Vision for the future of work - part 2

Goldman Sachs predicts 300 million jobs will be lost or degraded by artificial intelligence. (Forbes, March 31, 2023).

Which makes me question whether instead of “the future of work”, we should actually be talking about the “future of employment”. Are they the same thing? For me employment is about the relationship, the pay, the career, the opportunity. Work is what you do when employed, the nature of work. AI impacts work and employment.

1. Job design
2. Employment relationship

Both elements heavily influence organisation design. I touched on the evolution of organisation design last week and ended with the “knowledge-based-network-organisation”. I discussed the move towards decentralised decision making, and I see AI moving this to another level, as AI becomes the decision-maker and the do-er (for some smaller or larger part).

I see the knowledge-based-network-organisation as an organisation where AI and humans together form a network, or maybe it’s more accurate to say community. Far removed from the old top-down bureaucracy, where you could see the “brain” of the organisation at the top, and the rest are “do-ers” acting out orders. In a community the brain is the network, the brain is AI and humans, working together.