AI revolution is coming. How to change to keep our jobs

Artificial Intelligence and Automation are the two biggest threats to the job security in the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. According to a report, released by the Obama administration in the end of the last year, nearly 47% of the jobs in USA are at risk in the next 20 years.

Signs for what is coming are all over the news and even the notorious astrophysicist Stephen Hawking predicted that the increasing automation is going to decimate middle class jobs and worsen the already big inequality and political instability worldwide.

This process has already destroyed some jobs in traditional manufacturing and the development of AI is going to extend this trend to the service sector, when only management and supervisory roles remain safe, at least for now.

Of course, the US administration report notes that the new technology will open new career opportunities for those with higher-level skills. But even they will need government-supported re-training programs to help mitigate the negative impact of automation by preparing displaced workers for their new jobs.

Last week Japanese insurance company Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance laid off more than 30 employees and replaced them with artificial intelligence system that calculates payouts to policyholders.

The firm management believes that this will boost its productivity by about 30% and will return the investment in less that two years. The annual cost savings will amount to about £1m and the cost of the system installation is £1.4m. It is based on the IBM’s Watson Explorer.

Late last year the world’s largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates announced that it is building software that will automate the daily management of the company and will deal with the hiring and firing of employees and other strategic decisions.

The company’s founder Ray Dalio assigned to his software engineers the task to ensure that the firm is managed according to his vision when he is not at work. They have built a tool that incorporate different rating into personal profiles of employees that show their strengths and weaknesses. Another app set goals for them and monitor their implementation.

Although there is no unanimous opinion about the exact impact of AI on the labour market and the industry in the coming years we can certainly say that it will be more than great.

To understand more about the application of artificial intelligence techniques in products and business you can listen to the leader of IBM Watson Partner Innovations Europe Christoph Auer-Welsbach. He is one of the confirmed speakers in the Tech Summit of Webit.Festival 2017 in Sofia.

The expert will also talk about the best practices of high-growth startups on going from tested ide to scalable company. The main topics of his lecture will focus on Machine Intelligence, Cognitive Computing, FinTech, IoT and Smart City.

During the Tech Summit you can learn the latest trends in Digital Transformation, IoE, BigData & Cloud, Security & Privacy, FinTech, Money & Payments.

So, don’t waste time, these are all the important links you need:

To buy your tickets for Webit.Festival Europe 2017 (EarlyBird expires soon), click here.

To apply for speaking, click here.

To apply for partnership, click here.

To apply for exhibiting, click here.

StartUP? Apply for the Founders Games Challenge by Webit.Foundation and get an opportunity for free festival tickets (500), free exhibition table (100) and opportunity to win 200 000 EUR (only 1), click here.

To see the video gallery from Webit.Festival 2016, click here.

To learn more about the events that are part of the festival, click here.

To see pictures from our previous events, click here.

For more information on the Global Webit Series and our events in Dubai, Singapore, New Delhi and Istanbul: www.Webit.Org.

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