One example here would be the dominance of a very small number of book distribution platforms effectively eliminating all competition. This is then linked to his second argument, that the ability to replicate and scale machine intelligence will “create winner-take-all scenarios’ with ‘dramatic implications for both the economy and society” (page 82). Indeed, many professions will find that increasingly capable machines will take on many of the tasks previously seen as exclusive to certain professions such as the law. Higher education and knowledge skills which traditionally attracted a premium will no longer protect the worker, so much so, he argues that “the ongoing race between technology and education may well be approaching the endgame” (page 124). Ford argues that the problem now is that “the machines are coming for the high-wage, high-skill jobs as well” (page 27). This is a familiar story and the usual response is to educate, train and reskill. The advance of digitisation has alerted society to the possibilities of automating routine processes – hence the advent of robotic methods in production replacing the traditional methods of assembly-line production in, for example, the car industry. First, a change in the types of job which will be affected. His two main arguments proceed as follows. In The Rise of the Robots, Martin Ford essentially argues we are ill-equipped and poorly prepared to face the onslaught heading our way. The change we are now experience is one of exponential speed in processing, the impact of connectivity and access to knowledge that is transformational. Do these developments enhance human well-being and welfare to the benefit of all or is the threat posed to employment so dramatic that the traditional responses of education, reskilling and training will be insufficient to protect us? Some commentators refer to the present period of technological change as ‘the fourth industrial revolution.’ The first represented the move to mechanisation, the second, the introduction of electrical power, the third, digitisation and automation. The paradox of technological advance and of artificial intelligence is well recognized. We stand on the edge of a technological revolution which is proceeding at an exponential pace and which will impact and alter our work and indeed our way of life in ways we can hardly imagine.
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