Emerging Technologies and the Future

of Human Capital
Bhaskar Krishnamachari
Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
USC Viterbi School of Engineering

bkrishna@usc.edu

January 2020
 The Future of Human Capital
Some accelerating trends:
● Higher, more global competition for top talent
● Agile and heterogenous team composition
● Remote and distributed teams
● Rapid digital transformation, need for data fluency
● Need for greater productivity and safety
● Lifelong learning

What role will emerging technologies play in addressing

some of these challenges?
What technologies are emerging?

Most presentations of what

emerging technologies are
important look like this! Too
complex and overwhelming to
understand, even for experts.

Not a good starting point to think

about emerging technologies..

Source: Gartner (Technology Hype Cycle)

EIGHT

Blockchain

A report by the World Economic Forum looking at Digital

Transformation identified these seven key technologies, to
which I would add one more - Blockchain. But 8
technologies are still too much to keep track of!
 Digital
Transformation:
Accelerating
Changes
In fact, if we look at the most
recently accelerating major
technologies, we can boil them
down further to just three main
technologies.

Blockchain

http://reports.weforum.org/digital-transformation/wp-content/blogs.dir/94/mp/files/pages/files/dti-ex
ecutive-summary-20180510.pdf
 A-B-C

Artificial Intelligence

Blockchain Technologies

Connected Devices (Internet of Things)

 Why A-B-C?
We want systems that are:

• Smart and self-improving (AI)

• Decentralized yet trustworthy (Blockchain)

• Networked, connecting new sources of data

(Connected Devices/IoT)
 Another view of the Trifecta

AI: From Data Blockchain: share data, Connected

to Insights and insights and decisions, and Devices: sense,
Decisions enable transparent, communicate,
frictionless, and secure control the
transactions across trust environment
boundaries
 Three associated major trends

1. Productivity through greater automation

• accelerated by AI
2. Disembedding and disintermediation
• communicating and working with people over larger spatio-temporal
extent, and more directly
• accelerated by Blockchain
3. Revealing the previously unobserved
• Like with the microsocope and telescope, our scientific
knowledge and technological abilities improve with access to
new data
• accelerated by Connected IoT

These are three major underlying trends that have been associated with new
technologies going as far back as the renaissance and the industrial revolution, they
are “temporally directional”, only increasing and expanding over time..
Artificial Intelligence
What is AI?
Collection of algorithms, software, hardware that aim to allow
computers to perform actions associated traditionally with human
intelligence, such as:
● Perceiving and understanding the world around us (speech, vision,
object recognition)
● Communicating in natural language
● Reasoning and logical deductions
● Making plans and decisions and navigating the real world in
autonomous fashion
● Coordinating actions with other machines and humans
Machine Learning
Branch of AI focused on algorithms and models that can
be trained to perform certain functions based on
observations and patterns inferred from data and external
feedback, without those functions being explicitly
programmed.

Sub-domains within Machine Learning include:

● Unsupervised learning
● Supervised learning
■ This has been particularly prominent in recent
years
● Reinforcement learning
 ML vs. Traditional Programming

From
https://openso
urceforu.com/2
018/01/insights
-machine-learn
ing/

Unlike traditional programs which require cleverness on the part of a human algorithm
designer, with machine learning we merely show examples of what we want and have the
computer output a program that generalizes from these examples.
Supervised Machine Learning

Training
Data Machine
Learning 1. Model Training
Algorithm
Labels

2. Model deployment

Input Data Model Classification

Recruiting and Talent Identification

● Automated tools for

resume screening

● Identify relevant
talent and skills
from observations
of a candidate’s
text, speech,
video..
https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/15/riminder-uses-deep-learning-to-better-match-people-to-jobs/
https://thehustle.co/the-secret-google-interview-that-landed-me-a-job
 AI in the context of Interviewing

• Chatbots and AI-driven

situation judgement tests

• Video analysis of
interviews:
emotion tracking (e.g.
mroads)

• Online coding tests

(e.g. Turing.com)
https://devmesh.intel.com/projects/emotion-recognition
Expertise capture - cognitive task analysis

Understanding how experts do what

they do will be helpful for
onboarding new employees and to
help preserve institutional memory.

This is the subject of an ongoing

study at USC’s CHARIOT Center:
https://chariot.usc.edu/
Personalized Recommendations

Learn preferences of
individual employees: what
motivates and excites them?
What is the best incentive for
each employee?

“Netflix for your company”

Enhance productivity, Improve safety

● AI tools aim to improve productivity by automating

repetitive tasks such as scheduling meetings,
answering common questions, manual data entry,
audio transcripts and meeting minutes
● Anomaly detection tools that can detect cybersecurity
threats, fraud, safety violations
Data-Driven Human Capital Management

● Give managers useful analytics and insights on

employee performance
● Tracking sentiment and morale
● Enhancing engagement
● Building stronger teams

Data Insight Action

Blockchain
What is Blockchain?
Beyond Bitcoin

A distributed ledger with a guarantee that data

stored on the ledger cannot be modified or
erased. Enables trusted interactions without
requiring a third party because all transactions
can be stored transparently on this
tamper-proof, immutable, public ledger.
What is Blockchain?

Image Source: https://tallyfy.com/smart-contracts-on-the-blockchain/

Smart contracts - autonomous programs that run

on a blockchain and can be used to trigger
transactions or release escrowed funds when
certain conditions are met
Trusted Credentials

Placing academic, training, and other credentials on a

blockchain can make it easier to verify skills.

Greater support for lifelong learning.

From
https://blockeducate.com/
Payment and Incentives
● Automate payment for
software-verifiable tasks using smart
contracts.
● Potential to simplify payroll
● Offer rewards for tasks in a
trustworthy and transparent manner

Moloch DAO Gamified Microtasks

https://molochdao.com/ https://stormx.io
Transparency and Auditability
● An employee can demonstrate in a trustworthy and transparent manner to
co-workers and superiors what they have accomplished, how productive
they have been, what impact their contributions have had on the bottom line

https://www.infolob.com/blockchain-for-hr-modernization/
Blockchain and the Future of Companies

Coase’s Theory of the

Firm (1937): Firms
exist to minimize
transaction costs

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Hypothesis: Blockchain will reduce transaction costs by increasing

trust and enabling data sharing, making it easier for companies to
connect and interact with each other despite large distances
Connected Devices (IoT)
What is the Internet of Things?

● Networks of connected devices or

“things” including sensors and
actuators that provide a rich
interface between the cyber and
physical worlds

● More sensors => greater awareness

of our physical environment and
physiological emotional and
cognitive state

Image source:
https://justcreative.com/2018/11/19/inte
rnet-of-things-explained/
Wearables
● Emotional and physical wellness
● Cognitive load

https://neurolite.ch/en/products/nirs/octamon
https://kiddowear.com/
Personalized Learning https://chariot.usc.edu/
 Internet of Things at the Workplace

● Workplace comfort:
- lighting
- temperature
- sound
● Measuring
productivity

https://news.usc.edu/145497/smart-buildings-that-automatically-adjust-to-
keep-us-comfortable-and-content-it-might-happen-sooner-than-you-think/
Augmented reality at the Workplace

● Improved safety
and productivity
● Faster and more
effective training
and onboarding

https://blogs-images.forbes.com/aarontilley/files/2016/11/TeamVi
ewer_ODG_03-1200x799.jpg
VR Online Conferencing

https://meetinvr.net/
What does the future hold?
How emerging technologies can help
● Identify which individuals are a good fit for a given role /
task
● Understand what individuals want, prefer, need in their
work environments
● Incentivize, motivate, manage employees
● Help improve productivity and safety
● Capture expertise and help with onboarding, training
and continual learning
● Improve payroll, enable secure credentials
Jevons Paradox

Increasing the efficiency of a

resource utilization may
increase the rate of
consumption of that resource.

Think about Email - while it makes

communications more efficient, now
we tend to use the freed up time to
send even more emails! This is an
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
example of unintended consequences
of technology..
How Technologies Can Hurt
● Job loss
● Social disconnection
● Quality loss Technologies may not be completely
● Surveillance positive in their impact. They can give
● Security vulnerabilities rise to both real problems and anxiety
● Data bias over perceived problems. Every user of
● Deep fakes these technologies needs to
● Cognitive overload understand this!
● ...

For all these reasons and more, it is important to have a mindful approach to
identifying, selecting and deploying technologies in a way that is aligned with
your company’s mission, values and culture. Don’t just blindly adopt whatever
new tech vendors are pushing to you!
From Yannis C. Yortsos, Dean, USC Viterbi School of Engineering
New Mindsets Needed for Human Capital
(In the Age of Exponential Change)

New individual and company mindsets need to be

nurtured:
● Digital skills, data fluency
● Embracing change, innovation
● Mindfulness about biases and challenges
● Strategically adopting and driving technology
● Agile approach to development
● Working with more global Human Capital, distributed
teams
● Lifelong Learning, growth, neuroplasticity
● Transparency
Agile Human Capital Management
• Understand the state of the art in terms of technology

• Identify what is strategically important over a longer

horizon (but prepare to change along the way)

• Adopt agile human capital management work-flows

• Keep iterating aligned with the strategy

• Constantly learn about and incorporating new

technologies, mindful of the challenges associated with
new technologies
Further reading...
 Thanks!

Contact:
bkrishna@usc.edu

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhaskar-krishnamachari/

Copy of these slides: http://tiny.cc/etfhc