The Artificial Intelligence revolution is here, it is only a matter of time before humanity is burned alive and cyborgs take control of the planet. Maybe, but it is likely to be much less dramatic and hopefully less bloody, however as a society it seems strange that we are not up in arms with concern over what the A.I. revolution will bring. It only takes a few minutes to watch videos released by Boston Dynamics and a quick lesson on google algorithms to make your skin feel like it is inside out. The technology that has already been developed is far superior to anything the great George Orwell could have predicted in his novel 1984 when he warned of a mass surveillance totalitarian regime. Yet we should be concerned for entirely different reasons. Not because of cyborgs and totalitarians but because of what A.I. will do to the job market. The A.I. revolution and advanced robotics is likely to put immense pressure on government officials as the unemployment rate rises. Consider the words of Yuval Noah Harari…

“The merger of info tech and Bio tech might soon push billions out of the job market…Big data algorithms might create digital dictatorship’s in which all power is concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite while most people suffer not from exploitation but something far worse, irrelevance”

This is already happening across industries and sectors; factory work is being replaced by machines; Amazon being a famous example. Just take a trip to your local supermarket and find that year upon year the human checkout tills are shrinking while “self-scan” and “shop as you go” take up more of the shop floor. In fact, what prompted me to write this article was seeing that A.I. now outperforms radiographers in detecting cancer and thus this is not just a problem of the low skilled or un-educated, any profession is under threat. So where does Project Management fit in with all this? How safe are you as a project professional? How much of a good proposition is placing your nine thousand pound a year on degree level education in this subject?

First, I will take the pessimistic approach. Assume the year is 2050, local government has just received their yearly budget and they wish to invest their money wisely to fulfil their goals of increased economic development and housing supply within their district. And so, they open up their laptop and initiate the “Projects for Local Governments” software or “PLG” for short. They type in their goals and the moment they press the enter key, a drone is launched from a nearby station. The drone precedes to scan the local green field areas of potential development. The drone reports back with three of the best candidates. Not only this though, the drone has already projected the best potential developments that could fit within the space provided from its access to the worldwide data base of the built environment. It then calculates the best cost for this using a clever algorithm that has just researched all local material providers taking snapshots of their websites. The algorithm also has access to previous data of similar projects, local sociological data such as traffic management systems, the residents, all their names, numbers and entire social media history. It then compiles this data into a risk management plan and stakeholder management plan, the algorithm takes good care of those most likely to put a lengthy angry hate fuelled paragraph on Facebook of course. There is no need for a planner, by the way, it is already done for you with the data of all the tasks necessary to complete this development broken down piece by piece while taking into consideration all the local events that may require a movement long the Gantt chart, complete and sent pre smoothed. This project package is sent to the government administrator who waits until the next monthly meeting to discuss this, as humans always love a good delay. All six people at the meeting agree this should go ahead, the project and all its plans are sent to all suppliers who will be involved, who get a notification on their phone. They accept. The local supplier’s army of automated construction vehicle assemble the development all with prefabricated “screw in” parts, much like the screw in walls I have seen on a recent building development in Leeds. In this scenario there is no need for any project manager, planner, risk manager, quality manager or any other project related role. In fact, the less humans involved the better right? As many project professionals and academics have already concluded in many a thesis, that the reason projects over run on cost or time or indeed lack the quality, or perhaps fail entirely… is because of human error.

However, there is hope for the project management profession at least in part. In fact, I believe I can make an evidence-based case for why project management might be one of the last standing professions in the 21^st century and beyond. There are two problems that make the previously described scenario less likely to be achieved in our lifetime. Problem one is creativity, problem two is ethics/morality. The first problem; creativity, is perhaps the most important. There has undoubtably been unbelievable gains in A.I in recent decades, but the one problem that big tech giants have run into is being able to produce artificial intelligent algorithms and robots that can create. By create I mean new, not pre-programmed. But why is this so important to us? “Projects are unique and transient endeavours undertaken to achieve planned objectives” by the APM definition. Projects are fundamentally creative enterprises, each project has never been done before, they are unique within time and space and often involve the creation of new technologies, products, processes and built environments. No one knows what spark of divinity is within humans that makes us able to create new from anything we are given; but we do. So long as A.I cannot create “new” rather than “pre-programmed” projects we will be safe. However, I do believe what will happen is the shrinking of the “business as usual” (BAU) on projects, in fact truth be told, the closer you are to BAU the more fearful you should be, any job or profession that is BAU and not fundamentally creative is under threat for replacement by machine. Consequently, large government run projects with huge administration bases will likely find their workforce shrunk and replaced by competent A.I that can handle the BAU side, while smaller project teams home down on the project management. A similar theme will echo in the private sector, traditional projects that have been done for years upon years will likely find that most of the work done on these will be done by intelligent machines. Projects will become ever more unique and niche as firms try to gain a competitive edge as markets become more saturated moving closer and closer to monopolistic competition (not to be mistaken for monopolies). While the rest of the world struggles as they are replaced my machines, the project managers will constantly be in the process of creating the new phenomenon for humanity to enjoy. A well-educated competent project manager may be one of the “tiny elite” previously described.

The second problem A.I. has while coming after the project profession is ethics and morality. Philosophers have been debating what makes things ethical or moral almost as long as consciousness itself. From Aristotle to Kant to Rousseau and many theologians alike, yet the answer still isn’t clear nor is it agreed. Consider the example of the London 2012 Olympic Park, the local residents who lived there; sometimes for their entire lives would not have been happy one bit to be forced by law from their homes to re-locate. Was that good? Would those residents be happier? What about their lives? Well perhaps we should not have built the Olympic park there then… But the other side of the argument would say the area was incredibly run down, this project would revitalise the area and provide a space all could enjoy for years to come. And think of the economic prosperity that hosting the Olympics and having all eyes of the world looking at London for investment and progress, not to mention the families of the builders, engineers, labourers and all other roles that enjoyed the benefit of a stable healthy income. Projects like this have a very high multiplier effect that’s for sure. Or what about the infamous HS2 with its latest criticisms for the costs it has already incurred, I’m sure the northern families who have to re-locate to see their livelihood flattened to pave the way for a super-fast train that leads to London will be head over heels with love in their hearts. Yet what about the economic growth that benefits millions of families in the future with new business, jobs and better connectivity. This is exactly the problem A.I. will have when trying to make decisions such as these that occur every day throughout the project lifecycle, it is quite literally impossible to calculate the benefit that a decision might bring. In fact, in the two examples provided, the A.I. would have more accurate data on the negative impact it would have on the residents, not on the benefit it would bring, therefore a computer simulation based on pure evidence would have decided for them to not go ahead. And so, fundamentally the best tactic we have is human conversation and cleverly evolved heuristics. For this reason, project roles shall remain vital. In projects, like life, it is not so easy to see which is the better option, and sometimes even with the seemingly best evidence we can provide we still make decisions in the opposing direction, and most of the time they pay off, or we wouldn’t be here now.

So, for now, and the foreseeable future, project management looks relatively secure. Creativity and ethics will keep project managers’ unique talents in demand. Now to end on something that disturbed me. As you read this on your laptop, computer or smart phone raise your finger and point it at the screen… now point it at your head. In the device you hold it is just atoms, in your head it is just atoms. We will not be safe forever. Agreed?