As a tech enthusiast, I closely watch how tech disrupts
traditional models and quickly obsoletes existing job functions. Although this
revolution creates niche jobs in companies that create these tech, it almost
certainly targets low end, repetitious and sometimes tedious processes that
provide income and living to a broad base of citizenry. You all know the
industrial robots that paint, weld, manufacture, and assemble in factories.
Similarly, Uber, Amazon, and AirBnB eliminated traditional business models, and
along with it, many a jobs in this segment. The next industrial revolution, as
it is fondly called, will belong to data, algorithms, AI and ML that is sure to
disrupt many business functions, thereby eliminating more jobs. For example,
writing summary reports based on data, such as a game summary in sports, sales
summary in a business, a competitor analysis in marketing, are the next target.
Armed with deep computing power, and algorithmic models that can dig into data,
and prepare pre-canned summaries, niche players such as Narrative Sciences, are
developing products to generate such content and this concept is slowly gaining
foot and adoption in many large organizations. It is easy to see that entry
level, assistant roles in marketing, sales, support, and finance, that used to
produce standard reports month, over month, based on new data, are bound to be
gone in the next decade.
Similarly, I can see rapid strides made by tech in the healthcare
sector. Every day, routine checkup items such as blood pressure, temperature,
weight, as well as complicated measurements such as pulse and EKG is now
available either as a part the smart phone, smart watch, or as an extension
device that connects via Bluetooth to your smart phone. Even invasive
measurements such as blood sugar, urine analysis, and stools analysis can be
done in home, with additional devices that smoothly connect to your smart
phone. With advances in cellular technologies such as 5G, soon, the doctor will
talk to you through your smart phone, receive readings to his hand-held and
provide consultation wherever you are. When I think deeply, the next job to go
is that of the nursing assistant at clinics and hospitals, who check you into a
room, and conducts basic measurements such as BP, height, weight, temperature,
pulse and probably EKG. Instead, you can either complete all of them at home or
do it in a room that is fitted with a kiosk. The need for assistants would be
limited to cases where the patient is very old or incapacitated and all routine
physical measurements are bound to be automated.
Although exciting to be a part of this tech revolution, and there is a rising need in the sectors
who create such disruptors, it is only fair to ask these technology giants who
pull the rug from under, to think of creating at least a mat for those who are
bound to fall.
I always wonder why someone cannot create an app, or a
product that could replace a CEO or CFO or the Wall Street crowd that controls
the market! Imagine just apps managing Wall Street. The Fearless Girl, instead
of hands on her hips, she will have one hand extended, showing the bull the
smart phone that is now running Wall Street. When would that be? I Ponder!
References (just a sample..there is more out there)
Natural Language Generation: https://narrativescience.com/products/quill/
Cellular enabled blood glucose monitor: http://telcare.com/
Continuous glucose monitor: https://www.dexcom.com/
Blood pressure cuff with app: https://omronhealthcare.com/blood-pressure/
Temperature measurement with app: https://www.kinsahealth.co/products/
Smart weight measurement: https://www.getqardio.com/qardiobase-smart-scale-iphone-android/
Urinalysis kit with app: https://healthy.io/
EKG at home: https://www.alivecor.com/kardiamobile
And, drum roll…..of course your Apple watch: https://www.apple.com/healthcare/apple-watch/
Fearless Girl: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/12/523592057/sculptor-of-wall-street-bull-says-fearless-girl-horns-in-on-his-work
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