M+E Europe

Alec Ross, the New York Times best-selling author and former senior advisor for technology and innovation at the U.S. State Department, has spent recent years tackling data topics, and how it manifests in different cultures, across labour and well-being. And those who study data usually fall in one of two camps, he’s found: dystopian or utopian.

“It’s either we’ll all be happy, healthy, wealthy and wise, live to 120 years old,” he said, speaking during a keynote presentation 25 Feb. at the Content Workflow Management Forum, “M&E’s Premiere Localisation Event.” “Or it’s we’re all doomed, the jobs are going to be wiped out by AI, it’s destroying every institution around us.”

Ross — considered among America’s leading experts on innovation — says he falls in neither camp, instead seeing the digitisation that’s taking place contributing to “both the promise and peril of our future.”

“There’s both good and bad. And my observations shouldn’t be mistaken for advocacy … it’s just cold-blooded analysis,” he said.

His keynote — “Industries of the Future: The Technological & Economic Trends That Will Shape the Next 10 Years” — drew off his book “The Industries of the Future,” where he outlined the next significant drivers of change for media and entertainment, from artificial intelligence and robotics, to cybersecurity and cybercrime.

COVID-19 especially has sped up the world of digitisation in a measurable way, he said. Five years ago there were 17.5 billion networked devices in the world. Today it’s double that, 35 billion, “and it’s not because we’re putting more mobile phones in more pockets,” he said. “By 2023, that number will be … 51 billion. By 2025, that number will have doubled again, 75 billion.”

What we originally thought would take five to six years is happening in two because of the pandemic, Ross said, and the impact for media and entertainment is obvious. He pointed to remote dubbing, “happening in the cloud now, where previously we used premise-based facilities for creating everything,” he said. “We’ve surrendered to this digital world.”

In 2018, 71 percent of labour was done by humans, 29 percent was done by machines. COVID-19 saw investments in AI, ML and robotics surge, he said, leading to the likelihood that by this time next year, it will be 58 percent human labour, 42 percent automation. By 2025, more labour will be done by machines than humans.

“Do not think that what was 71 jobs becomes 41 jobs,” Ross stressed. “Humans work with machines to produce more. Labour is not finite.”

The Content Workflow Management Forum was produced by MESA, the Audio Business Continuity Alliance, Content Localisation Council, Smart Content Council, and the Hollywood IT Society, with sponsorship by Iyuno Media Group, Richey May Technology Solutions, Whip Media Group, Deluxe, Digital Nirvana, Meta, Vubiquity, EIDR, Keywords Studios, Los Angeles Duplication & Broadcasting, Nexus TV, OOONA, Signiant and Titles-On.