Automation: The surprising downside, and more great insights - HRM online

Predicting the future is an imprecise art. But after years of crying wolf, one thing is becoming clear: automation is set to change the world of work forever. "It's not easy to measure automation precisely, but anecdotal and economic evidence indicate we have every reason to believe it will move faster and faster," says Martin Ford, global thought leader on automation at work and author of Rise of the Robots: Technology and the threat of a jobless future. Ford, who will be speaking at the upcoming Creative Innovation Conference, first became interested in an automated future while running a small software company in the 1990s. Back then, software still came on CD ROMs that were shipped to customers – a job that, while tech based, still required a human touch.