The Future of Work, MIT Technology Review, Business Report (2015)

CONTENTS

The Big Question

Top Tech Jobs BUSINESS REPORT Q&A: VC Steve Jurvetson

Productivity and Inequality

Chinese Angst over Uber

HR by Algorithm The Future Tech for an Aging Workforce of Work Radiology’s Growth Technology is changing the nature of the jobs we do and the way we do them. What does that mean for the future of work? JOSH COCHRAN JOSH

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to quantify how likely jobs are to be com- A growing number of platforms like The Big Question puterized by evaluating how much cre- Upwork, TaskRabbit, Uber, Airbnb, and ativity, social intelligence, and dexterity others that connect freelancers to clients they involve. Choreographers, elemen- are creating a new type of labor mar- Work in tary school teachers, and psychiatric social ket, something consultant Sangeet Paul workers are probably safe, according to Choudary calls “networked work.” In this Transition that analysis, while telemarketers and tax world, workers are responsible for their preparers are more likely to be replaced. own development and assume many Digital technologies are changing the Most professions won’t go the way of of the risks employers once bore. They nature of the jobs we do. What does that the telemarketer, but the work involved is depend on the platform for business, but mean for the future of work? likely to migrate toward the tasks humans they also have the ability to develop a rep- are uniquely skilled at, with automation utation based on client satisfaction. ● About five years ago, machine learning taking over tasks that are rules-based and This networked model is disruptive reached a point where software could, predictable. enough to have led to riots in Tianjin, with guidance from senior lawyers, effec- How jobs are evolving in this new China, where taxi drivers are fighting the tively take over the time-intensive task of model of work is the big question this arrival of Uber and the bite it has taken legal discovery, in which one party in a report seeks to examine. out of their income. The people who drive lawsuit combs through its documents to In addition to affecting the type of for Uber are largely part-timers looking to determine what it must show to the other work we do, digital and mobile technolo- make a little extra money. Uber custom- side before trial. gies are changing how we do it, where we ers in China take nearly one million rides This is a job that junior lawyers, para- do it (at home or remotely), and who our a day, the company says, and manage- legals, or—increasingly—less expensive competition is. At Upwork, a platform ment is investing more than $1.1 billion contract lawyers had traditionally done, that connects freelancers with jobs, 50 to expand into 100 more cities this year. and some fretted that the change might be percent of corporate customers are based The job of driving cars has not gone away, just the first step in the computerization of in the United States, but only 20 percent but the way that work is done is changing, the law. But while machine learning does of the workers are. Opening up a global and the transition is not painless. well with structured tasks like searching talent competition could make it harder Tim O’Reilly, CEO of O’Reilly Media, for relevant words, handling documents to earn high wages. has recently been writing about how tech- similar to others already identified, and even reconstructing simple summaries of a baseball game, it is far less adept at Hot Jobs constructing something like a legal memo, Some of the jobs expected to grow fastest in the U.S. over the next seven years where persuasiveness can rely on developing novel arguments, explains economist Number of Median Rate of growth, Likelihood of jobs, 2012 pay, 2012 2012–2022** being automated Frank Levy, an MIT professor emeritus who, with Dana Remus, a professor at INDUSTRIAL-ORGANIZATIONAL 160,200 $69,280 53% low the University of North Carolina School PSYCHOLOGIST of Law, is researching computers’ impact DIAGNOSTIC MEDICAL 110,400 $60,350 46% medium on the practice of law. SONOGRAPHER “There’s much less structure in a legal memo, which is trying to figure out a stra- GENETIC 2,100 $56,800 41% unavailable tegic approach to an argument,” says Levy, COUNSELOR who coauthored (with Harvard professor PHYSICIAN’S 86,700 $90,930 38% low Richard Murnane) an influential book, ASSISTANT The New Division of Labor, about how computers are changing employment and INFORMATION SECURITY 75,100 $86,170 37% low the job market. Adds Levy: “You are put- ANALYST ting a premium on innovation.” OCCUPATIONAL 38,600 $48,940 36% low It’s likely that work done by humans THERAPY AIDE will increasingly involve innovative thinking, flexibility, creativity, and social skills, MEDICAL 3,947,100* $35,330* 36% high SECRETARY the things machines don’t do well. In a recent study on automation from the PHYSICAL 204,200 $79,860 36% low

University of Oxford, researchers tried THERAPIST OSBORNE, A. MICHAEL AND FREY BENEDIKT CARL STATISTICS; LABOR OF BUREAU DATA: **EXPECTED. SECRETARIES. OF TYPES ALL *INCLUDES OXFORD. UNIVERSITY OF

2 THE FUTURE OF WORK TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW nology can both create new types of jobs for almost 13,000 software engineers, “Across STEM, very few fields are and improve the quality of work. Mobile 1,568 data scientists, 1,691 programmer declining,” says Bureau of Labor Statistics and sensor technologies could support analysts, and 4,033 database adminis- economist Michael Wolf. health workers and help elderly people trators. (Overall, the U.S. economy is Salaries and demand are both rising stay in their homes, for example, while adding about 230,000 jobs a month.) fast. A UCLA analysis of 2013 data pub- machine learning could help doctors Depending on the job title, 60 percent lished this June contended that the average make decisions. to 75 percent were at non-IT companies, tech worker in San Mateo County, which Some jobs will surely be automated out Chamberlain says. of existence, but technology has the poten- Regulatory changes have also tial to create new jobs as well. increased the focus on data. The Dodd- —Nanette Byrnes Frank law imposes new reporting 13,000 Number of recent listings for software requirements on banks. The Affordable engineers on Glassdoor Care Act is driving hospitals and inde- Data Analysis pendent doctors toward quality management and measurement programs that includes Facebook’s Menlo Park headquar- depend on computing. With the popu- ters, is making more than $300,000. The Where the lation aging, the U.S. government pre- unemployment rate in San Francisco is 3.5 dicts that 62 percent of new STEM jobs percent. STEM jobs today pay almost dou- Tech Jobs Are added through 2022 will be in health ble the average wage in the economy as a care. Partners HealthCare in Boston has whole, says economist Sophia Koropeckyj, Expanding supplies of data and cheap hired more than 600 IT professionals to a managing director at Moody’s Analytics: processing power will drive demand for implement its new electronic medical “The high compensation of these jobs gives IT specialists in a broad range of fields. records system. them an outsize role in promoting eco- In energy, another increasingly data- nomic growth.” —Tim Mullaney ● Jobs in science, technology, engineer- intensive field, predictive analytics soft- ing, and math (STEM) overpopulate the ware run on a massive scale recommends U.S. Labor Department list of occupations where to drill and how much water to use Venture Capital expected to grow the most through 2022: in each well. Even fields that were once among the 580 occupations the depart- the sole domain of humanities majors, like ment tracks, they make up 14 of the 35 advertising, are hunting for technologists On the Edge fastest-growing. today. At the Austin ad agency T3, CEO Fewer than half the available jobs Gay Gaddis is currently looking for user- of Automation in categories like data science and pro- experience designers, Android developers, gramming are in technology industries and data analysts. Five hundred years from now, says as traditionally defined, according to the Over the next decade, the Bureau of venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson, less job-hunting site Glassdoor. The rest are Labor Statistics projects, the ranks of than 10 percent of people on the planet in a range of fields that are benefiting genetic counselors, market research ana- will be doing paid work. And next year? from the falling cost of data storage and lysts, and information security analysts the increase in processing speeds that will grow by 30 percent or more. Jobs ● As a founding partner at the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson and a board member at SpaceX and Tesla Job growth in fields like computer-directed stock trading and Motors, Steve Jurvetson spends a lot of electronic medical records is being driven by expanding pools of time thinking about the future, often the data that can be crunched economically. distant future. One of Elon Musk’s biggest backers—Jurvetson boasts that he owns the first Tesla production Model S—he allows data to be crunched economically, in civil and petroleum engineering will was also a founding investor in Hotmail, says Andrew Chamberlain, Glassdoor’s grow at the same 20 to 29 percent rate as the precursor to Microsoft Outlook, and chief economist—fields like computer- systems analysts, and health-care reform, sits on the board of Craig Venter’s Syn- directed stock trading, electronic med- which seeks to have more work done by thetic Genomics, the constructor of the ical records, and even more mature workers who make less money than doc- first synthetic cell. industrial sectors. On Glassdoor, which tors, will help increase employment of His firm claims to have funded compa- aggregates job postings from across the physician’s assistants and nurse practitio- nies that have created more than 20,000 Internet, there were recently listings ners by 30 percent or more. jobs in the past five years, and to have

3 MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM THE FUTURE OF WORK brought nearly two dozen companies to $1 Which jobs will survive? neurs all the time that think big. Those billion in value before exiting. Jurvetson In the long run, 500 years from now, are the people we should be finding and spoke to Business Reports senior editor everyone is going to be involved in some funding. Most of them will fail, but the Nanette Byrnes about why he thinks 90 kind of information or entertainment. ones who succeed will change the world, percent of people will be unemployed in Nobody on the planet in 500 years will and that is progress. 500 years and how we might transition to do a physically repetitive thing for a living. that sharply different future. There will be no farmers, there will be no people working in manufacturing. To me Data Analysis Are today’s new digital technologies it is an impossibility that people would do destroying or creating jobs? that. People might do it for fun. You might I absolutely believe in the near to medium have an organic garden in your backyard The Measured term there is going to be net job creation, because you love it. Five hundred years as there always has been. Think of all the from now I don’t know if even 10 percent Working Man Uber jobs. The opportunity is not yet fully of people on the planet have a job in the tapped to, in a sense, distribute [over the sense of being paid to do something. The technology that illuminates worker Internet] the service economy. The ser- productivity and value also contributes vice economy is bigger than the goods It’s hard to imagine what that life would to wage inequality, Tyler Cowen argues. economy, so the online equivalent should be like. be even bigger and more powerful than It pretty much will be what life was like for ● Discussions of income inequality typi- the online marketplace for physical goods. most of human history—just without the cally focus on how information technology raises the return to skilled labor, or on the rise of global trade, or perhaps on “Five hundred years from now, everyone is going to be involved the way that politics skews power toward in some kind of information or entertainment ... There will be no the rich and well-connected. But there’s farmers, there will be no people working in manufacturing.” another fundamental driver of income inequality: the improved measurement of worker performance. As we get better Many of these new jobs, including those gruesome servitude. The concept of a “job” at measuring who produces what, the pay at Uber, are taking shape on what you call is pretty recent. If you go back a few hun- gap between those who make more and the “edge of automation.” Do you fear dred years, everyone was either a slave or a those who make less grows. that these jobs might quickly disappear serf, or living off slave or serf labor to pur- Consider journalism. In the “good as technology keeps evolving? sue science or philosophy or art. We’ll live old days,” no one knew how many peo- Everything about Uber has been auto- off the production of robots, free to be the ple were reading an article like this one, mated except for the driver. The billing, next Aristotle or Plato or Newton. Unless or an individual columnist. Today a digi- the fetching—every part of it is a modern, we’re miserable without doing busy work. tal media company knows exactly how information-centric company. Interest- many people are reading which articles ingly, what that means is as soon as auto- Is there some way, some government for how long, and also whether they click mated vehicles arrive, that driver is easily policies or strategies, to minimize the through to other links. The exactness and removed. You don’t have to restructure pain of such a dramatic shift? the transparency offered by information any part of that business. I don’t think that anyone in Washington technology allow us to measure value What you’re farming out to humans is going to get their head around this and fairly precisely. today are those things that computers just make meaningful change. No politician The result is that many journalists barely can’t do. We know from Moore’s has a 50-year horizon. I see zero chance turn out to be not so valuable at all. Their Law and improvements in computing that that long-term thinking will govern policy. wages fall or they lose their jobs, while in two or three years [much of this] work the superstar journalists attract more will be automated. The knock on Silicon Valley today is that Web traffic and become their own global If a startup or new business venture it’s not taking on big problems either. brands. Some even start their own media has created a job that involves human I do lament how many investors focus companies, as did Nate Silver at FiveThir- labor, it probably has done so in a way on all the short-term sugar buzz of some tyEight and Ezra Klein at Vox. In this that is pretty marginal. Whether you’re a marginal improvement in something— case better measurement boosts income technology enthusiast or a detractor, the nothing history books are ever going to inequality more or less permanently. rate at which this will shift is probably be written about. In many cases these are In any organization or division many going to be unprecedented. There will be quick and easy ways to make money. I do colleagues do good work, but only so massive dislocation. think there are more and more entrepre- many would be truly difficult to replace.

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And those are the people who, with better uate individual productivity, even if the close such information voluntarily. Over measurement of economic value, receive employer has a fairly noisy data set about time schools may offer more information higher salaries and bonuses. what is going on in the workplace. about their students than just GPAs and Imagine a situation where a group This analysis, if only in crude forms, letters of recommendation, as statistical of workers produces some output collec- starts when workers are applying for a analysis improves in its ability to assess tively. The tendency is to resort to equal job. A significant percentage of bosses their potential. pay scales, perhaps with some inequal- in America look up an employee’s credit Looking further ahead, and more ity built in for seniority and other highly score before making a hiring decision. speculatively, employers might request visible characteristics, such as working Some employers are even using perfor- genetic information from workers. Any- overtime. Relatively equal pay structures mance in online video games to evaluate one who doesn’t want to turn it over might help build group solidarity, and in the individual talent. There are also Facebook, be seen as having something to hide, and meantime the superior producers cannot Twitter, LinkedIn, and numerous other thus this information will spread even if easily demonstrate their worth to other social-media outlets, all of which do give you may feel that our society doesn’t want potential employers because no publicly us some clues about character, effort, and to tolerate genetic discrimination. Or per- observable measurements capture that the quality of a person’s social connec- haps the information can be lifted from a added value. tions. It’s not hard to imagine a future doorknob or from a cup of coffee during But as information about productiv- where an individual’s eBay and Uber rat- an interview visit. It’s hard to imagine that ity improves, the better workers demand ings, among other pieces of information, this valuable source of information will more and can get it; in fact, bosses will are up for sale in the marketplace. The stay confidential forever, given that most want to offer more to preëmpt them more reliable job candidates might dis- databases have proved hackable. from leaving. Workers also This explanation for stop thinking of themselves growing inequality has some as bringing the same value to potentially distressing fea- the table, and that can make tures, but also some upside. inegalitarian pay structures The upside, quite simply, less damaging to morale and is that measuring value tends thus more attractive. to boost productivity, as has One unfortunate pos- been the case since the very sibility, or shall I say likeli- beginning of management hood, is that some workers science. We’re simply able to may not produce much of do it much better now, and anything at all. They may be so employers can assign the major shirkers, or perhaps most productive workers to they are smart and talented the most suitable tasks. Work- workers who nonetheless are place incentives can also be poison for workplace morale. more closely geared to the Their office scheming takes actual production of value for away more than their labor the enterprise. adds. These “zero marginal The downsides are sev- product” workers, as I have eral. Individuals don’t in fact labeled them elsewhere, may enjoy being evaluated all the have a hard time holding time, especially when the down a job. In the modern results are not always stellar: world it is harder for them for most people, one piece to hide behind the labor of of negative feedback out- others. weighs five pieces of positive Insofar as workers type feedback. To the extent that at a computer, everything measurement raises income they do is logged, recorded, inequality, perhaps it makes and measured. Surveillance relations among the workers of workers continues to tenser and less friendly. Life increase, and statistical anal- under a meritocracy can be ysis of large data sets makes a little tough, unfriendly, and

MIGUEL PORLAN MIGUEL it increasingly easy to eval- discouraging, especially for

5 MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM THE FUTURE OF WORK those whose morale is easily damaged. that he can complete as many as 10 trips Uber’s not waiting. With the newly set Privacy in this world will be harder to before noon. up UberChina, the ride-hailing service come by, and perhaps “second chances” “Right now a lot of people are using plans to expand into 100 Chinese cities, at will be more difficult to find, given the these services,” says Mr. Dong, 38, who least half with a population over five mil- permanence of electronic data. We may gave only his last name to avoid jeopar- lion, in the next year. (It currently oper- end up favoring “goody two-shoes” per- dizing his full-time job. On top of cover- ates in 11 cities, including Tianjin, with sonality types who were on the straight ing his monthly gas money of about 1,000 an average population of 14 million.) The and narrow from their earliest years and yuan ($156), he can earn between 800 company also plans to invest more than disfavor those who rebelled at young ages, yuan ($125) and 1,000 yuan every month seven billion yuan ($1.1 billion) in China even if those people might end up being by driving for Uber. in 2015. more creative later on. In China, private Uber drivers are Drivers of China’s 1.37 million tra- That said, measurement of worker making almost a million trips per day, ditional taxis are already reacting. In value isn’t going away anytime soon. The according to the CEO of Uber. Less than May, dozens of cabbies blocked the roads real question is not whether we want it or not, but how to make it better rather than worse. Ideally we’d have a system Uber is in a legal gray area. Speculation has increased that regulation where individuals can correct measure- of online taxi reservations may be coming. ment errors in their records to prevent injustice and preserve accuracy. We’d also like a system where individuals are not two years after its launch here, Uber has around the Olympic stadium in Tianjin tracked and segmented too early, where developed a fierce rivalry with the home- with their cars and lured private-car driv- outsiders and immigrants receive a fair grown Didi Kuaidi, which reports that its ers to the area using ride-hailing apps. hearing, where risk taking is rewarded daily private-car requests have tripled to As soon as they arrived, the two groups rather than punished, and where some three million since May, and engendered started fighting. degree of privacy, including privacy in the resentment among traditional taxi drivers. “I’m a bit dispirited,” says Lu Lifang, workplace, remains. Chinese cities in some ways seem 48, a traditional taxi driver. “If the gov- Obviously, that is a tall order. ripe for a technology-driven transpor- ernment doesn’t regulate the private cars, I wonder, by the way, if MIT Technol- tation overhaul. The roads are jammed. my profession will disappear sooner or ogy Review will tell me how many people According to government figures, there later.” She and her fellow cabbies also clicked on this article. —Tyler Cowen were almost 126 million private vehicles complain about dwindling income. Wang in China at the end of 2014, a 15.5 per- Hongyong, 47, says he earns about 150 The author is a professor of economics at cent increase from the previous year. The yuan ($23) less per day now than he did George Mason University. 2014 TomTom Traffic Index shows that a in 2014. “I’m also more tired,” he says. “I third of the 50 most congested cities in don’t rest in between.” the world are in China. Other commut- Mobile Apps ing options are painful, too—during rush hours a rider in the Beijing subway has to wait for several loaded trains to pass 1,000,000 Uber’s Bumpy Number of trips being made daily by before squeezing in. Uber drivers in China The Chinese State Council has iden- Ride in China tified transportation as one of the traditional industries whose efficiency could be Driving is not a livelihood for most Chinese Uber drivers are making a improved by online platforms, but Uber Uber drivers. Most, like Mr. Dong, drive million trips a day, pleasing consumers remains in a legal gray area. Its drivers for extra cash. Xing Gao, who works at but threatening traditional taxi drivers. are considered private car operators and an insurance company in Tianjin, hasn’t do not pay all the registration fees, value- picked up any calls on his Uber app since ● Mornings at 5, Mr. Dong, a manager added tax, and income taxes traditional June because the company has dropped at a livestock farming company in Tian- cabbies do. Uber drivers say they often to nearly zero the subsidy it was paying jin, logs in to his Uber account. Before he avoid places where there are a lot of police him for each completed trip. In 2014, he heads off for work at 7, he can make three officers, such as airports and train stations. had a guaranteed 30 yuan ($5) subsidy to four trips around the city center in his If they are caught, the fines can be as high per trip. “They want to test the bottom Buick. After he leaves his office at 6 p.m., as 10,000 yuan ($1,564). Recently specu- line of drivers,” says Xing, 32, “just to see he continues driving until 9 p.m. On week- lation has increased that online taxi reser- how much lower they can go before you end mornings, he’s in such high demand vations will become a regulated business. quit.” —Yiting Sun

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HIRED AND FIRED BY ALGORITHM The cycle of how we find, keep, and lose jobs is increasingly affected by algorithms. Here are some of the data-mining companies aiming to take the “human” out of “human resources.” By Julia Sklar

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Finding job candidates Tracking employees Quitting Finding the next job Seattle-based Textio, whose Following billions of dol- According to Visier, a work- Seattle-based Anthology clients include Microsoft, lars in fines for misconduct force analytics group based (formerly known as Poach- evaluates job postings to pre- in recent years, many Wall in San Jose, California, able) is like a dating app for dict if they’re likely to attract Street firms have begun unwanted employee turn- the business world: employ- the right candidate. For exam- closely tracking workers. over costs the average large ees looking for a change and ple, phrases such as “top tier” The goal: to both catch and company $31 million a year. businesses looking to hire and “mission critical” tend to forecast bad behavior. J. P. Visier uses two to three each provide anonymous turn female candidates off. Morgan has designed a sys- years’ worth of data from cli- information about what they San Francisco–based Gild tem to use data about things ent companies like Yahoo, are looking for. A direct line sifts data from sites like like whether individuals ConAgra, and Nissan to build of communication opens LinkedIn and Github to tell attend compliance classes to predictive models that it says between users and businesses customers such as Facebook feed its predictive models of are up to eight times bet- only if their interests match. and HBO when candidates employee behavior, part of a ter than human intuition at Barely a year old, Anthol- might be open to a new post. $730 million overhaul of its forecasting which employ- ogy has clients that include KF4D, an algorithm from management system. Gold- ees are at risk of quitting Amazon, Facebook, IBM, headhunter Korn Ferry, calcu- man Sachs and Credit Suisse within three months. Each and Netflix. Some 50,000 job lates the characteristics of an are investors in Digital Rea- employee’s risk score is based seekers are using the app for effective leader in a given soning System, which ana- on factors like age, salary, free. Anthology has raised industry and location, a lyzes billions of employee department, and time since $1.8 million in funding. model employers can then e-mails, phone calls, and last promotion. The company compare candidates against. online chats to predict and manages data for over two prevent illegal behavior. million employees.

eyestrain to aching joints become increas- reach 65 can expect to live another 17.9 Tools ingly prevalent. In response, technologists years on average, the National Center for and ergonomics experts are rethinking Health Statistics calculates, while women working conditions. can count on 20.5 years. Both figures are Aging Workers, As recently as 1992, less than 3 per- up more than a third from the norms of cent of the American workforce consisted the 1950s. With so much life still ahead, New Technology of people age 65 and over. Today that pro- high-status workers may not want to be portion has nearly doubled, according to idle, while low-paid workers often find The number of workers over 65 is the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and that meager savings won’t let them quit. growing fast. Technologists see a big it’s expected to reach 8.3 percent by 2022. At the same time, thanks to the service business in helping the aging workforce. Most of these 13.5 million older workers sector’s steady ascendancy over manu- will be between 65 and 74, but nearly 2.6 facturing, many jobs require less physi- ● The American tradition of retirement at million will be 75 and over. cal stamina. age 65 is crumbling. As older workers stay One reason for this demographic shift While it’s easier to wield a stapler than

TIBOR KÁRPÁTI TIBOR on the job longer, challenges ranging from is improved longevity. American men who a rivet gun at age 70, some aspects of office

7 MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM THE FUTURE OF WORK life can still vex people beyond a certain ows and dark zones is just as crucial. That workers how to create slower-moving age. “Many products are designed with has led to new types of overhead lighting pointers or magnified screen displays by younger users in mind,” says Sara Czaja, fixtures that bounce most of their light off adjusting their computer’s settings. Now scientific director of the Center on Aging the ceiling for optimal dispersion, rather Ai Squared, based in Manchester, Ver- at the University of Miami. “Designers than aiming directly below. mont, has developed software for people don’t always think about older people.” Older workers also often need more with macular degeneration, a condition Consider smartphones’ tiny screens. back support, Anderson says, which cre- predominantly affecting older people, in Office workers who frequently text or check ates problems if sustained use of laptops which a deteriorating retina causes vision their news feeds and e-mail may switch or tablets tempts people to lean forward loss in the center of the visual field. Its between near and far vision 100 or more at their desks. One Herman Miller solu- technology can transform display col- times a day, say researchers at Germany’s tion: a desk with a sliding surface that ors so that people who have trouble with Carl Zeiss Vision, a leading manufacturer can be drawn nearer to the user, making black type on a white background might of eyeglass lenses. That’s a particular strain it possible to sit upright and rest against see their e-mail and Web pages as yel- for older workers with a diminished abil- a chair back while using a mobile device low type on a black background, which is ity to focus on nearby objects, a condition at close range. often easier to read. “One gentleman uses that typically begins between ages 40 and At Florida State University, Neil our software to make everything purple 50 and then gets steadily worse. Charness, director of the Institute for Suc- on a pink background,” says Ai Squared To minimize digital eyestrain, Zeiss cessful Longevity, has taken an interest marketing project manager Megan Long. shifts the reading area in its progressive in the challenges that using a computer “That’s what works best for him.” lenses higher and closer to the eyes, taking mouse can present for older workers. “I’ve For older workers who stand—rather into account the position in which people been studying aging for a long time,” he than sit—on the job, specialized floor hold their smartphones. says, “and now, at age 67, I’ve become one pads better balance the load on ankles, Another challenge: the eyes of of the people I study.” He is glad that many knees, and hips. These “anti-fatigue mats” 60-year-olds take in only about a third operating systems can be set to allow pro- have been common since the 1980s, but as much light as those of 20-year-olds, grams and documents to be activated by inventors keep refining the concept. One because their pupils are smaller and single-clicking; double-clicking can be version, with arrays of hollow rubber cyl- their lenses cloudier. That necessitates harder for older users. He reduces his inders fused in place under the mat’s sur- brighter office lighting, with as few shad- own need to scroll down with a mouse by face to provide a mild springiness, was ows and dark spots as possible, says Ryan turning his computer monitor sideways; patented in 2009. Hospitals are major Anderson, director of product and port- eye movements tend to be easier for older buyers. The average age of U.S. nurses folio strategy at Herman Miller, the office adults than hand movements. climbed to 50 in 2013, according to the furniture maker based in Zeeland, Michi- Microsoft has for years provided an National Council of State Boards of Nurs- gan. It’s not enough to blast more lumens online “Guide for Individuals with Age- ing, up from about 47 in 2004. onto people’s desktops; minimizing shad- Related Impairments,” showing older A broad array of technologies that are being developed to help those with dis- abilities could also end up helping other Swelling Ranks of Older Workers people work longer. Boeing, for example, By 2022, more than 8 percent of the U.S. workforce will be 65 or older. has a project to help travelers glide Age: 55–64 65–74 75+ through airports on a driverless cart, and Carnegie Mellon is working on robot 30 million escorts for those with limited vision. The U.S. Department of Transportation has 25 begun an “accessible transportation” ini- tiative to help people with limited mobil- 20 ity, including older workers. Aaron Steinfeld, a Carnegie Mellon researcher, 15 is helping to develop Tiramisu Transit, a crowdsourced system that can share real- time information about where buses are 10 and which are relatively full or empty. Such data “can be very important for 5 those with balance issues or who use wheelchairs or scooters,” Steinfeld says.

1992 2002 2012 2022 (est.) —George Anders STATISTICS LABOR OF BUREAU LABOR, OF DEPARTMENT U.S. DATA:

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teleradiology is used in remote areas and has achieved over 80 percent accuracy Computation and Data Science in overnight urgent care. with certain medical conditions—in the Technologies beyond digitization, range of a good radiologist. Its education however, have become increasingly could be sped up by having it study the 30 Technology important to radiology. Among them are billion images from hospitals, pharma- computational medicine and data science. ceutical companies, and clinical research Jobs: Radiology New applications can reconstruct a organizations that the company recently tumor in 3-D and precisely measure its acquired in its $1 billion purchase of Digitization didn’t gut the field, and volume as it changes over time. “As a radi- Merge Healthcare. recent innovations are expanding ologist you cannot just stick to the images Though Brainlab, whose major mar- radiology beyond interpreting images. anymore; you have to be able to use this kets include North America, is working software,” says Wildgruber. “Otherwise from a different angle, it too could greatly ● Radiology can date its birth to Decem- you can’t deal with the workload.” alter radiology by better utilizing imag- ber 22, 1895, when the German physicist The increasing complexity of the work ing—both diagnostic and interventional— Wilhelm Röntgen shot electromagnetic and the sheer volume of medical images, in the operating room. radiation through his wife’s left hand to which now include video recordings and A neurosurgeon working in an oper- produce the world’s first human radio- digital models, have created new chal- ating room outfitted with Brainlab’s graph, a black-and-white image of a skel- lenges, and new opportunities, for com- image-guided surgery and intraopera- etal hand wearing a wedding ring. panies like IBM and Germany’s Brainlab. tive CT systems—like those at the Klini- In recent years, the transition from ana- “A typical emergency room radiologist kum Grosshadern, in Munich—is able to log to digital imaging and advances in com- will do 30 to 40 CT studies, with 2,000 visualize tools, anatomy, and radiologic puter-based medical tools have allowed to 3,000 images per study,” says Tanveer images of diseases overlaid, in real time radiologists to access imaging results on a Syeda-Mahmood, chief scientist for a through a neurosurgeon’s scope, on the mobile phone or tablet and analyze them project at IBM that is developing auto- patient’s brain. At the same time, the radi- immediately. Now, new tools—designed to mated radiology and cardiology tools. ologist can watch live feeds of the surgery in person or remotely, review images and video taken at various stages of the opera- The increasing complexity of the work and the sheer volume of tion, and coördinate treatment. medical images, which now include video recordings and digital These technological advances enable models, have created new challenges and new opportunities. radiologists and other physicians to per- form more kinds of treatments, including minimally invasive techniques like help radiologists deal with a rapidly grow- “You’re easily looking at 100,000 images recanalization of blocked blood vessels ing amount of data and make faster, more per day.” With all this data—images for and targeted tumor therapies carried out accurate diagnoses—are changing the job one patient might account for 250 giga- under image guidance. in other unexpected ways. bytes, says Syeda-Mahmood—a radiolo- This blurring of medical portfolios has Asked what a radiologist does, most gist is at risk of missing the small begun to create conflicts between once- people are likely to think of a physician percentage of images crucial to identify- sitting alone in a dark lab reading x-rays, ing pathologies. says Moritz Wildgruber, a radiologist and IBM, which developed the Watson researcher at the Klinikum Rechts der technology that triumphed on Jeopardy!, 250 gigabytes Amount of data one patient’s medical Isar hospital in Munich, Germany. At one is testing whether similar computer-based images might contain time digital imaging technology seemed reasoning, machine learning, and analyti- like a potential threat to the profession. cal problem solving modeled on human Some feared that with “teleradiology,” cognition could ameliorate some of these distinct medical specialties. “If you want radiographs could be efficiently sent off- issues. According to the company, early to open an occluded artery with a stent,” site to be read assembly-line-style. work has demonstrated that the system says Wildgruber, “the radiologist can do As with many technological shifts, the can autonomously learn what a pathology it, the vascular surgeon can do it, the car- reality has been more tempered. In part looks like—say, an abnormal narrowing diologist can do it.” So whom do you go to because of strict regulations and liability in a coronary artery—and automatically when you arrive at the hospital for such issues limiting where a scan can be read alert the radiologist to the most important a treatment? Today the answer, surpris- and by whom, radiology has not been out- images for a given patient. ingly, may come down to which depart- sourced wholesale. On-site hospital radi- The system is still learning, but ment is available when you walk in. ology groups remain important, though Syeda-Mahmood says that in testing it —Russ Juskalian

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Guse’s cite surveys finding that 53 mil- more than a billion dollars a year. Build- Online Marketplaces lion Americans do some freelance work ing on the technologies underlying social today, or the fact that staffing companies matchmaking sites and the analytical have seen a growth in revenue. Compa- recommendation engines of retailers like Online and nies that operate online marketplaces for Amazon, the company is trying to cut the freelancers include Upwork, TaskRab- average time it takes to find someone for a Self-Employed bit, Uber, and Amazon Home Services. project from three days to three minutes. Many others, from Skype to Slack, facili- CEO Stephane Kasriel, who oversees a New technologies give employers tate remote work and help contractors run team of 300 employees and 700 freelanc- access to a world of workers while their businesses. ers, says key challenges have included get- offering freelancers more ways to build The number of self-employed Ameri- ting the network big enough to make such a career. cans, as tracked by the government, actu- rapid connections possible and building ally “hasn’t moved in two decades,” says an algorithm smart enough to start nar- ● Recently Megan Guse has been field- Lawrence Mishel, president of the Eco- rowing a would-be employer’s search on ing questions from her former classmates nomic Policy Institute. As a percentage of the basis of just a few questions. about the atypical path she has taken since total employment, it has dropped. Depend- There are particular challenges in graduating from the University of Illinois ing on whether you include part-time building such an algorithm for freelance law school. Three and a half years ago, workers, the self-employed, and others, work. There’s no universally accepted after finishing a fellowship in the Cham- the size of the U.S. contingent workforce taxonomy of skills. Also, freelancers are paign County state’s attorney’s office, Guse is either as small as less than 5 percent of sometimes simply not available—the best didn’t take the expected next step of join- the total or as large as 33 percent. candidate might currently be on a beach ing a law firm or getting a government And while those people have more somewhere and not interested in work. job. Instead she became an independent flexibility and may be able to access a A few months ago, no jobs were being contractor. She does legal work, mostly broader range of work in today’s digital filled in three minutes on Upwork’s site; on contracts, for a company called Ver- economy, there are downsides as well. A now a small number are. Still, searches sata, which specializes in acquiring and recent study of the contingent workforce can take time in fields where talent is restructuring struggling software companies. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Versata operates globally with almost no Freelancing offers flexibility and access to a range of work, but full-time employees. Like Guse, most of downsides include lower satisfaction and earnings, fewer worker its workers are contractors. protections and benefits, and job instability. “I think at first a lot of people viewed it as a questionable move,” says Guse. Now, after many of her classmates have begun by the U.S. Government Accountability scarce and in demand, like mobile soft- to burn out on the long hours expected of Office listed lower satisfaction and earn- ware development, and for jobs that carry young lawyers at big firms, “I have sensed ings, fewer protections and benefits, and a high price tag (projects on the site can a little envy sometimes,” she says. job instability as some of the disadvan- bill as much as $100,000, though most She has little job security, must rely tages freelance workers face. Workers’ are in the $100 to $1,000 range). on her husband’s employer for health advocates worry that employers will take While 50 percent of the jobs on the benefits, and does not make the salary advantage of the growing digital freelance platform come from U.S.-based compa- she would at a large firm. But she says infrastructure to shift more work off the nies, only 20 percent are filled by U.S. her earnings are comparable to what payroll and more risk onto workers. freelancers. Other workers come from she could make as an in-house lawyer These online freelance marketplaces India, Eastern Europe, the Philippines, at a small company. And she’s gotten are a global clearinghouse for workers. and potentially almost anywhere. opportunities to branch out into differ- James Manyika, a director of the research Participants in this global freelance ent types of law, including some recent arm of the consulting firm McKinsey, says pool wrote and still maintain the software work on mergers and acquisitions that she they could help find work for the 30 to 45 that underlies Brecht Palombo’s business, wouldn’t have done in a more traditional percent of the working-age population Distressed Pro, a debt database that he setting. Plus, she works from home, so it worldwide (200 million people) currently sells to investors. He has used freelance was easy to move when her husband’s lat- either not active at all in the workforce, software developers from overseas ever est job posting took them from Texas to unemployed, or working part time. since the business launched in 2009, Connecticut. Upwork, the largest of these online though he needed time to learn the vari- Those who believe we are headed to marketplaces, has 2.5 million U.S. free- ous working styles in different markets. a future of contract-based careers like lancers. Its contractors collectively earn Programmers from the Philippines, for

12 THE FUTURE OF WORK TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW

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example, do business in a more Ameri- has created a simple new line of work for clashes between hosts and guests peri- canized way than those in many parts of 1.1 million people worldwide: renting out odically make headlines, though Airbnb Southeast Asia, Palombo says, but they extra rooms for a few days at a time via says its vetting systems are designed to have had challenges like an unreliable Airbnb’s home-sharing site. avoid this. City governments want Airbnb power grid and bad weather. The Bugays have worked this new to collect hotel taxes, which the company Eventually Palombo began trying to calling to perfection. They are among generally is willing to do, while affordable- build relationships with a small group of Airbnb’s most active hosts, renting so con- housing advocates sometimes argue that contractors, rather than moving from one sistently that their spare bedrooms enjoy the rise of Airbnb hosting is making life to another according to price. “Now I have a remarkable 92 percent occupancy rate. harder for renters. A San Francisco refer- regular guys who get paid like a salary,” They hardly need to do any marketing endum scheduled for November will test he says. “They are free to work on other themselves; testimonials from more than whether or not voters want to clamp down things, but I do offer them some security 170 previous guests keep sending new vis- on Airbnb’s most active hosts. and stability.” He pays experts $2,000 a itors their way. All told, the Bugays calcu- month for work that would cost $8,000 to late that they are booking about $90,000 $15,000 a month if he hired experienced a year in rental revenue. developers in the U.S., he says. Airbnb’s software is so efficient at 81% Beyond managing a remote workforce organizing the rental calendar that Bugay Proportion of hosts who rent on Upwork, Palombo has set up a virtual figures it takes only about five hours a rooms in their primary residence work system. He uses Slack to commu- week for him and his wife to run their nicate, schedule and hold meetings, and rental business. A few minutes of e-mail track assignments. All the work is done correspondence, a little socializing with 52% using Google programs and is stored in guests over meals and card games, a Proportion of hosts who have the cloud, where it is safe in the event of a round of laundry between visitors, and— low to moderate income lost laptop or hardware mishap. He orga- voilà—everything is ready for the cycle nizes assignments and tasks on Trello. to continue. If guests don’t speak much All this has allowed Palombo himself English, he says, “we use Google Translate 48% more freedom. He and his wife and three to take care of breakfast requests or some Proportion of host income used to pay children have spent more than a year trav- advice about sights to see.” for household expenses like rent eling the U.S. in an RV, while he works a San Francisco–based Airbnb is not few hours a day from the road or in a Star- the only company providing an online bucks. The arrangement hasn’t hurt his marketplace for hotel-style rentals in peo- When mass adoption of Internet con- business, which he says has grown about ple’s homes. Other major players include nectivity took hold in the late 1990s, the 28 percent over the last six months. VRBO, HomeAway, and FlipKey. But travel industry was often cited as an area —Nanette Byrnes Airbnb, which began as an impromptu where the efficiencies afforded by new online listing by three housemates in technology were squeezing out old jobs. 2008, has grown to be the category leader. Travel agents gave way to do-it-yourself Online Marketplaces It operates in 34,000 cities around the online reservations; guidebooks lost their world and has rented to more than 40 appeal in the face of competition from million guests to date. This year private YouTube videos and TripAdvisor reviews. The Homeowner investors helped fund Airbnb’s further But as thrifty travelers make use of Airbnb growth at a level that implied a valua- and similar services, job cuts at hotels as Hotelier tion of $26 billion for the company. That’s may be offset by opportunities in the new more than long-established hotel chains informal sector. For some, home-sharing sites like such as Hilton and Marriott command in Airbnb may even be creating a new Airbnb have opened up an unexpected public stock markets. entrepreneurial ecosystem. For hosts who second profession. Not everyone makes as much money don’t want to be bothered with e-mailing on Airbnb as the Bugays: fewer than 5 confirmation details to their guests (or ● Greg Bugay and his wife, Lorraine, live percent of its lodging providers qualify putting fresh linen on the bed), services in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, just a short as “super hosts.” Typical property own- such as Pillow, a startup trying to help distance from the Atlantic Ocean. They ers in cities such as London or Sydney, owners manage their properties, have are empty nesters with more space than Australia, earn slightly less than $5,000 sprung up. These companies put more they need in their duplex. A decade ago, a year, Airbnb calculates, by renting out a people to work, in maid service and cleri- extra bedrooms in tourist havens often sat room or two intermittently. And the busi- cal support, in return for 15 percent of

DATA: AIRBNB DATA: idle. No more. Today, digital connectivity ness is not without controversy. Violent booking revenue. —George Anders

14 THE FUTURE OF WORK TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW

networked work will need to strategi- Digital Technology cally choose the platforms where they Outside Reading can most effectively build their reputation and customer base. Rise of the Robots: Freelancers on The benefits that come with a steady Technology and the Threat job are offered only piecemeal in the of a Jobless Future the Network this world of freelance platforms, so by Martin Ford networked workers need to be insured Basic Books, May 2015 New infrastructure based on digital against risks associated with participa- technology is changing the way we tion in alternative markets. For exam- A Silicon Valley entrepreneur discusses work, creating new jobs and requiring ple, hosts on Airbnb run the risk that how advances in robotics could wipe out workers to develop different skills. their apartment will be trashed by a jobs and deepen inequality. traveler. Independent workers need ● A large number of workers are moving mechanisms for learning and improve- The Second Machine Age: from working for organizations to free- ment. To provide them, platforms could Work, Progress, and Prosperity in lancing on job networks. Platforms like invest in community management prac- a Time of Brilliant Technologies UpWork, Fiverr, and Freelancer allow tices and offer ongoing feedback to users by Erik Brynjolfsson and freelancers to find a market for their on the basis of past interactions. Andrew McAfee services. Others are more specialized: Most important, today’s networked W. W. Norton, January 2014 Dribbble and 99Designs allow design- work environment doesn’t offer the sta- ers to find new work, Clarity and Experfy bility or health-care benefits of a tradi- In this New York Times best-seller, two cultivate high-end specialists, and Zaarly tional job: it’s not governed by the same leading thinkers at MIT discuss how and TaskRabbit match workers to lower- sort of social contract. Regulators must industries will have to adapt to a world end work. Meetup gives freelancers a way create policies to address the issues where computers can do many jobs to network with peers and learn from workers face in this new environment. better than humans can. them, while Twitter, Medium, Quora, and Third parties not associated with spe- Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest for Common Ground The more easily a form of work is commoditized, the more Between Humans and Robots the balance of power will shift away from the worker and by John Markoff toward the platform. Ecco, August 2015

Pulitzer Prize–winning science writer LinkedIn enable these independent work- cific platforms could also develop new John Markoff details the history of ers to build a brand and increase their businesses offering these services to net- interactions between humans and robots. influence in the market. worked workers, to substitute for what As they grow, these platforms will traditional employers once provided. “Who Will Own the Robots?” exert greater control over the career The careers of the past depended by David Rotman prospects and livelihood of the workers on our ability to leverage relationships MIT Technology Review, who participate. The more easily a form in offline professional networks. The July/August 2015 of work is commoditized, the more the careers of the future will depend on our balance of power will shift away from the ability to leverage online networked In this cover story, MIT Technology worker and toward the platform. A driver platforms. Workers’ reputation on Review editor David Rotman explores on Uber may be more replaceable or inter- these labor platforms, and their ability how increased automation is affecting changeable with counterparts than a host to build a business across multiple plat- jobs and how the economic benefits of on Airbnb or a seller on Etsy. Etsy and forms without becoming overtly depen- technology can be more fairly shared. Airbnb have invested in the community of dent on one, will determine success in producers on their platforms, in recogni- the age of networked work. The Glass Cage: tion of their value to consumers. Similarly, —Sangeet Paul Choudary Automation and Us Dribbble showcases designers, giving by Nicholas Carr them a way to build their own brand and The author, founder of Platform W. W. Norton, September 2014 find high-end work, while 99Designs Thinking Labs, thanks Geoffrey Parker requires designers to compete with each and Marshall Van Alstyne for ideas A best-selling author looks at how other for projects. Individuals taking up contributed to this article. automation is affecting several facets of

15 MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM THE FUTURE OF WORK our lives, including cars, wearables, and forecast the jobs of the future, they factory robots. World Robotics: Industrial Robots conclude that work will increasingly 2014, Executive Summary focus on factors that cannot be Virtually Human: International Federation of Robotics, automated, including social interaction The Promise—and the Peril— 2014 and empathy, creativity, and skill. of Digital Immortality by Martine Rothblatt An oft-cited report on industrial robot “A World without Work” St. Martin’s Press, September 2014 sales. By Derek Thompson The Atlantic, July/August 2015 Entrepreneur Martine Rothblatt looks at “Technology and Inequality” what could happen if software becomes by David Rotman For centuries, experts have predicted part of our brains. MIT Technology Review, that machines would make workers November/December 2014 obsolete. If that moment has finally Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, arrived, could it be a good thing? Strategies The gap between the very rich and poor by Nick Bostrom is especially wide in Silicon Valley. David Oxford University Press, September 2014 Rotman attempts to find out how much technology has to do with it. Can humans stay in control when Calendar machines become smarter than we are? Fastest Declining Occupations, Philosopher Nick Bostrom explores 2012 and projected 2022 Next: Economy November 12–13, 2015 questions like these in this book, Employment Statistics Program, U.S. San Francisco recommended by both Bill Gates and Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor http://conferences.oreilly.com/next-economy Elon Musk. Statistics, December 2013 Robotics Alley Conference & Expo The Future of Employment: U.S. government data shows which jobs December 1–2, 2015 Minneapolis How Susceptible Are Jobs to are expected to decline the most quickly http://roboticsalley.org/ Computerisation? over the next decade. by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. 11th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Osborne Learning by Doing: The Real Human-Robot Interaction (HR1 2016) University of Oxford, September 2013 Connection between Innovation, March 7–10, 2016 Christchurch, New Zealand Wages, and Wealth http://humanrobotinteraction.org/2016/ This report looks at how vulnerable By James Bessen certain workers are to being replaced by Yale University Press, 2015 ICRA 2016: IEEE International Conference on robots. Robotics and Automation Much of the value from innovations May 16–21, 2016 Stockholm, Sweden “Will Your Job Be Done by a comes over time as they are www.icra2016.org Machine?” implemented, the author argues, and by Quoctrung Bui while technology transforms work in RoboBusiness Europe Planet Money, May 2015 profound ways, it can take a long time June 1–3, 2016 for workers and society to fully adapt. Odense, Denmark www.robobusiness.eu/rb/ NPR has turned the above-mentioned Oxford study into an interactive graphic “Technology and People: The IEEE CASE 2016 that readers can use to determine the Great Job Creating Machine” August 21–25, 2016 likelihood of losing their job to a robot. Ian Stewart, Debapratim De, and Fort Worth, Texas Alex Cole http://sites.ieee.org/case-2016/

AI, Robotics, and the Future Deloitte, December 2014 IROS 2016 of Jobs October 9–14, 2016 by Aaron Smith and Janna Anderson This study of employment data from Daejeon, Korea Pew Research Center, August 2014 England and Wales over the last 140 www.iros2016.org years concludes that when machines Automate This report from a prominent think tank replace workers, the result is faster April 3–6, 2017 explores how the rise of robots could growth and rising overall employment. Chicago affect humans’ jobs. Though the authors don’t attempt to www.autmateshow.com