only-humans-need-apply

If you want to position yourself on the winning side of the technology race in the Age of the Smart Machines, it is in your best interest to read this book.

The core premise here is to avoid automation and to embrace augmentation.  Avoid jobs that are likely to become automated (think bank teller and check out clerk) and embrace the opportunity to automate those tasks in your current job that are routine and computers can do more efficiently.  This will free you up to perform tasks where humans can add the most value.

Automation means being replaced by a machine.  Augmentation means developing a synergistic relationship with smart machines.

The framework presented offers five options for augmentation:

~ stepping up
~ stepping aside
~ stepping in
~ stepping narrowly
~ stepping forward

Stepping up, in or forward requires vigilant training in upgrading STEM skills (science, technology, engineering and math).  This career path is not for everyone, which makes stepping aside and stepping narrowly options for some.

<strong>Stepping Aside</strong> requires developing skills in work areas that computers are not particularly good at, such as selling and motivating people.  <strong>Stepping Narrowly</strong> involves finding a specialty area within your profession that is so narrow that no one is likely to automate it because it is simply not economical to do so.

If you are already STEM-inclined, then embrace automation in one of three ways:

~ <strong>Stepping Up</strong> means positioning yourself above automated systems to develop more big-picture insights that will likely affect your business or industry.

~ <strong>Stepping In</strong> requires you to engage with the automated decision-making power of computer software to understand, monitor and improve their decision-making capability.

~ <strong>Stepping Forward</strong> is the most STEM-intensive option and requires developing new systems and technology that support automation opportunities within your industry.

Make no mistake, we all have aspects of our jobs that can be automated.  If it can be automated, it will be automated.  Allow computers and robots to do what they are highly capable of doing.  After all, few us still do long division using paper and pencil.  Computers took over the calculator function long ago.

By embracing the inevitability of automation you can free yourself of tediousness and drudgery and perform higher level tasks that will keep you engaged in your work and comfortably fed.

<strong>Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines</strong> offers worthy insights to help augment the views presented in <strong><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1399399606">Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future</a>.</strong>

Access Gene Babon's reviews of books on <strong>Business Leadership</strong> and <strong>Business Strategy</strong> at <strong><a href="https://www.pinterest.com/webapprentices/" target="_blank">Pinterest</a>.</strong>