"When robots can do every job better than humans, what's left for us?" Robots promise to make perfect products, drive perfectly well, cook perfect meals. In our future, perfection will be commonplace, imperfection rare. What will be rare will be the human-made, the artisanal. Does our post-work future lie in making artisanal cheese? If it does, who will eat it all?

1. Artisanal Cheese
and the Future of Work
azeem.azhar@exponentialview.co
@azeem

2. www.exponentialview.co
Gaspard Clair Français Marie-Riche de Prony
1791
Task: Mapping France
after the revolution

3. www.exponentialview.co
Gaspard Clair Français Marie-Riche de Prony
1791
Task: Mapping France
after the revolution
Approach: Hire human
computers and store data
in cache

4. www.exponentialview.co
Tables de Prony

5. www.exponentialview.co

6. www.exponentialview.co
Computers can catch up with
‘human abilities’

7. www.exponentialview.co
Computers can catch up with
‘human abilities’
AI system LipNet
93.4% of words correctly
Human lip-readers
52.3% of words correctly

8. www.exponentialview.co
Computers can catch up with
‘human abilities’
Microsoft speech recognition
error rates 5.8%
Human speech recognition
error rates 5.9%

9. www.exponentialview.co
Computers can catch up with
‘human abilities’
Sketch-a-Net identified type of bird in sketches
42.5% of the time
Humans identified type of bird in sketches
24.8% of the time

10. www.exponentialview.co
Predictions of current automation
47% of US jobs are at 'high risk' of automation
in the next 1-2 decades
Frey and Osborne, 2013
Typists, personal assistants, bank and post
office clerks, assemblers are between 85-99%
probability of automation;
there is 1% probability nurses, teachers,
educators will be replaced.
Deloitte, The Impact of
Technology on Jobs in
the UK, 2013
35% of UK jobs are at 'high risk' of automation
in the next 1-2 decades
Deloitte, The Future of
Work, 2017

11. www.exponentialview.co
Does automation kill jobs?

12. www.exponentialview.co
The ATM (didn’t) steal my job

13. www.exponentialview.co
The Lump of Labour Fallacy

14. www.exponentialview.co
But the picture is mixed

15. www.exponentialview.co
Labour market shifts
In areas exposed to industrial robots both employment
and wages decline in robust and significant manner
[between 1990 and 2007]
One more robot per thousand workers reduces
aggregate employment to population ratio by about
0.34 percentage points
Acemoglu and Restreppo, 2017

16. www.exponentialview.co
Employees to support $5bn in revenues
0
1
3
4
5
6
Blockbuster (1) Blockbuster (2) Netflix
90k 59k
2k

17. www.exponentialview.co
The dematerialising company
0
7.5
15
22.5
30
GM (1979) Microsoft (2015) Facebook (2015)
Rev/employee Mktcap/employee

18. www.exponentialview.co
XKCD Comics

19. www.exponentialview.co

20. www.exponentialview.co
A world where computers can do everything better

21. www.exponentialview.co
Automated perfection will be common place, human
imperfection will be relatively scarcer

22. www.exponentialview.co
The human-made will be valuable because it is rare

23. www.exponentialview.co
The Lump of Labour Fallacy

24. www.exponentialview.co
🧀 🔮 🙌

25. www.exponentialview.co
🧀 🔮 🙌
@azeem
azeem.azhar@exponentialview.co
www.exponentialview.co

26. www.exponentialview.co
Mass production of perfect

27. www.exponentialview.co

28. www.exponentialview.co
But is there enough for an artisan economy?
🙋🧀
🧀
Perfect Human
No Yes
Yes No
Experiential, discretionary,
intimate
High risk, reliable,
repetitive
🧀 🧀🧀♂️
👬 🌴
💉 👮🧀
✈️ 📚

29. www.exponentialview.co
The Lump of Labour Fallacy

30. www.exponentialview.co
🧀 🔮 🙌

31. www.exponentialview.co
🧀 🔮 🙌
@azeem
azeem.azhar@exponentialview.co
www.exponentialview.co

32. www.exponentialview.co
Mass production of perfect

33. www.exponentialview.co

34. www.exponentialview.co
de Prony’s cheese makers?

35. www.exponentialview.co
🧀 🔮 🙌
@azeem
azeem.azhar@exponentialview.co
www.exponentialview.co