Employment Is Dead: How Disruptive Technologies Are Revolutionizing the Way We Work

Piscione (The People Equation) and Drean, cofounders of the corporate consulting firm Work3 Institute, provide a slipshod account of how AI, blockchain, and other technologies will change how people work. In the future, they suggest, such technologies as the metaverse will enhance workers’ ability to collaborate remotely, ushering in the rise of flexible working arrangements in which individuals will enjoy more autonomy over what they do and how they do it. Other predictions are more far-fetched. For instance, the authors reason that encoding contracts in permanent blockchain records could provide enough accountability that customers could directly connect with contractors instead of relying on such platforms as Uber or DoorDash for quality assurance, but it’s not clear why the inalterability of blockchain records would make contractors any less likely to swindle customers than when bound by a traditional contract. More concerningly, Piscione and Drean are sometimes careless with their sourcing; for example, they state that “organizations embracing autonomy witness a whopping 21 percent jump in profitability and a 17 percent surge in productivity,” but the Gallup article they cite focuses on employee engagement, not autonomy. Sloppy and unconvincing, this misses the mark. (Jan.)