“Big Data Tsunami”- are our jobs at stake?

Human Resource   |   
Published December 11, 2015   |   

I understand the title is super dramatic but there is a hidden fact in this article. So Keep reading…
Being a big data enthusiast, I always adhere to its roots of bringing goodness to the technology but you should also think where this is taking us. Every day we generate enormous amount of data.
Just think this way. Combining the data revolution with recent developments in analytics, nanotech and cloud will give us the best solution that could eliminate many of our jobs. I am not mentioning just the manual labor jobs, including the ‘white-collars’, police officers, doctors, caretakers and pilots. So is your job at its causality?
So how is this possible? Let me explain: I firmly believe that robots and devices equipped with real time sensors and data transmitters combined with data analytics engines will definitely challenge most of our jobs. My explanation is interesting isn’t it? Who doesn’t want a reliable future but on a self-centered motive is this making to think your position in future?
Let’s take few examples:
Sports Coaches:  Many sports teams use cameras and sensors to track and analyze the performance of every player on the field, at any given point in time. The Olympic advisory board of few countries advises to make use of the technology and analyse the performance of every player in every sport and in every training session. And nowadays, every player is even keeping track in wearable devices. These devices collect sleep quality, calorie consumption, exercise levels etc. But what about their emotional state and its impact on their performance. Probably we can use a coach for this?.
Taxi-drivers: When I first saw Google’s self-driving car, I was agaped! Seriously, how can a car just go without a driver in all the busy streets of Mountain View. So how is this happening? It analyses a tremendous amount of data from the implanted sensors and cameras in real-time to stay safe on the roads. Should I even pose a question?.
Pilots: Most air disasters are down due to human error. Is it arguable? No right! But now we needn’t to worry as much as few commercial airlines are now unaided. Take ‘drones’ which are now ruling the military. Fighter jet pilots will be Air Force history in near future and will be substituted by a professional gamers who has much better joystick control. Wink!
Doctors: Surgeons are already in touch with many robotic tools to perform complicated surgeries, and doctors use large-scale databases of medical information to inform their decisions and prescriptions. Let’s go forward and visualize the future. What if robots could get a full body scanner and a 3D printer helps in finding replacement bone in case of fractures etc. Which is completely unaided. Supercomputers will be the solid foundation of entire medical diagnostics and human DNA. So what will be the role of doctors?
Customer Support Agents: I lose my patience ringing call centers. First you have the automated messages, then you have to find the right options and the queuing before you can speak to a person (if you are lucky, that is). If big data systems could eliminate all this, I would actually prefer to speak to them. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather talk to people than machines, but I can use my friends for that.
Whatever I mentioned are just some examples that might happen in future, while others are already implemented. I believe that analytics along with artificial intelligence will reduce our jobs and I am not pretty sure how will we cope up. But one thing for sure, pick up a career choice in any of the mentioned and is a safe bet. But what about the job scope? Will there be enough number? What do you think?