PHOTOGRAPHY: CRAIG FRASER
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Express yourself/something’s cooking/travel trends
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HEY, SWEETIE! Next-level grilled cheese – recipe on pg 75
We get lessons in style, living and self-expression from master stylist and blogger Kefilwe Mabote (P60), pop into Mi Casa lead singer and celeb chef J’Something’s kitchen for a taste of Portugal (P70) and check out what’s trending in terms of travel and holidaying in 2018 (P76).
NE W - A G E
OCCUPATIONS With technology on the rise, Vanessa Rogers investigates the jobs of the future
EDGARS CLUB MARCH 2018
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fter asking someone’s name and how they know the host, the next question at a cocktail party is often: ‘What do you do?’ This is because knowing what someone does for a living provides a quick way of bonding. Or, failing that, interesting fodder for discussion. But, in all earnestness, a job is only sustainable if you enjoy it, it pays the bills and the service is in demand. GUIDANCE COUNSELLING
Interestingly, if you’re poised to advise your teenager on a line of work to pursue after Grade 12, or are considering making a career change yourself, the experts at salary.com suggest that you take note of the following six ways in which society is changing: People are living longer, due to advanced medical care and nutrition. Technology is going full steam ahead, infiltrating every aspect of life, to the extent where machines are replacing people in certain niches. There’s a switch towards alternative energy sources and ways to preserve natural resources. We can fly from one end of the globe to the other to conduct business. Websites, apps and blogs inform, educate and entertain us, alongside print materials. We attempt to save and invest despite the rising cost of living and, therefore, hugely value expert financial advice.
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ROBOTIC RECEPTIONISTS
may want to rethink a frontline receptionist or office-manager career – unless, of course, you’re going to be programming ‘her’. At property agency giant JLL, the latest employee is JiLL, a 57cm humanoid robot – revealing where automation could lead in the whitecollar office sector. The idea behind ‘employing’ JiLL is to allow her human colleagues to focus on more tactical activities, says JLL’s head of business transformation Phil Clark. JiLL works in conjunction with a tablet-based visitor management system and has inbuilt facial recognition so that she can respond differently to team members than to visitors. She’s designed to handle front-of-house duties, such as checkins for meetings, giving directions, contacting hosts and recording/ reporting technology or buildingmaintenance problems – duties that JLL will apparently add to over time. Clark enthuses that, within
the next decade or two, we will apparently see the customerservice industry infiltrated by ‘employees’ like JiLL. NO SAFE BETS
The World Economic Forum’s 2016 report, ‘The Future of Jobs’, agrees with the sentiments from JLL. It estimates that jobs we once considered ‘safe bets’ – office work and administrative positions, manufacturing jobs and even law – may be hardest hit. So what do you need to work on to be marketable in 2025? Well, looking at the way society has been evolving, it could be preferable to pursue careers such as the following: • caring for the aged (physiotherapy, home caring, podiatry, dietetics) • anything conservation or entrepreneurial related • air-traffic controller, pilot,
‘In an era of information overload, the combination of technology with human judgement will prove to be the most powerful investment tool of the future’
If admin, telecoms and excellent personal service are your forte, you
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high-speed-train operator or travel programmer who can automate these • content writers for websites, apps and blogs, as well as their developers and marketers • financial advisors or programmers of financial systems • robotics and artificial intelligence studies SOUL MACHINES
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Dr Mark Sagar, CEO of Soul Machines in Australia, develops intelligent, emotionally responsive avatars. His view is that, within the next 10 years, artificially intelligent robots will be living and working alongside us. Sagar, himself an inventor and AI engineer, has already created a virtual nervous system that powers autonomous animated avatars like Baby X – a virtual infant that learns through experience and can ‘feel’ emotions. The only drawback according to him is that ‘robotics technology is not [ yet] at the level of control that’s required’. The biological models Sagar has developed are building blocks for experimentation. At the core of the technology are virtual neurotransmitters that can simulate human hormones like dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin. Using computer graphics, Sagar says it’s not difficult to develop virtual humans that can simulate natural movements, like a smirk or a wink. ‘[But] robotics materials will have to get to the point where we can start creating realistic simulations. The cost of doing that is [unfortunately] really high.’
EDGARS CLUB MARCH 2018
Additionally, Sagar and his team are looking at other possible applications of the technology – from medical education and psychological research to characters for children’s edutainment. ‘We’ll see increasing use of [AI] to enhance people’s abilities,’ he says. ‘Human cooperation is basically what has created all technology and art. When we start adding on to that, the creative possibilities of machines expand radically.’ PATH AHEAD FOR SA
So how will AI fit into the South African careers landscape? Well, according to the latest research by consulting firm Accenture, 78% of executives in this country are eager to boost their organisation’s competitiveness by investing in such technologies. The reality, however, is that only about a third of these companies have any plans to start doing so before 2020. To counteract SA lagging behind,
future initiatives must include prioritising education and training for those who are previously disadvantaged in employment and earnings; developing an ethical code for AI use; and promoting clever collaboration between human and machine intelligence. The team at Old Mutual’s Managed Alpha Equity Fund concurs with this approach, commenting that today’s investors are faced with so much data that there is an increasing need for filtering tools. ‘The world is moving into a hugely tech-driven age but, in an era of information overload, the combination of technology with human judgement will prove to be the most powerful investment tool of the future,’ says Grant Watson, the fund’s co-manager. The fund has developed a quantitative tool called ‘machine-readable news’, which is being used to determine how behavioural biases can be exploited in the investment arena.
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LIGHTER NOTE If you’re only in it for the money, consider these highpaying yet rather unusual jobs:
IMAGES: GALLO IMAGES/ GETTY IMAGES
Cruise-ship entertainer: $60 000 annually (R738 738*) Crime-scene cleaner: $40 640 annually (R500 371*) Wind-turbine technician: $52 260 annually (R643 440*) Nuclear medicine technologist: $74 350 annually (R915 419*) Wildlife-control agent: $62 027 annually (R763 695*) Embalmer: $42 260 annually (R520 317*) Certified ethical hacker: $71 331 annually (R878 248*) Bomb-disposal diver: $100 000 annually (R1 231 230*) Personal shopper: $100 000 annually (R1 231 230*) Professional bridesmaid: $2 000 per wedding (R24 624*) *These figures were correct at the time of print. Note that exchange rates change constantly.
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