Transcriber: Freakbill Huang Reviewer: Reiko Bovee
About eight years ago,
I was diagnosed with something called spinal disc herniation.
Herniated disk, or known as slipped disk,
occurs when one of the disks which sits between the bones
slips out of its allowed space and starts pressing the nerves.
This brought me to quite severe pains on my back and legs
and made me almost impossible to walk.
Doctor said: "Let's cut it out."
I said: "Sure. Do whatever necessary so I can walk normally again."
But things got worst.
When I stood up after two weeks from surgery.
I couldn't feel my left leg touching the ground.
That's quite weird feeling actually.
So, I had to pass through several months of exhausting rehabilitation process
during which several MRI images of my spine were taken
and shown to many doctors.
But the fascinating thing was: given the same medical images
and same medical history,
I got three different diagnoses and three different treatment plans
from three different doctors.
So,
as I really want to walk normally again, this brought me to a new hobby:
to learn about similar medical conditions
and try to investigate my images myself.
Maybe I could figure out which treatment plan could work for me best.
But mostly, it makes me start wondering,
what if there is a doctor who could remember
large data sets of patients' information,
including their medical history, medical images, treatment plans.
A doctor who could read and digest
all the rest thousands of research articles and topic.
A doctor who could remember
all the ten thousand diseases humans can get with their symptoms.
And finally, a doctor with ice-cold objectivity
and no cognitive bias.
At the time living in my hometown, Yerevan in Armenia,
I couldn't imagine that this concept of super doctor is actually possible.
But it turns out that the concept of super doctor is quite realistic.
Not with fresh and bones but rather with combination of ones and zeros.
Just imagine, having a huge database of medical data
from different imaging modalities,
collected from broad range of patients with their medical images,
medical history and treatment plans in one place.
This tremendous opportunity of data influx have never been available before.
Based on this data, smart algorithms could do an objective analysis
that doctors today largely cannot.
Once we have large enough data set and database of research articles,
these smart algorithms could allow to identify patterns
and physiological interactions that have never been possible before.
And what this means is that we will need fewer doctors,
and the patients will get the best care
while the diagnoses and treatment plan will be done by doctor algorithm.
I like him a lot so I simply call him "ALGO," or "Dr. ALGO."
So what this also means is that the job of certain doctors,
to be more specific, radiologists and physicians,
will be entirely got automated and maybe partially replaced by Dr. ALGO.
And this is just one example of job
which requires several years of education and training
is at high risk of being automated.
In fact, scholars in Oxford university have studied around 700 U.S. occupations
and new techniques of automation,
and they concluded that 47% of the existing jobs are at high risk
of being automated for next one to two decades.
And as another example, the job of lawyers, certain lawyers,
can be at high risk.
ALGO can better mind which documents are needed
for certain court cases.
Or job in financial industry, such as accountants,
when Algo can analyse financial data,
prepare accounts, do tax returns.
Or job in human resources, when ALGO can sort resumes
and find the best candidates.
And this list can be continued further.
But you may say:
"Look, this concept of new technology destroying job is not new."
Back in 1800's, the mechanization of agriculture,
it vaporized millions of jobs
and let workers move from farms to factories.
Later, manufacturing automation caused the transition
to the service economy.
And what basically happened was workers repeatedly adapted
by acquiring new skills and moving to the new job industries.
But this did not change the fact that the most jobs today
continues to be essentially routine.
And how workers responded was moving from a routine job in one industry
to the routine job in another.
But what's different today that information technology
is transforming almost every sector of the economy.
For the first time in history, ALGO is taking on jobs
which once were patterned by human brain.
Even jobs which maybe seem exclusive for human brain with tasks
such as mobility and hand-eye coordination.
ALGO promises to impact them, too.
In this respect, the job of taxi drivers and truck drivers
is at higher risk.
Self-driving cars and trucks have already been tested
for hundreds of thousands kilometers
driving without accidents in regular streets.
In one study, around 2,000 experts were asked:
"Whether ALGO will have displaced more jobs than it creates by 2025."
And half the experts, almost half the experts,
see a future in which ALGO have displaced more jobs than it creates.
And many are concerned that this would lead to vast increases
in incoming quality, mass employment and break down on the social order.
However, the other half of the experts and me personally,
see future as more positive for new job creation.
Although we believe that ALGO will displace several jobs,
but it will generate new categories of jobs,
giving rise to, as people in science likes to say,
second and third orderly effects
which will lead to more human elaborate collaboration.
We have faith that our creativity, human creativity,
will generate new jobs and industries by taking advantage
of our unique human capabilities.
Now and more than ever, we need an army of talented coders
to help our technology advance.
Somebody has to code and build these tools which will likely lead
to this new wave of innovations on jobs.
In fact, LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network,
examining around 260 million profiles in its database
and created an infographic of most popular jobs
that did not exist back in 2008.
And they found out that 8 out of 10 of these jobs
belong to digital world.
An example includes app developer, data scientist, internet social media
and many others.
If we have gone back 15 years from now,
who would have thought that search engine optimization
is a significant job category?
This already shows the newly form lifestyle trends.
And besides, there're several jobs only humans can do:
many jobs requiring unique human capabilities,
such as empathy, creativity, judgement, negotiation skills.
Jobs of these nature are unlikely to be replaces by ALGO.
And coming back to doctors,
they will have more time talking to their patients
and providing more compassionate and personal care.
And ultimately, they will be able to handle more patients
and reduce the medical costs.
I wish I have Dr. ALGO at my side when I really really needed him.
So maybe, ALGO will free us from our hard working day to day routine
and allow us to define our relationships with work
in a more positive and socially beneficial way.
But the big question remains.
We allow economic and social structures adjust fast enough to this new reality.
We allow education system be transformed fast enough
in preparing graduates for more automated world.
One thing is more certain though,
that this transition is likely to be destructive.
And I am very excited that I get to live through it.
I hope you too.
Thank you.
(Applause.)