How Did
the Robot End Up With My Job?
By Thomas L. Friedman, NY
Times
I’VE done a lot of television book interviews lately, and I continue to be
struck at what a difference there is in the technology in just a few years’
time.
Here is a typical evening
at a major cable TV network: arrive at Washington studio and be asked to sign
in by a contract security guard. Be met by either a young employee who appears
to still be in college or an older person who seems to have hung on with
tenure. Have your nose powdered by that person. Have your microphone attached
by that person. Be positioned in the studio chair by that person, and then look
directly into a robotic camera being manipulated by someone in a control room
in New York and speak to whoever the host is wherever he or she is. That’s it:
one employee, a robot and you.
Think of how many
jobs—makeup artist, receptionist, camera person, producer-director—have been
collapsed into one. I raise this point because there is no doubt that the main
reason for our 9.1 percent unemployment rate is the steep drop in aggregate
demand in the Great Recession. But it is not the only reason. “The Great
Recession” is also coinciding with—and driving—“The Great Inflection.”
In the last decade, we have
gone from a connected world (thanks to the end of the cold war, globalization
and the Internet) to a hyperconnected world (thanks to those same forces
expanding even faster). And it matters. The connected world was a challenge to
blue-collar workers in the industrialized West. They had to compete with a
bigger pool of cheap labor. The hyperconnected world is now a challenge to
white-collar workers. They have to compete with a bigger pool of cheap
geniuses—some of whom are people and some are now robots, microchips and
software-guided machines.
I wrote about the connected
world in 2004, arguing that the world had gotten “flat.” When I made that
argument, though, Facebook barely existed—and Twitter, cloud computing,
iPhones, LinkedIn, iPads, the “applications” industry and Skype had either not
been invented or were in their infancy. Now they are exploding, taking us from
connected to hyperconnected. It is a huge inflection point masked by the Great
Recession.
It is also both a huge
challenge and opportunity. It has never been harder to find a job and never
been easier—for those prepared for this world—to invent a job or find a
customer. Anyone with the spark of an idea can start a company overnight, using
a credit card, while accessing brains, brawn and customers anywhere. It is why
Pascal Lamy, chief of the World Trade Organization, argues that terms like
“made in America” or “made in China” are phasing out. The proper term, says
Lamy, is “made in the world.” More products are designed everywhere, made
everywhere and sold everywhere.
The term “outsourcing” is
also out of date. There is no more “out” anymore. Firms can and will seek the
best leaders and talent to achieve their goals anywhere in the world. Dov
Seidman, is the C.E.O. of LRN, a firm that helps businesses develop principled
corporate cultures, and the author of “How: Why How We Do Anything Means
Everything.” He describes the mind-set of many C.E.O.’s he works with: “I run a
global company with a global mission and one set of shared values in pursuit of
global objectives. My employees are all over the world—more than half outside
the U.S.—and more than half of my revenues and my plans for growth are out
there, too. So you tell me: What is out and what is in anymore?”
Matt Barrie, is the founder
of freelancer.com, which today lists 2.8 million freelancers offering every
service you can imagine. “The whole world is connecting up now at an incredibly
rapid pace,” says Barrie, and many of these people are coming to freelancer.com
to offer their talents. Barrie says he describes this rising global army of
freelancers the way he describes his own team: “They all have Ph.D.’s. They are
poor, hungry and driven: P.H.D.”
Barrie offered me a few
examples on his site right now: Someone is looking for a designer to design “a
fully functioning dune buggy.” Forty people are now bidding on the job at an
average price of $268. Someone is looking for an architect to design “a
car-washing cafe.” Thirty-seven people are bidding on that job at an average
price of $168. Someone is looking to produce “six formulations of chewing gum”
suitable for the Australian market. Two people are bidding at an average price
of $375. When Barrie needed a five-word speech to accept a Webby Award, he
offered $1,000 for the best idea. He got 2,730 entries and accepted “The Tech
Boom Is Back.” Someone looking for “a rap song to help Chinese students learn
English” has three bids averaging $157.
Indeed, there is no “in” or
“out” anymore. In the hyperconnected world, there is only “good” “better” and
“best,” and managers and entrepreneurs everywhere now have greater access than
ever to the better and best people, robots and software everywhere. Obviously,
this makes it more vital than ever that we have schools elevating and inspiring
more of our young people into that better and best category, because even good
might not cut it anymore and average is definitely over.
