Robots, AI, Intelligent Services: Are Humans Already Obsolete?

In the aftermath of the Brexit vote to leave, one of the Tweets that caught my eye was from founder and CEO of analyst firm HfS Research Phil Fersht, which simply said, "At least the British can stop worrying about robots taking their jobs. Just get rid of the jobs altogether…" While that may not be amusing as it plays out against our globalized economy, it demonstrates how this topic has taken hold of so many of us. About a year ago, I was asked to sit on a panel at the annual Constellation Research Connected Enterprise 2015 called "The Robots Are Here! The Future of HR Tech," to debate whether we're entering a dystopian existence where humans are the bottleneck to productivity and innovation or becoming a world of augmented humanity and digital humanization. It's a fact that major economic shifts have led to both marginalization, the downside, as well as great opportunity, clearly the upside.