FUTURE TALENT November - January 2019/2020 | Page 78

P
PERSONAL TRAINING
The Technology Trap:
Capital, Labor and the Age of Information
RECENT
Carl Benedikt Frey, Princeton University Press, 2019
I
n 2013, Carl Frey co-authored a
widely cited paper highlighting
the vulnerability of jobs to
automation. His new book takes a
deeper dive into the world of work,
looking at the likely effects of artificial
intelligence (AI) in the context of
previous significant labour market
shifts. Frey’s thesis is that attitudes to
technological progress are shaped
by the impact it has on people’s
incomes – and that the levels and
success of resistance to change
depends on the political power of
those doing the resisting. He argues
that a lack of optimism about
technology is hardly new, and that,
despite the long-term benefits of
major transitions, we must accept
that the short-term effects have
been devastating for many. Crucially,
though, he contrasts ‘labour-
replacing’ technical progress (the
early mechanisation of the industrial
revolution) with ‘labour-enabling’
transitions, such as the second wave
of industrialisation that saw the US
become a dominant economic
The Age of Unreason:
New Thinking for a New World
power, with more people than ever
working alongside machines – and
with the influence to lobby for welfare
policy. The question is: how will we
manage the current age of AI and
how might history help us to make
decisions for the greatest good?
CLASSIC
Charles Handy, Random House Business
Books, 1989 (revised edition, Arrow, 2002)
T
he front cover of the original
edition of Charles Handy’s
classic book displayed the
quote: “We are entering an age of
unreason… a time when the only
prediction that will hold true is that
no prediction will hold true, a time
therefore for bold imagining in
private life as well as public; for
thinking the unlikely and for doing the
unreasonable.” Fast forward 30 years
and his words seem prescient. Handy
brings a humanistic approach to
business that feels contemporary, as
78 // Future Talent
does his main takeaway: the concept
of the shamrock organisation, an
organisational structure with three
leaves, a “core of essential executives
and workers supported by outside
contractors and part-time help”.
More recently, a fourth leaf has been
suggested: consumers who do the
work of the organisation (self-check
outs; flat-pack furniture). The point
of the shamrock organisation is
to provide flexibility to react quickly
to change, but Handy also considered
the model preferable for workers,
offering an alternative to hierarchical
structures. With a growing gig
economy, that aspiration might be
debatable, but The Age of Reason is
worth revisiting as a study of how
we’ve got to where we are today.