Rage against the machine?

Well not yet anyway. Last week we talked about how Augmented Reality or AR can make certain processes much more effective in terms of time on task.

A recent prediction by the Boston Consulting Group predicted that by 2025 machines that can weld will cost companies as little as $2 per hour compared to $25 per hour for a human to do that work.  Couple the cost savings with the new advances we seeing everyday such as self-driving cars and create your own taste machines in restaurants it’s no wonder people are starting to worry about the future of employment.

In many industries you can’t argue against the bottom line cost savings and machines can certainly be more reliable and more effective than people but that is not the case in every industry. I often hear people voice these same concerns when it comes to serious games as well. Teachers and trainers fear serious games are going to make them obsolete – however in my mind, buy creating a game to help people learn, it’s shifting a trainer’s focus away from the basics, allowing a game to do that leg work and producing opportunities for the trainer to focus on where the learners needs really lie.

Just like the google effect is outsourcing our memories giving us greater processing power for the things that matter, machines taking over the basic day to day grunt work which will allow us to focus on the next big thing. It’s all a matter of changing perspective. In the training world It’s not something to be feared, it’s something we should welcome and adapt to.