When Organizations Open Their Professional Ranks to Outside Intelligence: The Rise of Othersourcing

There has been a lot of talk in recent years about outsourcing – the movement of work to other entities and other places. The most contentious part of that issue was offshoring – the movement of work and jobs to other countries. However, the real issue for the future is othersourcing – the increasing ability to have work done not only off-site and by other entities, but by non-humans.

Many job functions that have traditionally been done by people are now being done more cheaply, quickly and efficiently by computers, software and other forms of artificial intelligence. This trend is only going to increase. Even professions that rely on powerful human elements, including trust, interpersonal manner and persuasion, are now faced with at least some intrusion from artificial intelligence on the horizon.

As work becomes more abstract and impersonal, it has become easier to depersonalize it and see workers as abstract, too. This, together with the extraordinary technological advances of recent years, is leading to a potentially massive shift of higher kinds of work to machines and software.

Automation and outsourcing are now extending to include many more white-collar jobs, and the brainwork is becoming, or has already become, commoditized. There are practically no limits to shifting white-collar jobs abroad if the work is conducive to the Internet and the telephone. The safest situation is having a job that absolutely requires your physical presence, such as a plumber or a brain surgeon (even though we will increasingly see that done more and more by robots.) Other than that, sustainable careers typically are those that involve deep relationships with customers and extensive knowledge of local market conditions. Alan S. Blinder (professor, Princeton University) classifies 8.2 million people’s current jobs as highly offshorable and 20.7 million as more offshorable. This is paving the way for the eventual emergence of higher artificial intelligence, which will engulf our everyday lives.

Currently, and in the years to come, the workforce will be increasingly cleaved into two: those whose services can be delivered electronically over long distances, and those whose services cannot. While the work of computer programmers, accountants, radiologists, and even security guards can be automated, personal chefs, plumbers, electricians and janitors are less vulnerable to displacement by remote intelligence. Therefore, the traditional distinctions between high-end and low-end work do not apply to the shifts in the labor market. The shift taking place now occurs as intelligent machines take their place alongside their human counterparts.