    Hyeon. Yes technology is great. We have 2 pass machines and a human cashier in our local bank. Except 1 pass machine decided to break down on the busiest day of the year.

    So we were left with 1 human and a pass machine. Guess which queue moved the quickest? The human!!! Fancy that….

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    Mute James P. Sullivan
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    Dec 24th 2013, 2:09 PM

    Are you kidding? In Tesco, you scan 4 items into those machines and you have to call the manager for the 5th item. Then if you buy beer, the manager has to approve that you look over 21. Plus, the lines on those machines are often so long it’s cheaper to just go to the shortest cashier line.

    You’re either a paid troll or mentally a 16 year old who thinks Ayn Rand is the Messiah.

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    Mute Foxys van
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    Dec 20th 2013, 7:55 PM

    Brave New World

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    Mute Chris Linehan
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    Dec 20th 2013, 11:25 PM

    Look at it this way: machines will inevitably end up doing the vast majority of jobs we all do now. There will be an element of control by people, but the vast majority of us will be superfluous to these jobs and so, unemployed.
    In which case, we’re all unemployed and getting food parcels from machines on O’Connell street. Who pays for these machines while we’re all out of work? The idea is self-destructive.
    Surely at one point, we’ll come to a stage where we can have machines provide what we need and we can all arse around all day drinking bucky and having a laugh.

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    Mute Larry Concannon
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    Dec 21st 2013, 12:58 AM

    A couple of years ago, I heard a speaker at a conference advise young people to look for a career where you are doing something complex or creative. Less likely to be outsourced or automated… as for automation, does anyone really want to abolish self service checkout, gas pumping, airline check-in, etc.?

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    Mute Keith Lennon 
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    Dec 21st 2013, 9:47 AM

    Article is a little radical but you can take some metaphors from it insofar as I see a class divide in 10 – 15 years. The ones class who are comfortable with IT, programming & soft social media skills. The other who haven’t got sufficient skills to keep up & gain employment. Therefore you have a class who will always be at a disadvantage & find it more difficult to enter employment because of technology.

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    Mute Jay Christo
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    Dec 21st 2013, 3:39 AM

    Sergiusz Prokurat from the not real “University of Euroregional Economy” . . . only on The Journal

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