What are the implications of taking human beings out of IT? — Article 1 of 3

[dave_armes]

Robots (both software and hardware) and artificial intelligence are already the hot topics of the business world, offering opportunities to have a team of ultra-efficient, all knowing, never sleeping workers who don't get paid, pay tax or make a fool of themselves at office parties.   ServiceNow is among the leaders in helping organizations optimize the flow of work and accelerating to lightspeed.   However, in a world where most models for charging, allocation of work, ownership of ideas and principles of payment are aligned to human beings, how will these things change when we take the human out of human-being?  

In a series of articles over the next few weeks, I would like to start the debate around how we, as architects of the future IT solutions, will deal with the issues that are likely to arise.   As we look at the potential value of the solutions we create, what factors will we need to include and which can we safely exclude.

In many cases, the decision of "what makes the best IT solution?" is most often heavily influenced by cost and two of the most significant drivers are human resources and software licensing.   Any solution which can reduce the requirement of these two resources will most likely have a significant impact on the cost.   But recent events have started to raise questions about how easy it is to take out both.

A recent court case in the UK made headlines with rulings that have significant implications for architects and business value consultants looking to embed automation in manual processes.   The case of SAP vs Diageo (http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/TCC/2017/189.html) explored an instance where automation via an interface enabled significantly more work to be done without users being required to access the system itself.   SAP contested that an additional £54 million were owed to cover the users accessing SAP through the integrated system.   While the court has not agreed with the estimated figure (due to the type of license that would be charged for), they have agreed that SAP is entitled to additional licenses and maintenance fees due to users initiating work through other systems.   The case itself involves fairly complex legal interpretation of the license agreement wording (a great exploration of which can be found in this article http://diginomica.com/2017/02/20/sap-v-diageo-important-ruling-customers-indirect-access-issues/), and that interpretation is far-reaching. It potentially adds to the role of automation architects the need to understand detailed implications of licensing agreements. How else could we commit to the value case of automation?  

Another interesting aspect of this case is that while previously, the customer who raised the orders were originally doing it through call-center staff, it is the removal of these staff that has triggered the action.   The human beings who required licenses to access the applications (the call-center staff) were the unit by which the software vendor measured and was recognized for the value they bring.   This, for me, raises the question that maybe this is more about recognizing value.   The value created by the software provider's development efforts and intellectual property has to be repaid, that is clear.   But the replacement of human beings with robots calls into question the mechanism by which that value is paid for.   How do we quantify the work that can be done by a robot?   How much more will the same robot be able to do a year from now than it can today?   Or do we simply change the human that we measure and come up with new licensing models? The answers are not yet clear and if we are to build effective cost and benefit models for our solutions, we at least need to ask the questions.

There are may other issues which arise from replacing humans workers with robots and artificial intelligence which require discussion, definition, and policy making way beyond the scope of an IT architect. How do we deal with intellectual property ownership, taxation, and workforce management?     However, history indicates that this is not the first step in this journey and that the results are most likely to be more positive than we might first think.   This article from Forbes writer Wolfgang Lehmacher http://fortune.com/2016/11/08/china-automation-jobs/   indicates that the total number of factory jobs in the US has reduced by 5 million since 2000 and that as much as 88% of these jobs were taken by initiatives such as robotic automation.   However, in a similar period, production increased by 32% (1998 to 2012) overall and a staggering 829% in computer and electronic products.   This level of an increase could help decelerate the global search for cheap labour.

However, there is a catch.   The roles that will be left once the robots arrive in force, will not be simple repetitive manual tasks, they will be roles that require the ingenuity and adaptability of a human being.   If a nation is going to prosper in that world, they will need a well-educated workforce, which will be funded by tax dollars, and if many of the people who pay taxes have been replaced by robots...   see more in the next article.

I would appreciate your thoughts, views, other experiences to help explore these complexities...