[Lee Myung-ho's Future Preview] Work Changing with Algorithms

On October 15, citizens attending the "4th Pangyo Autonomous Driving Mobility Show" held at Pangyo 1st Technovalley in Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi Province, are experiencing Exarobotics' autonomous serving robot being demonstrated at a nearby restaurant. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

A few years ago, a report was published stating that 7 million jobs worldwide would disappear over five years due to automation by computers and artificial intelligence (AI). Since then, there has been growing interest in which jobs will disappear in the future and which will remain safe. Numerous reports flooded in, discussing which tasks AI can easily perform and which humans do better. Parents listened attentively, worried about their children's future careers. Companies faced the challenge of workforce restructuring to secure competitiveness. Meanwhile, plausible yet sometimes confusing and conflicting analyses of jobs and occupations emerged. Then, things quieted down.

495 Million Jobs Lost
Growing Sense of Crisis About Work

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) rekindled the sense of crisis about the future of work. Not only rekindled but intensified it. If AI was an abstract future threat, COVID-19 is a present crisis. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimated that 495 million jobs were lost in the second quarter of this year due to COVID-19. Although many of these losses were temporary and recoverable rather than permanent job losses caused by AI, the shock COVID-19 dealt to work was enormous. Especially, the impact varied depending on the way people worked. It can be seen as a preview of the future shock AI will bring. Perhaps future historians will describe it as 'a socially forced experiment to change the way we work.'

Myeongho Lee, Planning Committee Member, Yeo Si Jae Foundation

Previous crises were those where a crisis in a specific sector or industry spread to other areas. However, this COVID-19 crisis simultaneously affected all industries and social activities as a whole. Fundamentally, it impacted the way of working, which is the foundation of all economic activities. 'Social distancing' gave a new perspective on how work and labor are conducted.

We can classify the way we work into four types. The author categorized labor into face-to-face service labor (For people), sales labor (For goods), collective task labor (With people), and office labor (With process) to examine what kind of shock COVID-19 caused and how the way of working is changing in response to these shocks. The intensity of the shock was greatest for face-to-face service labor, followed by sales labor, collective task labor, and office labor. This was observed not only in South Korea but globally.

Responses varied depending on the nature of the labor process (For people, For goods, With people, With process). The immediate response was to separate what was previously combined in labor.

For sales labor in industries like restaurants and stores that provide or sell goods, the response was to separate the sales space from the goods. Restaurants transformed into establishments that prepare food for delivery and expanded online sales markets. Performances in front of audiences changed to online performances without audiences. The second response was to change labor tools.

COVID-19 'Social Distancing'
Impacts Way of Working
Face-to-Face Service Labor Hit Hardest

Because changing labor tools involves mechanical changes, rapid transformation did not occur. In the service industry, prototypes of food and beverage preparation and serving robots already exist, so rapid change is expected. However, it will take more time for sophisticated robots providing direct services to people, such as beauty and care robots, to be utilized. The degree of acceptance, whether people feel psychological comfort and satisfaction from robot services, will influence the extent of their spread.

The third response was to separate the place of labor. Office labor was able to change the way of working most quickly by separating labor from the office. Observing office labor transition to remote work and telecommuting clearly revealed that office labor is not about gathering in an office but about handling processes. Labor is connected around processes, and when processes are handled through networks like the internet and labor tools like computers, the worker's location can be anywhere?home, office, cafe, etc.?which became clear and was experienced.

Response Changes Through Digitalization of Labor
Shifting to Algorithm Creation Process

Overall, labor responded to the demand for non-face-to-face interaction brought by COVID-19 through digitalization. Differences in responses can be summarized according to the degree of non-face-to-face interaction in the way of working and the degree of digitalization in labor tools.

So, in which direction will the digitalization of labor develop in the future? Until now, labor was an analog (a combination of machines and hand movements) process producing analog products as the final output. Currently, digitalization of labor is at the stage where digital processes produce digital products, such as content. The next stage will likely be the digitalization of factories.

With the introduction of smart manufacturing, the direct output of human labor is changing into the process of creating processes, that is, creating algorithms. When instructions (algorithms) are given to machines, the final products are produced by the machines. At that point, just as human labor was separated from the office, human labor will be separated from the factory. An era of contactless and remote manufacturing, where all labor transforms into algorithms, is approaching.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.