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After AI, automation and robots, we can have a working future, says tech guru

Assertions that technological change will create massive unemployment are wrong, says Australia's top tech adviser.

But there is a caveat – Australia must be a leader in the technology charge, and its embrace has to be done with care.

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President Trump blames China and Mexico for stealing American jobs. But economists say most jobs are lost to automation.

Adrian Turner, head of the CSIRO's technology research division Data61, says  if the country is to prosper from the huge social and economic changes ushered in by artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation, businesses must stop merely modifying overseas models and instead create unique, world-leading innovations.

He says many predictions about the effects of technical change – particularly those concerning widespread job losses – are overblown. The key to managing the imminent upheaval, he says, is to identify "scenarios and suggestions to help move society towards embracing these technologies, but doing it in a way that isn't disruptive or dislocating".

Many experts around the globe think this might be easier said than done. Silicon Valley entrepreneur Martin Ford predicts that within 20 years, millions of people will be rendered jobless by the combination of artificial intelligence, robots and the rapid spread of self-driving cars.

Prominent Israeli futurist Noah Yuval Harari, in his 2016 best seller Homo Deus, suggests the biggest challenge facing humanity will be what to do with the newly created "useless class" of people who are not just unemployed, but unemployable.

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Earlier this year, Data61 predicted that around 40 per cent of current jobs in Australia would disappear in the next 15 years. However, Turner adds, many of these losses will be offset by new types of work arising from technological change.

"I think the predictions are alarmist," he says. "In certain categories where the tasks are routine, then yes.

"But if you think about driving, for example, the technology for autonomous cars will be ready way faster than we're prepared to trust them as a society, and way faster than the regulatory structure or the roads infrastructure are ready for them.

"What I think will happen is that society will absorb these technologies at a pace that makes sense. It's about making a safe and smooth transition."

One key to managing the change, he adds, lies in ensuring that large tech companies such as Google and government regulatory bodies invite the broader community to debate new ways of doing things.

He says the tech industry should heed the lesson of the internet. The technology was rolled out largely without input from consumers. Users rushed to access the net's free content, with the unintended consequence that their privacy was, and remains, dramatically compromised.

"We need to be having these public debates and we shouldn't be shying away from them," he says.

He adds that it is the role of Data61 – which formed 12 months ago out of a merger between CSIRO and the National Information and Communications Technology Research Centre – to stimulate and lead the discussion.

He is particularly interested in encouraging Australian companies to embrace the potential of the AI transition and use the technology to create commercial applications that suit the world market.

Earlier this month, Data61 released a report into the strength and weaknesses of blockchain technology – a peer-to-peer electronic system used to accurately record transactions.

Although the invention of blockchains is claimed by several parties, Australia is playing a leading role in designing universal standards for its use.

At the release of the report, Turner highlighted the growing blockchain industry as one in which Australia is well placed to lead, by adapting the technology to a range of additional uses, including supply chain management and even voting.

Modelling demonstrates that with any data-driven innovation, the first company to introduce it usually ends up controlling around 70 per cent of the market, he says, using Google, Facebook and Uber as examples.

"I think we need to not shy away from taking a leadership position, embracing technology and seeding and building new industries," he says. "This is ultimately going to create the economic growth and jobs that the country will need in the future.

"There aren't many productivity gains to be had any more, because that's already been done though the economy. So the only way for Australia to sustain the standard of living that we enjoy is to help our small businesses become big global businesses."

Adrian Turner, CSIRO CEO Larry Marshall, the Prime Minister's cyber-security adviser Alastair MacGibbon and a panel of other tech experts will canvass the changing digital landscape at a public forum, Shift Happens, in Shed 14, Central Pier, 161 Harbour Esplanade, Docklands, on Wednesday, June 28.