AI? I don't believe for a minute it's going to mean fewer jobs

The important thing is to invest in both people and technology, say panelists at Computing's Cloud Live event

There is much heated debate about whether technologies such as AI and robotics will create or replace jobs. Similar discussions have been had about cloud computing and its effect on IT careers, so it was interesting to see this question posed by the audience to there panellists during Computing's Cloud Live event on Wednesday.

So what impact will advanced use of cloud and the advent of RPA and AI have on the number of people likely to be needed and the skills they have?

Nick Ioannou, head of IT at architects Ratcliffe Groves Partnership, said that many managers make the mistake of seeing technology simply as a way to reduce the wage bill.

"You can do a lot more with less with cloud and automation, but you still need the people," he said, describing the simplification aspects of cloud as "oversold".

"Even if you're on Office 365 and you don't have Exchange servers to look after you still have the admin side and you still need the people. It's not just about the technology; it's about people, process and technology."

Too much of a focus on technology to the detriment of the other two is likely to lead to costly mistakes being made, Ioannou went on.

"If the experienced people in all areas of the business does not feed into the decisions about technology then the cloud journey will get rather expensive because you haven't selected the things you thought you had, and when you hit a problem there is no one there to advise you."

As a senior service delivery manager at Leeds Building Society, Carrie Wray is responsible for 40 staff, mostly on the operations side. She has no fears for their future.

I don't believe for a minute it's going to mean fewer jobs - Carrie Wray

"I find AI in particular really exciting," she said. "I don't believe for a minute it's going to mean fewer jobs. According to Deloitte, 65 per cent of schoolchildren today will do jobs that don't even exist right now. You still need emotional intelligence, and you still need the ability to make decisions and take them forward."

Wray sees new technologies as providing "an element of resiliency" with respect to staffing.

"Sometimes the governance around backfilling people is harder than just hiring new people. If just a couple of people are off there can be a big impact whereas if I can bring a couple of AIs in to cover for them that would be brilliant, but it's cost-heavy to start with. But I definitely don't think AI is going to replace jobs."

Investment in people should not take a back seat, said Wray. For one thing, organisations frequently have to rollback to backup systems when the shiny new ones go wrong. The first job of an operations person these days is to get onto Twitter to see how customers are affected, she said. Therefore any downtime must be minimised and job cuts are often a false economy.

"Our mortgage database is in the cloud, and that's great until it goes wrong. Then we have to call on skilled people in-house again. So we need to invest in the technology and we also need to invest in our people. We have people who have been working in IT for 30 years, and some find it very difficult to change so we need to find out the other things they can do brilliantly and move them towards those."

But is this wisdom filtering up to the top, or will the CEO simply be looking at cutting the numbers?

"Initially yes, possibly, but once the hype has gone past I don't think that will happen so much," said Wray.

We greatly overestimate the impact AI will have in the short term, and we greatly underestimate the impact it will have in the longer term - Kris Saxton

The hype cycle also featured in the thinking of Kris Saxton, partner and co-founder of technology consultancy Automation Logic.

"Like most big technologies we greatly overestimate the impact AI will have in the short term, and we greatly underestimate the impact it will have in the longer term," Saxton said.

At the moment customer facing AI, as represented by chatbots is "pretty pitiful" he said, so few frontline staff are likely to be threatened for now.

"I think it's going to take many years for us to restructure how we work and how we organise ourselves - a bit like where an assembly line in the factory had to be completely changed to take advantage of robotics. It's the same with AI. We'll have to restructure how we work, and only once we've done that will the impact be felt, and then it will probably be largely invisible".

You many also be interested in Saxton's presentation at Cloud Live: the seven sins of multi-cloud

Saxton also commented on the impact of digital transformation and cloud on jobs, noting that for his company's customers the emphasis is on speed of delivery rather than cost-cutting.

"Public cloud can reduce costs if you implement things like Infrastructure-as-Code as you can support more services with fewer people but our clients often can't hire the people they need, so that's not the priority.

"Digital transformation and restructuring of teams around product and service actually more expensive than dividing people by function because of duplication and redundancy," he noted, demonstrating unpredictable nature of the impact of technology on people's livelihoods and careers.