With the rapid adoption of automation in businesses, will all our jobs be taken over by machines one day? This is an oft-expressed concern when discussing the influence of automation in the workplace. While it is true that machines can outperform humans in certain areas involving high-volume and repetitive tasks, the above concern is rather unfounded and fear mongering. The reality about the relationship between business process automation and humans is too nuanced to give a simple answer to the question why business process automation cannot replace human jobs.
In an essay penned by the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School experts Valery Yakubovich, Peter Cappelli and Prasanna Tambe, in The Wall Street Journal, the professors contend that AI or automation will most likely create more jobs for people because it needs intensive human oversight to produce usable results.
Human-Machine Collaboration – Key Considerations
- Automation Doesn’t Have Emotional Quotient (EQ)
To begin with, the biggest differentiator between a human and a machine is emotional quotient (EQ). Machines lack EQ, while it is a defining nature of humans, and it is a valuable asset in the business world.
Simply put, EQ is the ability to sympathize, empathize, or use our brain’s neural network to predict a reaction and respond accordingly. It is not programmed by any external source or based on any set rules but it is rather our ability to interact and coordinate with others. Machines lack this ability and can only be programmed with set rules to work in a particular fashion.
Imagine reporting to a human manager at your office. Unforeseen circumstances for you not coming to work on a particular day, or meeting with an injury during working hour, or having to suddenly switch your attention to another task while performing one specified job, and many more of these would be almost impossible to address. Many jobs like team leaders, teachers, counsellors and more require competent EQ.
Our EQ helps us solve problems based on context, while automated machines doesn’t have the sense of self or sensitivity to instruct us beyond logical reasoning. Moreover, humans have the capacity to improvise on the go while automated machines work on logic and set rules and can’t do this.
An automated system like RPA can be highly efficient in performing high-volume and repetitive and redundant but important tasks, while freeing up time and effort for their human counterparts to focus on tasks that require complex problem solving and creative skills that involve the use of EQ. This is how automation complements human skills in business.
- Automation vs Creativity
AI-powered tools used for creative works like producing templates for presentations, making collage of images, or stitching together video clips can produce excellent results within minutes and can save a lot of time for humans. However, it still needs a human to instruct what it must produce, and it just cannot think on its own and bring the desired results.
Humans have a far broader creative vision and are ever evolving. We also learn from, and draw inspiration from situations and experiences and use context to bring out the right results. Sometimes our creations, like a modernist painting, are based on intangible concepts like emotions and feelings which is almost impossible for an automated system to gauge and understand.
While an AI-powered creative tool can produce a finished result in an instant, humans have infinite creative potential by comparison. The two of them working in tangent to produce great results is the answer to this conundrum.
- BPA Tools Are Only As Good As Their Data Set
All BPA tools or solutions work seamlessly based on the set of data they are fed. Unless integrated with an AI agent, most BPA solutions don’t have cognitive capability and would face roadblock if there is a sudden variation in any of the metrics it is trained in.
For example, a BPA solution that is used for invoice processing would give wrong results if it comes across unstructured data and wouldn’t know how to resolve it on its own. Whereas, a human can immediately check and verify this and make necessary corrections.
In short, a BPA solution can only work based on the relevance of the input data. And for this to happen, there will always have to be a human to provide your automation system with the right set of data.
- BPA Solutions Don’t Have Soft Skills
Automated machines don’t have the soft skills that humans have to interact and work with each other as a team. Non-technical skills like respectfulness, friendliness, confidence, negotiation and adaptability are highly sought after in most businesses. The lack of these makes an automated system not fit to work as a proper part of a team.
Humans, on the other hand, can acquire these skills through training, and can improve over time. No automation solution, even AI with its cognitive capability can fully replicate the necessary soft skills to navigate a work environment. This means that there will always be the need of a human to be part of and lead a team.
- Automation Needs Human Intervention
As discussed above, automation needs the latest and updated data to give optimum results and humans are always required to give this. Relying on a human-in-the-loop system for fact-checking and maintenance, is the best way to draw the optimum results out of your automation solution.
Whether it’s a RPA tool to perform a simple digital process to using BPA to automate processes in a warehouse, you need a human to perform regular data audits, oversee the function, evaluate results and conduct maintenance whenever required. You would also require a human to train the BPA process to begin with. This is how human intervention improves BPA outcomes.
Conclusion
Overall, the purpose of BPA or any automation solution is to complement and enhance human capabilities and not to compete with or replace them. While automation is suitable for redundant, high-volume and repetitive tasks, it is always best to collaborate with humans when it comes to tasks requiring reasoning, adaptability, soft skills and context.
A report by the World Economic Forum titled ‘The Future of Job Report 2020’ stated that: “by 2025, 85 million jobs may be displaced by a shift in the division of labor between humans and machines, while 97 million new roles may emerge that are more adapted to the new division of labor between humans, machines and algorithms.”
All this points to the fact that while some of the traditional redundant human tasks would be replaced by automation in the workplace, this human-machine collaboration is poised to generate more new roles that require a more human-centric approach. In short, the future of work automation lies in a better machine and human collaboration rather than one replacing the other.
How Can DeepKnit AI Help You with Your Automation Goals?
At DeepKnit AI, we understand the possibilities of automation and how it has to be integrated with human potential. With scalable DeepKnit AI Agents, you can streamline your business processes with precision and speed. But that isn’t the beginning and end of all. Our team of experts would work with you to provide the right training to your employees to equip them with the right skill sets to draw optimum results out of the BPA solutions we employ.
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