Last week, I was at a dinner party at a local friends’ house in our Suffolk village. I began to tell what I thought was a unique tale surrounding the saga of my children’s pet rabbits, whose domestic unruliness towards each other had escalated so far that I’d be been forced to call in the Rabbit Whisperer.
You heard me correctly: the Rabbit Whisperer – a local Suffolk based specialist focused solely on obtaining harmony amongst pet rabbits holding opposing views, so to speak.
The best part? I wasn’t the only one around the table familiar with this highly skilled specialist dedicated to the discipline of our bunny-eared friends.
As my dinner companions reliably informed me, the Rabbit Whisperer wasn’t a one hit wonder and had already been used by a number of families at the local school.
This bizarre account set me thinking – if our economy can support the highly specialised likes of Rabbit Whisperers in its existing state, what new roles will be born in the years to come when Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) change the job landscape and allow people to focus on their true strengths and passions?
Opportunity knocks
RPA and AI are unique in that their perceived downsides make for universally interesting news.
RPA and AI becoming mainstream does not mean that they will simply act as a precursor to massive job loss.
The notion of robots taking over the world or acting as the root of large scale job loss is bound to dominate the headlines moreso than say, robots fulfilling a number of back office functions that are often tedious and repetitive, but that generate considerate cost savings for a company.
However, RPA and AI becoming mainstream does not mean that they will simply act as a precursor to massive job loss.
What it means first and foremost is that workers will be relieved of performing tedious and repetitive back office processes. Leaving the admin tasks to the robots means that people are free to do what they do best – engage with other people.
Freeing up your human workforce’s time will enable them to help improve customer experience from within the businesses.
Secondly, with more focus and less distraction, jobs will become increasingly intertwined with developments in AI, which means that we may begin to see new, creative and slightly more off-kilter professions (like the Rabbit Whisperer).
We’ll be free to explore new avenues to channel our creative and instinctive energies.
Freeing up your human workforce’s time will enable them to help improve customer experience from within the businesses.
As ‘traditional’ job roles will evolve, new roles will emerge. These “new” jobs could include operating artificial intelligence-based technology, augmenting the old jobs along the way.
The Realms of Possibility: AI & the Self-Learning
Finally, with the work day benefiting from the efficiencies introduced by RPA and AI, workers may be left with more time to pursue their own interests and unique hobbies – which is surely the ultimate work place benefit.
Of course not all may be as unique as the talents of our dear Rabbit Whisperer, who you’ll be pleased to know managed a resounding success amongst the rabbits in our family and has now moved on to settle further hare-brained domestic disturbances, amid ever increasingly demand and continued high praise.
There’s always room for improvement however – think of how AI could improve the already impressive services offered by the Rabbit Whisperer.
With the help of AI, the Rabbit Whisperer could have a maintained empirical database of all rabbits currently under treatment to classify behavioural phenomena and propensity to “dislike.”
This could act as the foundation for a self-learning or “peacekeeper” rabbit robot, who could monitor and learn the traits of rabbits and network that learning across a fleet of rabbit robots.
Soon, Suffolk could have the happiest rabbits in the world, and the Rabbit Whisperer may have time to take a holiday – or move on to one of the more highly specialised and unique professions that will no doubt emerge as AI and people’s jobs evolve together in the years to come.
