Review: Alexa is Stealing Your Job

One beauty of the semester break is the ability to catch up on new books. Rhonda Scharf’s, Alexa is Stealing Your Job: The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Your Future came out in November and I urge you to read it now. Sharf takes on the topic of artificial intelligence and work -- a topic of great importance to all of us, and especially to me. Alexa is Stealing Your Job is about much more than Amazon’s virtual assistant, Alexa (aka Echo, Amazon, or Computer). The book brings together predictions of how artificial intelligence will create or eliminate some jobs and how we might take advantage of the situation.

Approachable

What I liked about Scharf’s approach is that she makes the various predictions (both the positive and doomsday ones) more approachable than some other treatments. The book opens with a very personal story, even more personal for me as I, too, did a lot of office computer training around the time I think she’s describing. A bit after that, I did a book proposal on “computer phobia,” so I think she and I are starting on the same page. The ’80s were scary times for many people and I think the issues for work are little different today -- to quote from the Introduction, “Change is coming and you have a choice to make.” I hear an echo from Game of Thrones... “Winter is coming,” though I only see a zombie apocalypse if we act like zombies and don’t take heed of the need to adjust our work across our talent, technology, and techniques (see more on Thinking in 5T™ here). 

Connections to Data

Alexa is Stealing Your Job does a good job of highlighting the issues using some of the same data I use in my research. Scharf highlights current and likely future outcomes for training, customer service, human resources, and more. My favorite sections are where she helps to place the reader in the picture with “Ask Intelligent Questions” (AIQ) callouts. In Chapter 1, these focus on asking you to note how your job has changed over the last “20 to 30 years” (I think I agree with Scharf that this book is likely to be most read by people later in their careers). Asking me to focus on whether my job is more international (yes), needs fewer people (yes), easier or harder (that I’m not sure of) was a good stop-look-listen moment for me -- even though I think and write about these issues almost every day. The next AIQ takes a focus on the past 18 months, and yes, I could relate to changes even just in that short timeframe.

Motivational

The book is motivational to be sure. I’d been thinking about creating a few new Siri Shortcuts for a while. I got around to doing it in the middle of reading Chapter 10: AI and Efficiency. Again, I’ll give credit to the AIQ, “What is a small and repetitive task that you are currently doing, that would be better suited for a computer to do?” For me, it was hand-entering into a spreadsheet my leaving and returning to Canada dates as I get ready to apply for permanent residency. Now I’ve connected Siri with Zapier and Google Sheets to make that happen at my command.

In Context

I’ve reviewed a variety of future of work books. To put Alexa is Stealing Your Job in context: It’s a great introduction to issues critical to our futures our work (futures plural). If you are just coming to grips with how artificial intelligence affects all of us, Scharf’s work makes for a solid foundation. As you dig in, or if you are having to design work for others, then take a look at Reinventing Jobs by Jesuthasan & Boudreau and What To Do When Machines Do Everything by Frank, Roehrig, and Pring.

Thank you to David Lewis for sending me my review copy.