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Author: Lidia Braconnot

Preparing for a Post-COVID-19 AI-driven Workplace

Are we ready for the change this pandemic will bring? Are we ready to encounter the accelerating threats to the workplace that were envisioned only years ahead? What can this pandemic teach us about being useful in the future where AI will continue to re-arrange the workplace?

Sign of Things to Come

As the coronavirus was spreading rapidly through Japan in March, workers in Sugito found a spiking sudden demand for hygiene products such as masks, hand sanitizers, gloves, and medical protection supplies.  To reduce the danger of contamination, the company that operates the center, Paltac, is engaging in a revolutionary idea. They are not just considering, but are already initiating hiring robots to replace human manufacturing, at least until social distancing is no longer needed.

“Robots are just one tool for adapting to the new normal.” Says Will Knight, senior writer for WIRED, in his article where he evaluates the Japanese pandemic situation, and how manufacturing Japanese companies are dealing with social distancing.

Some think that this is an unmatched opportunity to adapt and deliver in the AI community. Especially medical Robo tech – if they had been sought out more thoroughly beforehand, maybe the present outcome wouldn’t have been so catastrophic. Science journalist Matt Simon illustrates this in his article, and reassures that: “Evermore sophisticated robots and AI are augmenting human workers”

The greater question is will AI replace or augment workers? Our future may depend on the answer to this question.

A Bigger Threat than a Virus?

In 2016 Harvard scientists released a study on “12 risks that threaten human civilization.” In it, they, not only outline the risks but also show ways that we can prepare for them. Prophetically, the study cites a global pandemic at the top of the list. It correctly classified it as “more likely than assumed” and they could not have been more correct. We now wish global leaders had heeded their warnings.

What other risks does the study warn us about? The scientists consider Artificial Intelligence as one of the major, but unfortunately the least of all comprehended global risks. In spite of its limitless potential, there is a grave risk of such intelligence developing into something uncontrollable.

It is not just a probability, but a questionable enigma of when. It could bring significant economic disruption, predicting that AI could copy and surpass human proficiency in speed and performance. While current technology is nowhere near this scenario, the mere possibility of this predicament should cause us to pause for reflection.

Yet, even as this pandemic has shown, the greatest threats are also the biggest opportunities for doing good in the world.

Learning to Face the Unknown

Our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Change is inevitable. Whether coming by exquisite and unique technology or a deadly virus, it will eventually disrupt our ideal routines. The difference is in how we position ourselves to face these adversities alongside those who we love and are responsible for. If humans can correctly predict tragedies, how much more can we do to avoid them!

The key to the future is the ability to adapt in the face of change. People that only react to what is “predictable” will be replaced by robots or algorithms. For example, as a teacher, I studied many things but never thought that I would have to become a Youtuber.  No one ever taught me about the systems to help me access via the internet. I was not trained for this! Yet, because of this pandemic, I now have to teach through creating videos and uploading them online. I am learning to become a worker of the future.

May we use this quarantined year as an incubating opportunity to prepare ourselves for a world that will not be the same.  May we train ourselves to endure challenges, and also to see the opportunities that lie in plain sight. This is my hope and prayer for all of you.

STAY HOME, STAY SAFE, STAY SANE

Quarantine Cooking: When Wisdom Puts on an Apron

Patience is calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in your mind.

David G. Allen

An Unexpected Dialogue

In an ordinary afternoon, I felt a conversation taking place. Was it with God or only my imagination? I just felt as if wisdom had come down from somewhere and was staring at me ,ever so humorously critical, but with a glistening promise. And, I might add, with a pinch of wonder.

“Today you’re going to relearn cooking”

“Oh, is that so? Hmm, isn’t my cooking good enough?”

“It is good, but you have forgotten a simple and very important principle of cooking.”

“Hmm, and what is that?”

“To have delight while in the process. To cook is to appreciate. To cook is to wait for the proper timing, and to cut the right ingredients. Preferably methods that might take longer, but will taste as love and kindness had been added with a pinch of salt.”

“And how could this be possible? How can abstract feelings turn into ingredients?”

“Hands are carriers. They carry objects, but also carry stories. A newborn held tight, sweet strokes of assurance given by fathers and mothers, a handheld grip of a lover. These stories carry feelings, and when you cook, with patience, embracing each step, you become a storyteller.”

The Tyranny of the Practical

Living and cooking had become straining to me. Everything needed to be practical and fast. I always felt I had a clock ticking and that at any moment the alarm would yell how long I was taking and that people were hungry.

Quarantined, I started to have time.

I started to notice how my cooking wasn’t pleasurable. I noticed as well how I was dependent on methods that probably didn’t make the food tastier. If I knew ways to make food tastier and had time to create, why not do it? It would take patience, time management plus organization, and probably a total change of perspective.  In the end, would it be worth it?

Do I even know how to make my own seasoning from scratch?

I sliced the garlic in tiny pieces. With a knife. I could have used three thousand devices that could have made the process take seconds, but I felt that I had to experience those long 5 minutes (maybe 2, in my mind actually it felt like 10). I put on some music, sometimes humming and swaying while tasting a hot spoon of magical sauce, just like I remembered my mom love to do. I started listening, and not just trying to get things done. I let creativity flow through my mind, through my hands. I started to use things that I wouldn’t, but because I listened, those ingredients would whisper what they needed more.

Learning to Slow Down

Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.

R. Buckminster Fuller

Technology is not our enemy. Making things practical aren’t the villains, but forgetting the importance of waiting and the eminence of patience can be. How, if things happen in a different order than what we had planned, they can still be joyful and wonderful!

What could be the wrong reasons, and what could be the right ones?

Could simply cooking remind me of things that I had forgotten that were important?

And yet, I am no master to all these elements. Like I once said to my mother while we were discussing important things in life: “I am still learning”.

I’m learning to pick wisely, to spend time in what matters, to cut with patience and to listen to the right melody. To sway in the right tempo, and to embrace the right feelings.

STAY HOME, STAY SAFE, STAY PATIENT!

Lidia Krüger Braconnot is an adventurer and a storytelling enthusiast. Having lived in many different places, she now lives in Brazil, where she is an English teacher for all ages. She is 21 years old with a dream of expressing in beautiful detail what life is about, hoping to reach out to people in a comical and lighthearted way.

A Pandemic Turn of Events

It all started very quietly and hidden. It felt as if it was a world away.

Who could have known that a tiny, unwelcomed intruder could change everything so abruptly?

Who could have known that everything that I had faith in, all I was working for, everything that I envisioned for the future, could change in a matter of days?

I remember coming home from a job meeting. There details were exposed about the challenges the company would be facing inevitably, as the crisis was spreading throughout the country. All the fatalities, numbers and percentages were running through my mind as if a pandora box had just been opened. I honestly hadn’t considered what was going on till then. I sat down on my bed, trying to get a hold of sanity as if she had run for a coffee break.

“What could happen? What could change? Will I get infected, will I infect others?”

 “God, will I die?”

I remember feeling claustrophobic and not knowing for sure if I had ever felt that way. I felt my heart racing, the pressure made my chest ache. I felt the walls closing in. My comfortable bedroom turned into a “quarantine confinement”. I hadn’t felt this anxiety for years. I had long forgotten what it felt like and how my body reacted under so much pressure. The longer I questioned myself of my own safety and if I had washed my hands before entering the room, the more made me expectant of inevitable doom. I led myself to outrageous conclusions.

I had let fear take control.

 Until I heard the faintest voice whisper inside of me:

“Why do you fear? Have I ever once left your side? If I haven’t, why would I now?”

Hot tears started to melt from my eyelashes while I felt the warmest feeling.

For years anxiety had been a constant pain, sometimes would come without warning, making me question through raggedy breaths everything I believed in. Always making me wonder: “Am I loved? Am I safe? Will things be better? “

Through the years I had learned that trusting God with my future would cost me everything, but in return he would embrace me with peace, love and courage. Anxiety would pass by, but I felt rooted. Truths that could not be shaken held on to me. I learned that even though I would feel weak at times, all I had to do was take one step at a time. Close my eyes.  Count to ten. Remember all the precious things in life I cherished, and let him take control.

Everything was under control, I had it all planned out. My week was perfectly squeaky organized.  Procrastination had taken a terrible blow that month until a huge pandemic turn of events forced me to change things a bit. It made me look into myself more intently. It made me appreciate my family, my wonderful grandparents that inspire me to constantly reinvent myself into greatness. It made me even more sure of the decisions I had made until now, and made me wonder if I could make wiser decisions for tomorrow.

STAY HOME, STAY SAFE!!

___________________________________________________________

Lidia Krüger Braconnot is an adventurer and a storytelling enthusiast. Having lived in many different places, she now lives in Brazil, where she is an English teacher for all ages. She is 21 years old with a dream of expressing in beautiful detail what life is about, hoping to reach out to people in a comical and lighthearted way.