I, Robot or the Human Touch?
Scene from the film I Robot
The Terminator wasn’t around thankfully yet there was an air of Doomsday inside the ballroom at The Kingsbury Colombo earlier this week as we heard the talking heads at the forum on ‘Software Robots Friend or Foe?’ explain the latest “paradigm shift” in our lives that is taking place unseen to the casual observer. “Paradigm shift” is how Chandika Mendis, global head of engineering at VirtusaPolaris, the sponsors of the event, put it as he took pains to remind the large audience of CIOs (chief information officers) from the local corporate world that the world is going through a revolutionary change. The next era of digital revolution has been sparked by RPA, or Robotic Process Automation, and Mr. Mendis urged businesses to get on board this bandwagon or face the danger of being left behind eating the dust of competitors who were willing to move with the times and accept technological changes as the spur to growth.
“In history there were two key moments, the Industrial Revolution and the arrival of the Internet (in 1994) when there was a paradigm shift. We are at one of these points (revolution) again and we have two options – adapt to it or live in denial,” was the succinct summation by Mr. Mendis. RPA refers to automation that interacts with a computer through the software process streamlining business processes. And at Virtusa, the focus has been on three specific delivery models – basic process automation; enhanced process automation; and cognitive automation. With the Bots taking over, does this mean a lesser need for manpower? Will a human touch be a thing of the past? Although a fan of the 1997 Hollywood science fiction hit ‘Men in Black’, Mr. Mendis does not agree with the alarmist “Jobcalypse” view.
He says: “In that movie, the federal agents scour the tabloid headlines to find clues of where the aliens are hiding. Some of the headlines read as “Is 2014 The Year Your Job Will Be Taken Over By A Robot?’ or ‘More Than 100 Million Jobs Replaced By Automation’. “But in reality it is not all doom and gloom. Jobs don’t go away, what happens is the nature of jobs change. Technology change is all around us. In the manufacturing industry alone, productivity growth has gone up by 58 per cent since 2009 due to robotics,” Mr. Mendis adds. Yet, those images of machines taking over from mankind and rogue robot Arnie grunting “I’ll Be Back” as he tries to save the human race, is at the back of my mind as the breakfast seminar, jointly organized by the Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL) and the Federation of Information Technology Industry Sri Lanka (FITIS), unveils the future – an age of automation.
While two of the other participants in the dialogue – Keith Modder, COO, VirtusaPolaris and Thilak Piyadigama, COO, Nations Trust Bank – are in broad agreement with Mr. Mendis and are all in the corner of the Bots, Dr. Arul Sivagananathan, Managing Director, Hayleys Industrial Solutions, offers a cautionary word. “The software for all these programs are written by humans and errors can happen. I’m not an advocate and would prefer to wait and see,” was the lone verdict against a headlong descent into automation. But the Bot or RPA revolution is gathering pace. A recent study has shown the revenue generated by robotic automation is expected to reach US$5 billion by 2020 with a growth rate of 60 per cent.
According to Modder, robots will do the routine task, freeing human from doing mundane jobs. “But we are only scratching the surface with this technology. Artificial intelligence can transform the legal world as well as the medical systems with the large volumes of data which can be made available through digital technology.” The audience was given a taste for the topic of the day at the start of the forum which was kicked off by the key speakers lighting an oil lamp digitally – touching a wick on a tablet which lit the wick on the oil lamp. No need for a box of matches. Yet the human touch wasn’t completely lost. Three different people came up and asked why I wasn’t partaking of the scrumptious breakfast buffet before the seminar got underway. “Ramadan” was the answer and they were profusely apologetic. A robot might have force fed me.