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Tag: covid-19

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

Pandemic Lessons: Moving from Denial to Engagement

In a previous blog, I discussed the role of prophetic models in guiding world leaders to respond to this crisis. Here, I go to a more personal level, addressing the temptation of denial in a time of crisis. This is one of the pandemic lessons I dare not ignore. I confess this is by far my strongest tendency when the going gets tough. My first reaction is not to fight or flight but simply freeze. I retreat inwardly shielding myself from the suffering around me.

This time, with God’s help, I must do differently.

A Global Initiation Rite

Father Richard Rohr offers a provocative perspective for this pandemic. Skirting away any suggestions that this is God’s punishment on humanity, instead he sees it as a global rite of passage. It is a collective experience of suffering aiming to mature us by reminding us of our frailty. This perspective emerges from his in-depth study of male initiation ceremonies, a global phenomenon where elders teach young boys the deep truths of their culture.

As he studied these rituals, he learned they contained recurring core messages. In short, they aimed to convey the following to its initiates:

  1. Life is hard.
  2. You are not that important.
  3. Your life is not about you.
  4. You are not in control.
  5. You are going to die.

Read this list again and pause for a moment.

In a time of greater gender equality, it is fair to ask why girls did not go through these types of ceremonies. I do not know for sure but I would venture to guess the feminine life had more natural ways to initiate them. When you are raised to serve and groomed to endure child-birth, these messages have a way of coming to you naturally. Till this day, it is usually men who need to get smacked around a bit to learn these truths lest they think too highly of themselves and, God forbid, run for president.

Going back to our time of crisis, what would this perspective mean? At the heart of it, I believe Father Rohr is inviting us to embrace this period as an opportunity for personal growth that we experience as a global community. We have all unwillingly entered this rite. Let’s receive it as an opportunity to re-center, reset and re-orient inwardly and toward each other.

When wedded with meaning, suffering can produce beautiful fruits of virtue, love and wisdom.

Memories from a Previous Crisis

When this pandemic started, it reminded me of a previous global crisis I went through. Almost two decades ago, I was a senior in college going about my business when two planes crashed into the WTC Towers in New York. That crisis hit close to home because my brother lived in Manhattan at the time and I immediately feared for his life. Thankfully, he survived unharmed even if traumatized by that horrific experience.

What I remember, however, was not the shock or concern but a persistent attempt to mentally distance myself from that reality. Once I learned my brother had survived and had a chance to see him, I jumped right back into life. I refused to spend hours watching the news from it. I never reflected on what that meant for the world or even how that could affect me. Life had to continue as planned. Nothing to see here.

In fact, I remember being bothered that my routine of classes had been disrupted. Even as my brother was a survivor, I made no attempt to connect with the pain of those in New York and of the nation in general. I didn’t even reflect theologically on it. I filed under the category of “bad people do bad things,” and that was that.

Regrettably, I missed the opportunity to enter into that global rite of initiation, share in the suffering and learn from its wisdom. I went through it and came out the the other side unchanged.

From Denial to Engagement

I decided this crisis was too important to waste. That is when I am looking for ways to step away from avoidance and denial into active engagement. One surprising gift of this time has been a flourishing in my writing. If before the crisis, I had to come up with ideas for blogs, now I can’t finish these ideas fast enough. I am still limited by the realities of shelter in place and therefore have not published significantly more. However, I sense my voice coming through more clearly.

Another practice is to contact loved ones that are far. I have done a lot more of that than I used to. Now there is the realization we couldn’t travel to see each other face-to-face. Then, the Skype or Zoom screen becomes more bearable, more cherished and all the more real. It is life-giving to see each other eyes even if it is through a 2 dimensional screen.

Finally, I have grown to empathize more with others. Gone is the usual habit to shelter myself from bad news. This is a global experience and we are all being impacted by it. There is no escaping. Even social media, in its best days, has become a true place of encounter where we sing, cry, laugh and share our sheltered lives. Whether it is through photos, tweets, videos, memes and music – they multiply and amplify our shared humanity.

This is not to say that I wake up every day cheering on the opportunity to face the unknown. There are dark days of sadness, exhaustion, anger, denial or incipient disconnection. This is a crisis after all, one that we did not choose nor one we can simply turn off when it gets uncomfortable.

Surprising gifts often come intertwined with painful losses. Hope emerges wrapped in fear for the future. Love appears in the ever threat of rejection.

Hence I invite all, in this time of social distancing, to resist the temptation of denial through generous acts of engagement.

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.