For all the challenges that AI/machine learning could bring; there is a very exciting potential upside that could be heralded by the Age of Automation. It could remove dull repetitive jobs altogether; freeing people up to do things that are more mentally challenging, exciting, complex and rewarding.
US shopping startup Boxed.com has seized this opportunity with both hands – after automating its entire delivery warehouse, the jobs of over 100 employees were replaced by robots. However, instead of laying off these warehouse staff, Boxed.com is instead retraining these staff members to work alongside these smart machines (experts in the automation space are beginning to call this creating ‘co-bots‘), and even offering classes for people who want to transition to other roles in the company.
What’s great about this is that it shows an approach to service design that appreciates that the human touch is still needed within business; algorithms still need checking in case a bug in the program causes a delivery issue; and this case the automated tools have been used to help employees process more orders in less time.
What’s more, for those employees that are trained to operate and troubleshoot, they end learning a newly marketable skill that will be valuable in the upcoming economy. Boxed.com co-founder and CEO Chieh Huang, explains how he is using this as a way of making his staff more valuable in the marketplace, saying:
Instead of just saying, ‘you’re not going to lose your job,’ I actually wanted this to be an opportunity for folks to learn a skill that’s going to be really important in the future
As business grapple with the challenges that automation will bring, it’s refreshing to see a forward-thinking company that has realised that there is a hidden costs of designing a system that removes humans altogether – doing so is terribly short-termist. It may help the business over the next 5-10 years, but if we build businesses that have no need for humans at all, and create a “useless class” that will a) not have the funds to consume products and uphold society and b) would also create other socioeconomic risks as a result of being trapped in poverty.
It is surprising then, that Fortune appears to look down on Huang’s business decisions, citing some of his surprisingly generous employee benefits as a way of building its case. After all, you can’t build a business if your potential customers are angry, disconnected from society and fighting in the street.