From Looking Digital to Being Digital: The Impact of Technology on the Future of Work Robots learning from humans Human and digital and humans interacting seamlessly recombination with computers are hallmarks of In conventional automation, the objective is to become cheaper and faster by intelligent digital processes. replicating human work that is repeatable and programmable. In an era of intelligent digital processes, the relationship between machines and humans is more For example, suppose a train’s engine the system, re-routing others, and speeding complementary, with the two often being sensor detects overheating. In the some trains up while slowing others recombined in novel ways. pre-digital world, the train operator down, in order to maximize the overall would slow the train down to mitigate profitability of the network. The objective of human-digital the overheating problem, which would recombination is to enhance productivity cause, mostly unpredictable levels of As in the case of edge-centric decision- by multiplying the effects of human disruption to cascade throughout the making, real-time adaptation challenges physical and cognitive capabilities, enabling network. Network operators would be key assumptions in work design. Most managers and employees to make better more or less in reactive mode. Now, by important among them is the growing judgments. This recombination—with combining data about the operating need for “transdisciplinary” skills—that robots learning from humans and humans conditions of all the trains, along with is, an understanding of the behavior of interacting seamlessly with computers—is other relevant data, such as the nature of complex systems that makes it possible one of the hallmarks of intelligent digital the each train’s cargo and cost of delays, for a train operator and a network processes, and the need for such flexibility the network operation center is able to operator to share both understanding is great in industries as different as mining play an advisory role. This system helps and control of a sophisticated web of and online retailing. 21 the network operators make real-time people and machines. Rather than insist adaptations to the network, which may on rigid lines of demarcation between One of the most interesting examples mean taking some lower-priority trains off jobs or professions, real-time adaptation of human-digital recombination can be encourages a blurring of knowledge found in mining, an industry that predates domains and a greater emphasis on the dawn of the computer age. Today in systemic knowledge and systemic roles. 26 | Accenture | Copyright 2014 Accenture. All rights reserved. ©