Automation 2.0: Can Artificial Intelligence Replace Manual Jobs?

Economists agree on one thing – new technologies can bring a small tsunami of short-term unemployment. A well-known historical example is the Industrial Revolution, which made millions of people jobless. Nowadays, we can observe a similar phenomenon: automation, artificial intelligence and digitization are replacing humans in an ever-growing number of industries.

By 2030, an estimated 20 million manufacturing workers will be replaced by robots. On one side, this can mean a significant decline in traditional jobs. On the other side, new opportunities will arise and with appropriate requalification, the balance can be established again.

Should you be worried about robots taking over? Or should you rather think about how to make the most out of the inevitable future?

Statistics show that the number of people who worry that they could lose their job to automation has grown by 3% since 2014. And we don’t just talk about low-qualified workers here – this scenario can affect every worker in every industry.

International Federation of Robotics points out that despite the rising number of jobs taken by artificial intelligence, 70% of people see the potential gain from what the new wave will bring.

This will benefit all sides. Employers invest in new technologies not to replace humans but to prevent potential errors that humans can make and to eliminate risks associated with certain jobs.

Automation Helps Us

Another (maybe positive) news is that by 2022, the average proportion of hours worked by people should decrease by 13%.

Currently, 71% of hours are worked by people and 29% by machines.

World Economic Forum predicts that in the next four years, the ratio will be almost equal – you will work 58% of the time, the rest will be done by your robotic colleagues. Will it mean less work and more free time?

Maybe yes, maybe now. The truth is that the employees will have to deal with the progress and undergo requalification and trainings to stay productive and employable.

Specialized knowledge in programming or engineering will probably become a new standard, as well as critical thinking and good planning skills.

As always, those who can adapt to the new age will have an advantage over those who can’t. A clever person realizes that technological progress doesn’t have to be a dangerous enemy but an opportunity to make their life significantly better and easier. As Hal Varian says:

Automation doesn’t generally eliminate jobs. Automation generally eliminates dull, tedious, and repetitive tasks. If you remove all the tasks, you remove the job. But that’s rare.

How About Lumeer?

Processing of data and information, decision making, communication and other repetitive activities – advanced algorithms help where humans would lose most of their time.

“Businesses estimate they spend on average per week around 55 hours doing manual, paper-based processes and checks; 39 hours chasing invoice exceptions, discrepancies and errors and 23 hours responding to supplier inquiries, … This loss has been equated to around 6500 hours, during the work year, that businesses are throwing away by processing papers, fixing purchase orders and replying to suppliers. [source]

Therefore, don’t waste time, put your feet on your desk and use the rules to set up an event you want to automate. Either for boring tasks in a supply chain, faster work with pivot tables or assigning specific task types to employees – automation in Lumeer will solve all these problems for you.

With rules, your team’s everyday struggles with project management will become easier. You can easily create the rules by combining dozens of pre-made blocks and connecting them together as if they were Lego cubes.

Example of Automation in Lumeer

In Lumeer, the user can set a new task to be connected with a particular action – either directly or automatically. Also, you can specify which employees will be assigned to which task, or which task to which project.

If you set the task as done, Lumeer will automatically move it to the right column. You can resolve hundreds of other repetitive activities with just a few clicks. What’s more, the rules are specified in the form of visual blocks which makes it easier to understand if you are a new user.

The rules can also react to much more complex but common situations.

Imagine the situation: You are a copywriter and you work with texts that must be checked by your manager before they are sent to the client.

Therefore, you define a new rule in Lumeer – every time you move the card with the task to In review column, a checklist with the important actions and a deadline date (e.g. in 3 days) are automatically attached to the card.

Next, the task is automatically assigned to a concrete person – in this case, to your manager.

Integrations

Setup of the rules is insanely simple, intuitive and multifunctional. However, the reality is that to do our job, we often depend not on one, but on multiple different applications.

The example is an online questionnaire for data collection, an Excel spreadsheet for its evaluation and email or social networks for result communication.

With Lumeer, you can bring all those functions under one roof and have a perfect overview of everything. And a big portion of automation as well, so that you can make the most of it.

If you want to activate other applications according to the rules in Lumeer (or vice-versa), then Zapier integrations are a great tool for you.

Zapier allows you to connect Lumeer with more than 2000 applications and services. In a few minutes and without any programming knowledge, you can create an automated connection called Zap. Zap automates you everyday tasks and creates workflows between applications that would otherwise be impossible.

This way, you can automatically send an email, post a new tweet or publish a new job posting on Linkedin just by dragging the task to the To Be Published column.

You Can Make Friends with Lumeer even if you:

• Want to have an overview of your team’s work in one screen. In this case, set up a rule for every team board. The rule will create a copy of every card being moved to the Done column. The copy will be placed on the Team overview board.
• Create a card in the To Do column and want to add a checklist to every new one.
• Add someone to a card and want Lumeer to set a deadline for the task. The period to finish the work can be for example 5 days for everyone. Or 10 days for those with a special variable assigned.
• Want to have a clear overview of the progress and the workflow of the assigned tasks. If the first checklist 1 is done, Lumeer will automatically move the card to Phase 2 column and adds the second checklist.

Work in an Automated Way

Automation is, without any doubt, a powerful tool to change and transform our everyday world. On the other hand, every advanced technology brings concerns about how it should work and who should profit from it.

The coming information technology revolution is going to be enormous – and much greater than what has happened so far. Get ready for it as much as you can.

Conclusion

With or without Lumeer, in 2050, the world will probably look and work very differently than we are used to. The decisive factor is how you will deal with the change. Are you ready?

If not, then have a look at the following paragraph from McKinsey:

All this points to new top-management imperatives: keep an eye on the speed and direction of automation, for starters, and then determine where, when, and how much to invest in automation. Making such determinations will require executives to build their understanding of the economics of automation, the trade-offs between augmenting versus replacing different types of activities with intelligent machines, and the implications for human skill development in their organizations. The degree to which executives embrace these priorities will influence not only the pace of change within their companies, but also to what extent those organizations sharpen or lose their competitive edge.