I was challenged by the editors here at Work: Reimagined to imagine what a corporation might look like in 2050. My immediate response was to think ‘that’s a long ways off.’ But on the other hand, it does take an incredibly long time to make foundational changes in society, except when major disruptions occur, as with the rise of the Internet over the past few decades, or the Black Death, when over 100 million people died, leading to the shifts in power that ultimately sparked the Renaissance.

So I am resorting to a futurist sleight-of-hand to get to an answer in several steps. I can’t just scramble to the roof of the house to see out over the horizon: First, I have to build a ladder to climb up to the roof. And the kind of ladders futurists build are indirect. Rather than simply extrapolating from the present — which leads to very boring stories about the future — I’ll pick several forces that could have a major impact on the world of business in 2050, and imagine edge cases for each one. This leads to scenarios — essentially, bedtime stories about the future that don’t need to be true. They only need to help us think about our future in a structured way.

The Three Forces That Will Impact Our Future

I’ve selected three extremely pressing problems, and their impact on jobs and work, to serve as the dimensions for scenario development: economic inequality, climate change, and artificials (AI and robots).

Inequality

In the past several years, the growing spread of income (and wealth) inequality has been front page news, and a defining issue of our economic era. Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century was perhaps the tipping point for economic inequality to ascend to the highest and broadest levels of public discourse.

In a report released this month, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported that economic inequality continues to grow, is leading to higher levels of poverty, and has reduced the rebound from the Great Recession. As the report’s authors say,

In most countries, the gap between rich and poor is at its highest level since 30 years. Today, in OECD countries, the richest 10% of the population earn 9.6 times the income of the poorest 10%. In the 1980s, this ratio stood at 7:1 rising to 8:1 in the 1990s and 9:1 in the 2000s. In several emerging economies, particularly in Latin America, income inequality has narrowed, but income gaps remain generally higher than in OECD countries. During the crisis, income inequality continued to increase, mainly due to the fall in employment; redistribution through taxes and transfer partly offset inequality. However, at the lower end of the income distribution, real household incomes fell substantially in countries hit hardest by the crisis.

My inclination is to hope for a world where inequality can be limited, but because it is increasing at the present time — both by the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer — I’ve imagined two scenarios where inequality is even worse 35 years from now, and one where it has been checked in a scenario called Humania.

Climate Change

The second force is climate change, specifically as a result of human activities. I won’t even link to source information since we are beyond that now, despite foot dragging by powerful, entrenched interests. Only yesterday, Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobile, continued to deny climate science, and refused to join a group of European energy companies working on a climate strategy in advance of UN climate talks planned for December.

However, it continues to be possible that we can sidestep a worldwide extinction through moderation of climate change, and therefore two of my scenarios are based on that, while one — Collapseland — does not manage that.

The Impact of AI and Robots on Jobs and Work

The Pew Research Center created a ‘canvassing’ of 1,896 experts and asked them this question:

The economic impact of robotic advances and AI — Self-driving cars, intelligent digital agents that can act for you, and robots are advancing rapidly. Will networked, automated, artificial intelligence (AI) applications and robotic devices have displaced more jobs than they have created by 2025?

In the consequent report, AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs, the results were mixed: Roughly half of the experts see a future in which AI and robots will displace significant numbers of workers, and roughly half that said they would not. I fell into the camp of yay-sayers: Those that think artificials will have a major impact on work, writing,

The central question of 2025 will be: What are people for in a world that does not need their labor, and where only a minority are needed to guide the ‘bot-based economy?

But I believe that there will be necessary regulatory checks on AI and robots. While we will allow autonomous vehicles to shuttle us around, and algorithms to select the best candidates for a job — because AI is better than us at that — people will remain wary of AIs. I don’t think we’ll be handing over control of our nuclear weapons — or the strategic direction of our companies — to artificials, no matter how smart. As a result, in two scenarios AI is checked or limited in its impact, while in one scenario — Neo-feudalistan — AI and robots become the primary means of production.

Here, then, is a Venn diagram of the three scenarios, where the green circle covers the scenario in which both climate change and AI are limited, and inequality is also addressed, the red covers the scenario in which climate change is limited but inequality continues to run rampant, and the blue circle covers the scenario in which AI is limited but inequality isn’t. As a result, each scenario is unique.



Venn diagram of the three scenarios.Humania



Humania is the most egalitarian and democratic scenario.

After mounting concern about inequality, the climate, and the inroads that AI and robots were having on society, in the 2020s Western nations — and later other developing countries — were hit by a ‘Human Spring.’ New populist movements rose up and rejected the status quo, and demanded fundamental change. At first the demands were uneven — some groups emphasized climate, or inequality, or the right to work.

But by the mid 2030s, all three forces were more-or-less equal planks in the Humania platform. This led to mandated barriers to inequality — such as limits on the multiple of the salaries of highest to lowest paid workers, and progressive taxation so that the well-off paid much higher taxes by percentage. Additionally, there were worldwide actions to limit oil and coal use, and a dramatic shift to solar in the early 2020s. Concerned that people would be pushed inexorably out of the job market, governments build limits on AI use into international trade agreements, based on a notion of the human right to work.

In the year 2050, businesses in Humania are egalitarian, fast-and-loose, and porous. Egalitarian in the sense that Humania workers have great autonomy: They can choose who they want to work with and for, as well as which initiatives or projects they’d like to work on.

They’re fast-and-loose in that they are organized to be agile and lean, and in order to do so, the social ties in businesses are much looser than in the 2010s. It was those rigid relationships — for example, the one between a manager and her direct reports — that, when repeated across layers of a hierarchical organization, lead to slow-and-tight company.

Instead of a pyramid, Humania’s companies are heterarchies: They are more like a brain than an army. In the brain — and in fast-and-loose companies — different sorts of connections and groupings of connected elements can form. There is no single way to organize. People can choose the sort of relationships that most make sense.

People’s careers involve many different jobs and roles, and considerable periods of time out of work. Basic universal income is guaranteed and generous benefits for family leave are a regular feature of work, such as paternity/maternity leave, looking after ill loved ones, and subsidized opportunities for life-long learning. This is the porous side of things; The edge of the company is permeable, and people easily leave and return.

Instead of the precarious nature of freelance and temp work of the 2010s, the use of time-limited standard employment agreements — like Reid Hoffman’s ‘Tours of Duty’ model — allow security for workers and flexibility for companies.

Some of the technologies of the day would be familiar to us, like smart phones and some wearables. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a ‘desktop’ PC. The biggest change is ubiquitous connectivity based on 6G networks; high-speed Internet is seen as basic public infrastructure — similar to streets and bridges — across Humania. Augmented and virtual reality is commonplace in work and entertainment.

Neo-feudalistan



In Neo-feudalistan, the Human Spring uprising fizzled out like the Occupy movement in the 2010s. As a result, the concentration of wealth and power continues unabated, and political and economic power is held in even fewer hands in 2050 than in 2015.

One consequence to the good was that global corporations and the ruling elite decided in the 2020s to counter the threat of climate change, and as in Humania they pushed heavily for a world reliant on solar, averting ecological collapse.

Corporations are able to invest in ever-more-intelligent AI, driving down the prices of food, goods, and services across the board in almost all industries. While this yielded profits sufficient to maintain the system, it also created companies with significantly smaller staffs. In fact, historians of the time will point back to the Internet software giants of the 2010s — Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and other unicorns — as the progenitors of this sort of company.

In general, businesses in Neo-feudalistan are primarily driven by carefully-managed artificials, configured to have deep expertise in narrow domains, and overseen by small teams of highly trained experts in those domains, and supported by scientists who understand the workings of the artificials. As a result, a company that has 50,000 employees today might have only 5,000 in 2050 while producing the same volume of food, goods, or services.

Many of the internal functions now performed by people are handled in Neo-feudalistan companies by artificials, as well. Starting in the 2020s, companies handed over ‘human resources’ to algorithms relying on big data because it had been shown that people are too cognitively biased to make good hiring and promotion decisions. Relatively quickly, other managerial functions were handed over, too. Like the companies of Humania, Neo-feudalistan companies are brain-shaped, but most of the neurons aren’t human. Of course, the people that remain — and the companies’ owners — are extremely well-paid, and very skilled at getting the most out of AI.

In order to counter the revolutionary tendencies that may arise due to the millions who are unemployed, a universal basic income has been enacted across Neo-feudalistan. It provides enough to support a decent lifestyle, and access to basic services like health care, education, and transport. This was largely underwritten by massive reductions in cost in production and energy. Basic goods sell for perhaps a tenth of their 2015 cost in Neo-feudalistan, because there are so few people in the supply chain.

Collapseland



Collapseland is where everything goes pear shaped. Dithering by governments and corporations has allowed climate change to push the world into increased heat, drought, and violent weather. The Human Spring of the 2020s led to a conservative backlash and a suppression of the movement itself. It also led to a suppression of advancements in AI, since it became associated with the science orientation of the movement.

But governments and corporations get their act together in the late 2020s and 2030s to avert an extinction event via the global adoption of solar. However, this only comes after a serious ecological catastrophe has occurred. Inequality remains unchecked, and the poor become much poorer.

Collapseland businesses are much like businesses of 2015. Most efforts are directed toward basic requirements — like desalinating water, relocating people away from low-lying or drought stricken areas, and struggling with food production challenges. As a result, little innovation has taken place. It’s no different from the company you work for today, except longer hours, fewer co-workers, less pay, and much more dust. To increase profits, corporations have cut staff and forced existing workers to work harder.

2050 Is Closer Than You Think

This exercise is — as I said — a futurist slight of hand. I picked three forces, rolled the dice, and gamed it out. But here’s a takeaway: Everything has to fall into place — inequality countered, climate change overcome, and the acceptance of the human right to work (which means limiting AI) — for something like Humania to come into existence.

For our children and grandchildren to live happy, meaningful lives, and for civilization itself to prosper and evolve, we will have to have that Human Spring. Soon.

Illustrations by Jenn Liv

Work: Reimagined is a series of sponsored stories dedicated to exploring the evolution of the workplace.