Leaders and machines

Robots might be on the factory floor now,

but could they one day be your boss?

Robots are not perfect and they are not perfect for everything,

but they do have a capability to do some things

that humans can only dream of doing.

We are going to look at leadership in a future working alongside robots,

and what this could mean for you.

A global tech giant, Alibaba rivals Amazon

for the title of world's largest online retailer.

It has some 800 million users.

It doesn't just help you shop;

it can also bank your money and store your data.

Alibaba has got so big,

the Chinese government wants new rules to curb its power.

The company has long embraced artificial intelligence, or AI.

It uses algorithms to provide a personalised service for its customers

and robots to process and pack goods in its warehouses.

Jack Ma, who founded the firm,

believes robots could one day run companies.

He says, 'In 30 years,

a robot will likely be on the cover of Time magazine

as the best CEO.'

However, another pioneer of the tech world,

the American Elon Musk, is more worried.

He fears robots could one day get rid of us entirely.

So, how will leadership look in a world of AI?

So, a big advantage for human beings,

  in having more robots and AI in the workplace,

are clearly that... that these technologies

can perhaps in the future do a lot of the dirty work for us,

and by dirty work, I think I mean things like

heavy lifting, cleaning, moving goods from A to B,

but it can also mean repetitive, computer-based tasks

and it's not very healthy for human beings

to be in front of a computer for extended periods of time.

And that can free up human beings to do a lot more thinking:

to think about – big thoughts about the future,

about what a carbon-neutral planet looks like,

about the kinds of communities we want to develop.

So, robots and AI could free us

from the dull, repetitive work we don't want to do.

But aren't there dangers with that?

So, the big danger essentially is that,

if our workplace has become more automated

and busier with robotics,

that we'll have to have something to do,

and governments will have to find solutions

to ever greater numbers of people, who might not be out of work,

but sort-of hopping from one insecure temporary job to another.

And that presents really big, actually, social challenges.

Giving more jobs to robots and AI

is going to present huge social challenges to humans.

Where does leadership fit into this?

A key part of leadership, as opposed to management,

is how central care is to leadership:

care, understanding and empathy.

And so, in its most obvious guises, we can think of caring for others,

the people who are more vulnerable than ourselves –

and this is just really something that robots, no matter how sophisticated,

can't be replaced by human beings.

But the central task of leadership, which is walking with people,

responding to their needs, caring for them –

on the big issues as well as the small issues –

is something that robots will probably never be able to compensate for.

So, qualities such as empathy, care

and understanding in leadership will be very important –

human skills that robots will probably never acquire.

There are loads of ethical responsibilities

for people who are creating AI,

but also people who are in charge of implementing it

and seeing how it progresses through organisations and society.

The main ethical issue, I think, here is that AI,

in some senses, is a kind of automation of a human will,

which can unfortunately include lots of human prejudices.

So, for example, there have been problems with policing algorithms,

in the sense that they have reflected, maybe, some underlying racial biases

of certain police forces, in terms of where they deploy resources.

So, we have to keep a really close eye

and it's a really big, ethical leadership responsibility

to keep a close eye on how artificial intelligence is deployed –

that it doesn't get out of hand and doesn't actually automate

really serious ethical problems.

We need our leaders to be ethical and responsible when implementing AI,

so that we don't automate and repeat our own human prejudices.

Could you one day have a boss like this?

Meet Ai-Da, the first human-like robot artist.

Ai-Da can draw and recite poetry.

The eerie sounds, which echoed throughout

with the weight of the world itself.

But what her creators really want her to do

  is to get people thinking about a world with AI,

and that includes thinking about the impact it will have on leadership.

Robots are great, but not human.

They are not perfect and they are not perfect for everything,

but they do have a capability to do some things

that humans can only dream of doing.

More challenging is how to direct this capability

for a sustainable environment and our future.

This is difficult.

Robots will bring opportunities and challenges.

Would robots make better leaders than humans?

They work together.

At the end of the day, the state of the game

is up to how we design and use technology/robots.

So, humans need to be more conscious

of how much we are doing and what we are doing,

when we create and use new technology.

So we, as humans, and robots need to work together.

We should understand the power of new technologies.

In order to truly appreciate

the opportunities that are emerging,

we need to first understand the past.

With this, we can be more aware and flexible

to deal with an unpredictable future.

The world is changing.

The future is not what we consider it to be.

It is requiring from us

a willingness to give up our comfort zone.

Giving up your comfort zone means opening yourself up

to new possibilities.

To do this, it helps to understand the past.

So, what does Ai-Da think is a key quality for leadership?

Humility: we are to be humble in every action

and this includes what we are willing to do

and say to help others.

Leadership is not the same thing as success or failure.

We have all failed,

but we can recognise the mistakes that we made

and learn from them.

Humility is when you put yourself in someone else's shoes.

Showing humility, recognising mistakes and learning from them,

are qualities this robot wants to see in leaders.

It's hard to know exactly how leadership will look in the future,

but it is clear that human qualities of care and empathy will be vital.

Having a detailed knowledge of the technology

and its potential is important,

as is being ethical and responsible in how we use it.