I’m sure most would agree that his prediction has come true, most clearly demonstrated in the world’s dominating tech companies. But we ain’t seen nothing yet. When Alvin Toffler published his visionary masterpiece in 1970, he foresaw the coming of the adhocracy: Networked, agile organizations operating at a pace and impact so extraordinary that it constituted a shock for humankind. I’m sure most would agree that his prediction has come true, most clearly demonstrated in the world’s dominating tech companies. But we ain’t seen nothing yet.
Within the next 50 years, the pace and impact won’t be 10X bigger than today; it will be 1,000X bigger than today. In this future, human beings’ roles will be defined by their interactions with artificial intelligence (AI) combined with the delegation of decision-making powers to the AIs. In other words, we will see the human role in the workplace take distinct forms based on levels of human vs. AI execution and human vs. AI authority. This can be broken down into four dominant organizational forms, illustrated in Figure 1. Three of them involve human beings and only one isn’t deeply dependent on AI. Let me elaborate.
In the top-left quadrant we find the realm encompassing the majority of humans who will still be working in 2050. This is the freelance economy taken to its extreme. In this future, the majority of humans do not switch jobs every few years, as many do today, with career changes as many as four times over one’s working life. In this future, every individual pursues multiple careers at once—or perhaps it is more appropriate to say multiple jobs at once, as opposed to careers, because the majority of freelance workers in the future will be at the bottom of the job chain with limited career opportunities.
Figure 1 • Human-AI roles in the future workplace.
Courtesy of Kris Østergaard
In 2020 a large percentage of workers in the USA and UK already have multiple jobs in order to make ends meet—for example, moonlighting as drivers for ride-hailing services, or a variety of retail jobs. We also already see the tech giants of the world hiring more contractors over full-time employees because contractors don’t require the same healthcare, insurance, pensions, and other benefits as full-time employees, thereby lowering operating costs. Some in the freelance economy are there by choice. They are the talented artists, writers, coders, etc. who are so good at what they do that they can choose to be freelancers, taking on only the jobs that they want. But for the majority of workers in the freelance economy, it is not a choice. It is a necessity. Projections for 2027 suggest a tipping point of more than 50% of the USA workforce freelancing in some way. The rest of the world is behind but will catch up. Ultimately, I believe, freelancers will constitute 90+ percent of the entire workforce. Freelancing will be the norm.
Part of this dramatic shift will also be that the majority of human workers will be managed by an AI, because the majority of the jobs they perform will be powered by algorithms. These human workers will, in effect, have an AI boss telling them what to do, evaluating their work, and ultimately deciding whether they deserve a raise, a bonus, a warning, or termination. This management paradigm will also apply to those who freelance by choice. If this sounds like science fiction, consider the algorithms already deployed in Amazon’s warehouses that have such capacity and authority, even though, at present, a human being is said to always have the final word in cases of firing. The ride-hailing driver also, in effect, already works for an algorithm that tells her where to go next, which route to take, and the average score needed to avoid warnings and termination for poor customer service.
Nonetheless, I believe that freelancers will gain more power in the future than they hold today. Why? Because they will organize. Partly via organizations that specialize in offering certain freelance skills to corporations and governments and partly via unions that will see a resurgence.
While I write these sentences in 2019, the idea of being managed by an algorithm is controversial—but I predict that it will take far less than 50 years for this to become a norm that raises no eyebrows.
This quadrant includes organizations that insist on keeping digitization and automation at a minimum for philosophical reasons and because it will be a differentiating business model. These organizations are the creatives who produce art, furniture, or ceramics, and market themselves as an “authentic” choice by designing and producing without AI as the primary source of innovation and execution. Here we will also see organizations within elderly, child, and pet care, healthcare, and personal development that carve out a niche by guaranteeing human decision-making based on old-school, 20th century human skillsets like intuition and empathy, and insisting on human-to-human interaction.
Just as the vinyl record didn’t die but escaped extinction to become a niche, premium, experiential product in a world dominated by automated streaming playlists, so will there be a market for Niche Experience Organizations amongst the more affluent parts of our populations.
The large majority of organizations will be Hyper Lean Organizations (the lower-right quadrant). These organizations are characterized by being primarily driven by AI execution but with a management level of human decision makers. This is today’s large legacy organization or tech giant in a purer form. They will have long since become “AI first.” In this world, all processes and all production are created and managed by leveraging AI for optimum efficiency and cost; innovation will have been taken over by AI as well, due to the radical speed of shifts in trends and opportunities.
The majority of corporations today need to create organizations full of incremental innovators where every employee is comfortable with change within the core organization, supported by technology, because the pace of change and opportunity has accelerated. Today there is also an increasing need for radical innovators who challenge the foundations of their organizations by imagining and developing entirely new offerings and business models that go beyond—or disrupt—existing core value offerings. But the corporations of the future will need to challenge their cores at a pace so fast that the human mind cannot manage it. The future corporation will need to rely on AI to spot trends, analyze patterns, select opportunities, develop offerings and business models, acid-test innovations, and execute at a radical pace.
We now have products and startups that achieve billion-dollar valuations within months. In 50 years, this timescale will be reduced to weeks, days, hours, or even minutes. No human will have the mental capacity to keep up with this speed. But, I believe that we will see human beings insisting on keeping their spot in the driver’s seat by maintaining humans in organizational management positions (the rest of the positions will have been automated or turned over to freelancers). Those managers will have the legal authority to be the ultimate strategic decision makers. Supported by AI, of course, but humans retain the final say. Not necessarily because human intervention is needed, but because we will want it to be so, and we’ll insist on ethical guidelines that require a human go/no-go decision maker at the higher levels.
The final, lower-left quadrant of our figure eliminates the need for human participation entirely. This is where Decentralized Autonomous Organizations prevail. This organizational form is still theoretical in 2020, but it will see the light of day soon. Here, AI is not only the producer of the offering but also has complete decision-making authority.
Think, for example, of a vending machine for snacks. The machine’s services and processes can be entirely digitized and automated. First, you transfer money to the vending machine digitally. Then you push a button on the machine and it delivers a snack to you immediately. It’s a simple transaction already in place today. The difference for the future will be that, just as corporations are legal entities today, vending machines will also become legal entities that might also have their own bank accounts. This status will enable them to make their own money and therefore also to decide how best to deploy the funds. It also means that a vending machine that makes enough money will be able to order its own inventory and pay for its own maintenance. If it makes a profit, it will be able to invest those profits in new vending machines and thus grow its organization.
The same principle will apply for autonomous vehicles that won’t need an owner/manager any more than they’ll need a driver. It’s not hard to imagine this extending to banking, insurance, legal assistance, or any other industry where services can be automated and therefore run entirely by algorithms that are able to identify your needs and provide you with the services you desire at ultralow cost. Having humans in this loop would only increase costs and delays.
Does the above scenario describe a desirable future? I think it depends. There are many jobs today that are dangerous or tedious, or provide little satisfaction, and perhaps ought to be automated as quickly as possible. We also all want lower prices and more convenience. By enabling increasingly lower living costs through automation, we can create a future where many people actually need to work less to enjoy a higher quality of life. Many may not even need to work at all.
However, if all are to benefit from such radical automation, we must also create conditions where the majority do not become paralyzed by the next wave of future shock. We must remember to carve out room for the human in the equation to avoid being swallowed in a world where AI dominates the relationship. In the future, work will no longer be human by default, it will only be human if it is human by design.
Kris Østergaard is a researcher, writer, and in-demand keynote speaker on innovation, corporate culture, and the impact of technological change. He is co-founder and Chief Learning & Innovation Officer of SingularityU Nordic, the Nordic entity of Silicon Valley-based educational institution Singularity University. He is the author of Transforming Legacy Organizations; co-author of The Fundamental 4s—Designing Extraordinary Customer Experiences in an Exponential World; and co-founder of the experience design firm DARE2, accelerator program Thinkubator, and co-working space DARE-2mansion. Kris is also a board member, angel investor, and advisor to both startups and Fortune 500 companies.