Digitalization is still going on, and the era when people and machines become partners is almost behind the door. Still, there are notions of how such a future automated company will look, so far very fragmented. This results from a global survey released by Dell Technologies.
The survey includes the responses of 3,800 global company leaders, half of them expecting automated systems to free up time. The same number of them is of the opposite view. Only 42 percent of respondents believe that they will take over some of their machine tasks in the future, and they will be happier at work. However, 58% of respondents disagree with this thesis.
The views of respondents differ significantly in perceiving whether a new coming era represents an opportunity or threat, or how serious it is to take the possible risks that it brings. 48 percent think that the more we depend on technology, the more we can lose in the case of cyber-attack; 52 percent do not feel such a threat. Half of the company’s leaders call for clear-cut procedures in the event of autonomous machinery failures; the other half did not speak to them. 45 percent of respondents claim that computers will be forced to decide which commands are good and what bad ones; 55% do not perceive such a need.
“The reasons why the business community is so polarized are obvious,” comments Jeremy Burton, marketing director of Dell Technologies. “There are basically two opposing views for the future. Anxiety fueled the idea of the obsolescence of mankind or the optimistic view that technology will solve the most serious social problems. These diverging perspectives can make it difficult for organizations to prepare for the future that is in the making, and undoubtedly interfere with the leaders’ efforts to push for the necessary changes. ”
Due to the expectation of big changes – driven by exponentially increasing data volumes and the number of applications, computational power, and connectivity needed to use them – according to 56 percent of respondents, schools will need to focus on skills rather than on content. Their task will be to prepare pupils for a profession that is yet to appear. This is confirmed by the IFTF (Institute for the Future) forecast that 85 percent of the jobs we are going to engage in 2030 still does not exist.
