Tech Evolution: From Bits to Atoms

1. SESSION 7: IMPACT OF RPA AND AUTOMATION ON WORK AND LIFE • Bits to Atoms: The Culture of Automation Jumps from Screen to Street • Losing Control on Purpose: Automation’s Impact Today • Training our Replacements: Automation Tomorrow

2. BITS TO ATOMSTHE CULTURE OF AUTOMATION JUMPS FROM SCREEN TO STREET

3. Neo has super powers in the real world! THERE'S A LOOSE-END IN THE MATRIX MOVIES When the Matrix starts out there are two very distinct worlds: Real and Virtual When we see Neo use his Matrix superpowers in the real world we get confused Are the writers getting sloppy? Is the real world another level of the Matrix?

4. Apps can make Ubers and Amazon boxes appear with the touch of a bottom IN THE 21ST CENTURY ARE EXPERIENCING THE SAME LOOSE-END IoT devices can turn on lights and unlock doors at the sound of our voice Digital goods can be 3D printed and help in our hands Online comments and tweets can get people hurt We are all Neo now!

5. Tech moved aggressively from the world of bits (software) to the world of atoms (you and me) WHAT CHANGED The ramifications of the world of bits holding power over the world of atoms are profound

6. WE USED TO SEE TECH AS OPTIMISTIC, HELPFUL, AND HOPEFUL • When the worlds of bits and atoms were sharply separated • Tech is playground with little or no effect on the real world where we exist • Tech is a place where there are no consequences for our actions, good or bad • Tech is an experiment where we can take off our mask of social hierarchy and responsibility

7. TODAY WE SEE TECH AS OPPRESSIVE, DISRUPTIVE, AND DYSTOPIA • When the worlds of bits and atoms collide • We need to draw clear boundaries between online and offline for people and machines • We need new norms for acceptable and unacceptable behavior by software • We Need to understand that tech is no longer an experiment (keep that mask on!)

8. In 1984 I was a computer graphics artist creating slides for Fortune 500 companies After the 1000th slide it was a soul crushing job of typing up bulleted lists I figured out how to automated part of my job and was ratted out by a co-worker MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH AUTOMATION Instead of getting fired I was promoted and led the entire company in automation By 1990s PowerPoint came along an destroyed my industry But I was fine, I had started on my career in software engineering and management

9. LOSING CONTROL ON PURPOSE: AUTOMATION TODAY

10. CASE STUDYTHE MACHINE FIRED MENO HUMAN COULD DO A THING ABOUT IT • Ibrahim Diallo • “The system was out for blood and I was its very first victim.” • “Once the order for employee termination is put in, the system takes over.” • “I had to be rehired as a new employee.”

11. CASE STUDYTHE MACHINE FIRED MENO HUMAN COULD DO A THING ABOUT IT • Ibrahim Diallo • “My manager at the time was from the previous administration. One morning I came to work to see that his desk had been wiped clean, as if he was disappeared. As a full time employee, he had been laid off.” • “What I called job security was only an illusion.” • “There needs to be a way for humans to take over if the machine makes a mistake.”

12. FiletOFish1066 Etherable • “He wrote that within eight months of arriving on the quality-assurance job, he had fully automated his entire workload.” • “I am not joking. For 40 hours each week, I go to work, play League of Legends in my office, browse Reddit, and do whatever I feel like.” • “Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I’ve automated my job?” • “The coder described accepting a programming gig that had turned out to be ‘glorified data entry’—and, six months ago, writing scripts that put the entire job on autopilot. After that, ‘what used to take the last guy like a month, now takes maybe 10 minutes.’” CASE STUDYTHE CODERS PROGRAMMING THEMSELVES OUT OF A JOB

13. SELF-AUTOMATION “At a moment when the specter of mass automation haunts workers, rogue programmers demonstrate how the threat can become a godsend when taken into coders’ hands, with or without their employers’ knowledge.” “John Maynard Keynes famously speculated that ‘automatic machinery and the methods of mass production’ would help deliver a 15-hour workweek”

14. SELF-AUTOMATION “Millions of jobs once carried out by humans are accomplished by software and mechanized factories, while Americans are working harder and increasingly longer hours. The gains from automation have generally been enjoyed not by those who operate the machines, but by those who own them.” “Self-automators offer a glimpse of what it looks like when automation is orchestrated not by top-down corporate fiat, but by the same workers who stand to reap its benefits.”

15. CASE STUDYACCENTURE DEBUTS PLATFORM THAT AUTOMATED 40,000 ROLES “The SynOps Platform” “Automate processes in areas such as finance and accounting, marketing and procurement.” “All its workers affected have been retrained by the company for other jobs. Over the time the company was developing SynOps its headcount kept growing.” “This is not trying to get rid of the human,” Polishook said, “but to make them as productive as possible and get them to focus on the work that a human really needs to do.”

16. CASE STUDYACCENTURE DEBUTS PLATFORM THAT AUTOMATED 40,000 ROLES “The SynOps Platform” “RPA software, has received about $450 million in venture capital funding to date and was valued at $3 billion in its latest fundraising round in September 2018. Blue Prism Group Plc., a competing company, is currently valued at 890 million pounds ($1.2 billion).” “Benchmark how efficient their processes are against other companies in the same industry or across industries.”

17. The immediate goal of RPA and Automation is to automate existing business processes TRAINING OUR REPLACEMENTS Drive down costs and increase quality You should be part of it but it won’t last (what’s next?)

18. A robot who figures out what to do AI: THE LAST MILE FOR RPA AND AUTOMATION A robot who handles exception A robot who suggests improvements

19. THE FUTURE OF RPA AND AUTOMATION

20. RPA WILL TRANSFORM INTO “COMPUTER ASSISTED SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT” The trend is tools doing the math, humans doing the design Soon devs will tell the computer what, not how Compiling Photoshop files Software that writes itself

21. Why do we create websites and apps? What is the ultimate effect of open source? NO MORE BUILDING SOFTWARE FROM SCRATCH What is the role of the human when IoT meets 5G and AI?

22. The halting problem and Incompletion theorem(problems that do not compute and can’t be described) WHY RPA AND AUTOMATION WILL ULTIMATELY FAIL Robots can’t underestimate tasks so most project will be green lit Robots are not heroes, they won’t work beyond and above the call of duty

23. WHY RPA AND AUTOMATION WILL ULTIMATELY FAIL Robots can’t break the rules, they won’t innovate their way out(Asimov’s Three Laws) Robots can’t make ethical distinctions(Humans can hardly do it)