When will employers require cognitive augmentation of their workers - Essay Example

Cognitive Augmentation of Workers Table of Contents Technology 4 Society 4 Economics 4 Environment 5 References 6 Technology Artificial intelligence will be a driver of cognitive augmentation in the workplace moving forward, with a high level of certainty and a high level of impact on the workforce and on all kinds of industries, certainly by the year 2040. The high level of certainty and the high level of impact on society and the workplace are echoed in the thoughts and warnings from such leading intellectuals and technologists/scientists as Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking, who foresees a world where super intelligent robots will do most of our work, and will supersede human capabilities because of their potentially higher rate of evolution compared to humans (Reed, 2015).

SocietyA driver of cognitive augmentation on the social side is the growing acceptance of technological augmentation of human capabilities, already present in 2015, and certainly will continue to accelerate and become commonplace by 2040. This will be to the extent of people becoming used to cognitive augmentation as a way of life. Current forays into device augmentation of reality, such as Google Glass, are testaments to this. The certainty and the level of impact are high, given the current high rate of social adoption of such new cognitive augmentation devices, with the smart phones arguably an early form of a cognitive augmentation device already prevalent worldwide (Pang, 2014).

EconomicsThe on-going shift in the major economies, such as the American economy, towards more substantial industries that require high levels of scientific expertise, such as biotech, will certainly propel industries to require cognitive augmentation for workers. The certainty and level of impact is high, judging from the permanent nature of the shift and the need for more highly intelligent workers by 2040 (Egan, 2015). EnvironmentClimate change will be a driver of change towards cognitive computing in the workplace by 2040.

The problems relating to climate change are persistent and long-range, requiring the development of new answers, new ways of living, and new ways of adapting. This means that workers will be required to make use of augmented cognition technologies to aid in this large task. The level of certainty and the level of impact are both high, judging from the high impact nature of the problem of climate change, and the urgency of the tasks relating to solving the problem (Gilpin, 2014). ReferencesEgan, M. (2015). Here are the drivers of future economic growth. CNN. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/01/investing/stocks-market-economy-earnings/Gilpin, L. (2014). 10 ways technology is fighting climate change.

Tech Republic. Retrieved from http://www.techrepublic.com/article/10-ways-technology-is-fighting-climate-change/Pang, A. S. (2014). Augmented/Embodied Cognition. Contemplative Computing. Retrieved from http://www.contemplativecomputing.org/augmented-embodied-cognition/Reed, B. (2015). Bill Gates is the latest brilliant person to warn artificial intelligence could kill us all. Yahoo! News. Retrieved from https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/bill-gates-latest-brilliant-person-warn-artificial-intelligence-154513637.html