If machines are able to do reproducible things better, faster, and cheaper than humans, what is left for humans to do?

1. Humans Replaced
by Machines
Dr. Augustine Fou
http://www.linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
November 2012
Augustine Fou- 1 - @acfou

2. Seismic Transitions
Agricultural
Age
Centuries
Farming freed people from manually
growing their own food.
Industrial
Age
Decades
Factories freed
people from manual
manufacturing.
Info
Age
Years
Information
enabling
people.
?
Age
?
Augustine Fou- 2 - @acfou

3. The next transition …
… is occurring now.
• When there is abundant information
• When access devices are ubiquitous
• When users are continuously connected
• When users are in the habit of sharing and
discussing online
Augustine Fou- 3 - @acfou

4. Machines replace humans
“For reproducible, standardized
tasks, machines can do them
better, faster, cheaper than
human laborers.”
Augustine Fou- 4 - @acfou

5. Jobs to be Automated
Source: Oxford University via Bloomberg March 2014
Augustine Fou- 5 - @acfou

6. Robot Density
Source: Credit Suisse, Company Reports
Augustine Fou- 6 - @acfou

7. Robot Density
Augustine Fou- 7 - @acfou

8. Robotic Surgery
Robots can
perform surgeries
with far more
microscopic
precision and far
less human error
GE's Hospital Robot Could Reduce
Human Errors And Save Lives
Popular Science, Jan 31, 2013
Augustine Fou- 8 - @acfou

9. 3D Printing
3D printing can
make complex
shapes that prior
manufacturing
processes or even
human hands
could not makeImage Credit: http://makezine.com/pub/ev/147
Augustine Fou- 9 -

10. Information Processing
“IBM Watson is
powered by 10 racks of
IBM servers with 2,880
processor cores running
at 80 teraflops…
computing system that
rivals a human’s ability
to answer questions
posed in natural
language”
Image Credit: IBM
Augustine Fou- 10 -

11. Harvesting Produce
"The engineers were testing the
Lettuce Bot, a machine that can
"thin" a field of lettuce in the time
it takes about 20 workers to do the
job by hand. The thinner is part of a
new generation of machines that
target the last frontier of
agricultural mechanization — fruits
and vegetables destined for the
fresh market, not processing, which
have thus far resisted
mechanization because they're
sensitive to bruising.”
Source: Business Insider July 2013
Augustine Fou- 11 -

12. Robotic Chicken Butcher
Source: Popular Science, March 2013
“Seconds to debone an
individual bird – 2 – 4
seconds.”
Augustine Fou- 12 -

13. Drones for Delivery
Source: Gizmodo Sept 2013
Augustine Fou- 13 -

14. These Autonomous Patrol Cars Keep
Watch Over Our Nuclear Stockpiles
Autonomous Patrol
Augustine Fou- 14 -
Source: Gizmodo, March 2014

15. A Fleet of Unpowered Submarines Is
About to Plumb the Ocean's Depths
Autonomous Research
Augustine Fou- 15 -
Source: Gizmodo, March 2014

16. Writing LA Times Articles
Augustine Fou- 16 -
Source: Business Insider March 2014
Whenever there is an earthquake
in southern California, a system
called Quakebot analyzes
notifications from the US
Geological Survey and
automatically creates a blog post
for the Los Angeles Times.
We first noticed this in a post
titled "Earthquake aftershock: 2.7
quake strikes near Westwood" in
the LA Times today
via Gizmodo's Adam Clark Estes.
At the bottom of the post it reads,
"This information comes from
the USGS Earthquake
Notification Service and this post
was created by an algorithm
written by the author.

17. So What?
“Humans need to move onward to
doing higher-order knowledge work
which is not reproducible – e.g. solving
problems that have never been solved
before or where there is no right or
wrong answer.”
- Dr. Augustine Fou
November 28, 2012 17

18. Collaborative Innovation
Age
Augustine Fou- 18 - #diginnovia
YOU ARE HERE

19. Dr. Augustine Fou – Chief Digital Strategist
November 28, 2012 19acfou@mktsci.com
“I study trends and help clients
prepare for and position
themselves optimally for future
business.”
FORMER CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER, HCG (OMNICOM)
MCKINSEY CONSULTANT
CLIENT SIDE / AGENCY SIDE EXPERIENCE
PROFESSOR AND COLUMNIST
ENTREPRENEUR / SMALL BUSINESS OWNER
PHD MATERIALS SCIENCE (MIT '95) AT AGE 23
ClickZ Articles: http://www.clickz.com/author/1151/augustine-fou
Slideshares: http://www.slideshare.net/augustinefou
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/augustinefou

20. Special Thanks
“Special thanks to the
School of Emerging Media
and Technology, Toby
Daniels, and Skillshare for
allowing me to be part of
their important work – not
only in the future of
education, but also the
future of business.”
- Dr. Augustine Fou
November 28, 2012 20
http://socialmediaweek.org/education/ http://www.skillshare.com/schools/smw