Breaking Work: Singularity

Breaking Work: Singularity

PREMISE

The 21st century has seen the most rapid shifts in how we live – what we do, driven by technologies and will continue to steer at a similar pace. From a time when humans were doing most of the work by hand, innovation led to the formation of tools, making our work efficient. The same tools were used to build machines that made work even more effortless for us. Robots are now the next big thing happening where machines could do almost everything; even build themselves. Beyond this, a steady transition has been seen from manual to digital where how we work has changed with these shifts. The humankind’s push to develop more and more in this race to stay ahead, the ways we work has transformed tremendously as well.
A world more connected via digital merging with physical – is now the only norm that is constant.

CHALLENGE

While machines evolve at a tremendous speed, it will be humans who will have to keep up by bringing more value to survive to get tougher with growing automation. Humans today have to work more hours with the changing trends of the world – is a precursor yet significant indicator of this phenomenon today. Eventually, this takes a toll on the human body. If we refer to the ability of the human brain’s ability to change vs. the amount of effort it’s needed to adapt to them, it’s no surprise that middle-aged professionals will be the worst hit by this shift. The most likely case will be our future generation. How can humankind thrive on such downhill when technology is always learning things and automating them? Will this battle against machine go on forever?
In the future when most mundane work can be automated, humans can view this as an opportunity to do more. Technology, instead of fighting against humans for livelihood, can be seen as an enabler to make better use of their time. The design theme for this year’s challenge is to find how technology and humans can work together in singularity in the times to come.

In times when corporations wanting to make their employees work more, how can health and happiness follow in terms of design, with this growing component of work?