The road to automation, the joy of work, and the ‘Jen problem’
How do we get to the point where technology is the infrastructure firms run on, and what happens when we do?
If someone told you productivity in the UK is at the lowest level since the 18th century, how would you react? Skepticism would be warranted, because that’s actually not true. Still, it provided the backdrop for an in-depth discussion on productivity and the future of work in relation to technology with one of the people in the know.
Guy Kirkwood is UiPath’s chief evangelist. UiPath is among the leaders in Robotic Process Automation (RPA), with robots in this case being software robots configured to carry out repetitive tasks that humans previously handled. Think data entry, form submission, and the like.
Kirkwood, with a 20-year career in Business Process Outsourcing before joining UiPath, is known for making bold statements: “Outsourcing is dead” and “AI is bollocks” are some of those, and the “Fourth Industrial Revolution is coming” is the one that triggered this conversation.