The Key Themes That Matter for the Future of Work

A few years ago, if you asked most technologists around Silicon Valley which technologies would affect the future of work, the discussion would have centered around AI, self-driving cars, fully digital assistants and the inevitability of long-term technological unemployment. Everyone was focused on the implications of AI as a fundamental, new prime intellectual mover in our world to replace the human mind. It’s like the disruptions experienced in the physical world when we shifted from wind and water power to coal and finally to gas and electric power.  

In the last year, however, it feels like the future-of-work narrative has shifted toward more immediate and practical applications of technology that will be available soon—“near in technology”—to disrupt traditional work. There is an acknowledgment that machine learning and AI are powerful extensions of systems built on deterministic computing, not a fundamental disruption as a new, intellectual prime mover.