A robot took over my work… and I feel fine – Episode 2

In my previous article I stated that I think that every single individual on this planet will be impacted by robotics. Of course for some individuals the impact will be larger than for others. I would personally welcome the help of a robot that could take over part of the administration that comes with my job.

The robot in me

Photo by: Matt Cooper
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/matt_briston/)
One of the things I do as NL Lead Automation for Accenture, is performing assessments at clients to figure out what processes could be automated. In most cases I simply sit next to a person that is performing a task, counting the activities and assessing the constraints in the process. In other cases, we receive videos or a report from an assessment tool.

  • Could I - in this role - be replaced by a robot?
    I would say: yes.
  • Can I design the robotic solution that replaces me?
    Yes, again.
  • Would my clients benefit from a fully automated process?
     I doubt so.

The human in me

Technically there is nothing wrong with replacing repetitive manual work by a robotic process. But imagine what would happen in your office if you have a robotic system running in the background that assesses your actions and then decides that you can be replaced by an automated system? One day you would simply find your computer locked with a simple message that the system has decided your work can be performed by a robotic system.

A robotic system will not look at the talents of an employee or spot opportunities that are outside of the predefined set of rules. A large part of my job involves talking to people, both at the client side and on the technology side. This is the part that in my opinion cannot be replaced by a robot. Also the cognitive decisions I make in my work, have a huge impact on whatever solution we are offering to a client.

A hybrid solution

What would work in my opinion, is a hybrid solution in which one or more robotic processes support me in my work and provide me with advice and the information I need to create impact. And as I am pretty sure that this is where we are moving to, I stand with the title of my article: "A robot took over my work… and I feel fine." By taking the robot out of me, I would be able to focus more on the things that require my (human) expertise.

Let's explore in the next article with what kind of technology we can support these kind of hybrid solutions and enable humans and robots to work effectively together.

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