Human-Machine Partnership: The new normal

Authored by Rajesh Janey, President & Managing Director, India Enterprise, Dell EMC

The right kind of partnerships can change the world dramatically. It can destroy long-held beliefs, create new energy and vigour, and alter ideas. It can make a difference to the way we think, live, work, play, and perhaps even love.

From the Internet of things, we are moving on to the Internet being everything. The inevitable is coming – the world as we know it today will be transformed inexorably by digital technology.

One thing is for certain -- emerging technologies are reshaping society and creating deeper, immersive partnerships between technology and society. Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), Robotics and Cloud Computing are ushering in the ‘next era of Human-Machine Partnerships’ as we would like to call it.  

The future is here

At Dell EMC, we believe this future will be with us as early as 2030. A ‘true’ alliance with technology that will create a new realm of passion, creativity, and entrepreneurship. This can only lead to greater efficiency, better opportunities than ever before, and the immense possibility of humans transcending their limitations. At Dell, we realised this soon enough and partnered with the Institute for the Future (IFTF) to explore this relationship and thus ‘future-proof’ our workforce and infrastructure.

What will this future look like?

What emerged from our report were two big ideas.

1.    Machines for information, humans for action: It is no secret that technology is an extension of ourselves. Today's apps will be tomorrow's digital assistants that will predict what we want, automate our requirements, and take care of all our tasks. Our machines will crunch through all the information available and serve us the best tidbits that we need to act on. As in a real partnership, while the machines will focus on giving us the most relevant information, humans will have more time and energy to focus on action.

2.    Acquiring new knowledge is the key: By 2030, the ability to acquire new knowledge will be more valued than the knowledge you already possess. As we believe that nearly 85 per cent of jobs that we will be doing in 2030 have not been invented yet. What exactly does it mean to learn at the moment? It is the capacity to grasp what you need to do at the moment again with the help of new technologies like AR.

Are you prepared yet?

Technology might never replace workers but how we find and do work will change. According to our Digital Transformation Index, nearly 52 percent of senior decision makers in 16 countries have experienced disruption; 50 percent believe their company will be obsolete in the next five years.

At Dell EMC, our efforts have been directed towards how to be future-ready rather than waiting for change to come knocking. Because come knocking it already has. By 2030, this change, propelled by humans locking fingers with machines, will be the new normal.

In conclusion

The wind of change are already blowing. It is the time that we should utilize our greatest assets -- our emotions, our creativity, and our intellect -- to realise the full potential of what we think will be an inevitable human-machine partnership. For only if we shape the path now can we drive down – together – to 2030 and beyond.

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