Why deep generalists may soon replace specialists at the workplace
Tennis star Roger Federer dabbled in basketball, handball, skiing, wrestling, swimming, table tennis and skateboarding while growing up. When he began to gravitate towards tennis, his parents cautioned him against taking the sport too seriously. Essentially, when they discovered his love for sports, they encouraged him to have what author Dave Epstein calls “sampling period", which includes low risk experiments meant to organically discover what one loves doing and wants to succeed in.
Golf player Tiger Woods, on the other hand, specialized under his father’s tutelage before turning three. Wood’s learning path of early specialization has become the default template for schools and colleges who want to prime students for excellence. Even in the most modern workplaces, a disproportionate emphasis is paid on having narrow skills that are marketable. While there is nothing wrong having an area of focus, one should be mindful of the perils of early specialization. There are three key reason for that.
First, we tend to specialize without knowing why. More than 80% of people work in areas that have nothing to do with their field of study. In India, for example, most students first graduate from courses like engineering and then figure out what they want to do with their lives. Spending four years of one’s life getting deep into a subject one doesn’t particularly care about is a colossal waste of time, energy and money.
Second, it hinders lateral thinking, a problem-solving approach that draws upon seemingly disparate concepts and domains. Most innovators are lateral thinkers. Their lateral thinking is a direct result of combining different strands of thoughts and learning from different contexts. Leonardo Da Vinci combined art and engineering, Steve Jobs built upon the interconnectedness of design, fashion and technology, and Richard Feynman, a Nobel laureate in physics, is known to draw upon references from music.
Third, people with a narrow set of skills tend to approach every problem through the same lens. This not only ignores loopholes in one’s hypothesis but also amplifies biases. As investor Charlie Munger puts it, “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
Challenging the norm
If early specialization can backfire, should we all snack on an array of ideas, insights and interests? No. The future belongs to deep generalists, a term popularized by JotForm CEO Aytekin Tank. These are people who combine two or more diverse domains and integrate them into something defensible and unique.
In the 21st century, with the mainstreaming of automation and artificial intelligence (AI), some jobs will become automated and some, redundant. Even highly trained professionals, radiologists, traders, programmers, might lose their jobs to algorithms if they are over-reliant on their narrow set of specialized skills.
On the other hand, deep generalists will not only keep their jobs but also be able to demand a premium for what they bring to the table. These are the professionals who will push the boundaries for creativity and innovation in the AI era. Their competitive advantage will propel them to learn, unlearn and develop innovative solutions consistently.
One of the best professional decisions I took in my early 20s was to invest a year studying liberal arts at Ashoka University. Studying anthropology, philosophy, history, literature, art and economics after a couple of years of work experience helped me understand what I wanted to do and why. Most importantly, it set me on the path to becoming a deep generalist by strengthening my lateral thinking ability. This is, of course, clearer in retrospect. I didn’t pursue the fellowship to become a generalist or a specialist. I was simply following my curiosity.
I chose to take a year out to study before heading for my MBA but there are many other ways to achieve the same goal.
As long as we can figure out a way to build or be a part of diverse learning communities, we can conduct several low-risk professional experiments to sample various options and double-down on ones that interest us. I am not saying that sampling will make all of us like Roger Federer or Richard Feynman but it will position us to take thoughtful career decisions.
In the age of widespread automation, learning and unlearning will be, and should be, a lifelong pursuit. Tools and technologies will constantly change. While this might unsettle those with a narrow set of skills, it will empower deep generalists to create new opportunities they have nurtured over years of building lateral thinking and conducting repeated experiments to figure how they want to contribute to the changing world around.
Utkarsh Amitabh is founder of Network Capital, a global peer mentoring community and a WEF Global Shaper.
TopicsResearchers identify 5 prepaid carriers as vulnerable to SIM swap fraud
Researchers at Princeton University evaluated the SIM authentication procedures at five prepaid U.S. wireless carriers, and found that they all used insecure authentication challenges that could easily be subverted by attackers.
The researchers examined authentication mechanisms in place for swapping prepaid SIM cards at AT&T, T-Mobile, Tracfone, US Mobile and Verizon by signing up for 50 prepaid accounts (10 with each carrier), and subsequently calling in to request a SIM swap on each account.
“Our key finding is that, at the time of our data collection, all 5 carriers used insecure authentication challenges that could easily be subverted by attackers,” they wrote in a paper published last week (PDF). “We also found that in general, callers only needed to successfully respond to one challenge in order to authenticate, even if they had failed numerous prior challenges. Within each carrier, procedures were generally consistent, although on 9 occasions across 2 carriers, CSRs either did not authenticate the caller or leaked account information prior to authentication.”
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SIM swap procedures have valid purposes, such as when a user has misplaced their original device or acquired a new device that uses a different size SIM card slot than the device it’s replacing. But when hackers get involved, SIM swaps allow them to intercept calls and messages, impersonate victims and perform denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. They’ve been used to hack into social media accounts, steal cryptocurrencies and break into bank accounts.
The Princeton researchers conducted their experiments from May through July of 2019; in July 2019, they provided an initial notification of their findings to the carriers they studied and to CTIA. In January 2020, T-Mobile informed them that after reviewing the research, it had discontinued the use of call logs for customer authentication.
Jeff Moore, principal of Wave7 Research, said the Princeton study is helpful, as it highlights the need for carriers to improve their authentication policies. T-Mobile has already tightened its defenses again SIM swap fraud, he noted, adding that there have been some high-profile cases of fraudsters using this scam to gain control of a person’s Twitter or Instagram account.
“One thing missing from the study is save desks,” Moore said. “Some carriers, upon hearing about a customer’s intention to change carriers, will quickly send the customer to a save desk, which is basically a customer service group that specializes in persuading customers to remain with their carrier. Sometimes, save desk referrals occur when a customer calls in to request his account number, which is often an indicator that the customer is planning to switch to another carrier.”
The researchers are not the only ones concerned about SIM swap fraud. A group of senators last week sent a letter (PDF) to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai saying the impact of this type of fraud is large and rising. They asked the chairman to provide answers to a series of questions by February 14, including about how the FCC tracks incidents of SIM swapping or port-out fraud and any enforcement actions it has taken.
CTIA, the industry organization that represents operators cited in the study, said wireless operators are committed to protecting consumers and combating SIM swap attacks.
“We continuously review and update our cybersecurity practices and develop new consumer protections. We all have a role to play in fighting fraud and we encourage consumers to use the many tools highlighted in this study to safeguard their personal information,” said Nick Ludlum, SVP and chief communications officer at CTIA, in a statement.
FierceWireless reached out to the carriers cited in the report and did not hear back from all of them before deadline. An AT&T spokesman pointed to this blog the operator posted to inform consumers what they should be looking for and how to avoid getting scammed by a SIM swap. The blog notes that the scammers like to target people with valuable online accounts, which could include a financial account with a lot of money or a social media account with a large following.
US Mobile's security emphasis
US Mobile, an MVNO that uses the networks of Verizon and T-Mobile, posted this response to the Princeton study, noting it couldn’t speak to specific details of the experiments but could surmise from the report that they were likely attempting these SIM swaps via phone calls to the support division.
“Security is a top priority for us at US Mobile and we are always seeking to improve and lead the industry in customer security and privacy,” US Mobile COO Michael Melmed told FierceWireless via email. “For us, as a purely digital carrier whose business takes place entirely online, customer service interactions over the phone represent less than 10% of our total interactions. Furthermore, customers requesting account changes such as SIM swaps over the phone are very rare (<1 10="" a="" as="" customers="" did="" experiments="" interactions.="" likely="" majority="" mobile="" not="" of="" or="" p="" point="" reflect="" so="" starting="" the="" us="">
With that being said, “We are always looking for ways to improve and that's why sensitive account changes such as SIM swaps are no longer possible over the phone. They can only be requested while securely logged in to our progressive web app with additional OTP validations,” he said.
In addition, “we believe the best security measures comes from leveraging technology with AI, ML and big data because it helps create more secure environments without creating road blocks and additional hassle for our customers. Arguably, every technique in their Table 1 on its own is vulnerable and can be greatly enhanced by the types of technology and tools we have in the backend.”
Automation is a Bigger Threat to Millennials Than We Think and Andrew Yang’s UBI is the Solution
During this challenging, unstable time, every story on the news seems to be pointing to a new threat to our existence.
Between video clips of Greta Thunberg at the latest climate emergency protest and the current political unrest in every continent, the supposed threat of “robots taking our jobs” seems like the least of our worries. But is it really as far off in the future as some of us may want to believe?
Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang has been known for many things, besides being the only Asian American Democratic presidential candidate, he is also the man who became famous for proposing a universal basic income for all American citizens 18 years and older. One of his many reasons behind the proposed “Freedom Dividend” is to aid U.S. citizens through the rocky years to come as a result of workplace automation.
Most people would gladly take the $1,000 monthly check, no questions asked. Millennials, in particular, have become avid supporters of Yang for his policies. However, most voters are completely unaware of the potential short and long-term effects of automation in our own personal lives or how soon we could be looking at this shift.
Young Americans seem to be under the impression that this issue is only a concern for blue-collar workers, meaning Yang’s Freedom Dividend will simply be extra money in their pockets. But if history is any indication, such a dramatic shift in the workplace can and will inevitably affect all of us.
Millennials have been shown to hold conflicting views on automation — while many of us understand the growth of productivity that can come with this change, we also understand the potential economic repercussions both in the short and long terms that can be especially damaging to the working and middle classes.
According to a report from the McKinsey Global Institute, half of the jobs available today could be automated by 2055. Within the manufacturing industry alone, roughly 5 million jobs have already been lost since 2000. In the years to come, we could see this same pattern of job obsoletion spread to white-collar industries such as medicine, finance, and journalism.
In his New York Times bestselling book “The War on Normal People,” Yang recalled a demonstration held by General Electric in which human doctors with decades of experience could compete with computers in reading patient films. It became obvious by the end of the experiment that the computers could more effectively and rapidly diagnose tumors as their software programs allowed them to recognize various shades of gray on a radiology film that were invisible to the human eye.
In the finance industry, 5,500 traders at the New York Stock Exchange once walked the bustling trading floors; that number has now been cut down to less than 400. In 2000, Goldman Sachs had 600 NYSE traders on the floor and in 2017 that number dropped to just two traders. Similarly, in the media industry, a company called Narrative Science has developed AI that can write and produce cohesive recaps of breaking stories in real-time using data.
One thing all of these white-collar jobs have in common is that they perform routine tasks. According to the Federal Reserve, 44% of all jobs in the U.S. can be categorized as “routine,” meaning 44% of the jobs we see today can eventually be at least partly automated in the future.
This will leave us with very low-end, blue-collar service jobs and high-end, upper-class cognitive jobs with very limited opportunities for average, middle-class Americans. When such a dramatic gap in income goes unchecked, it has been proven to lead to more crime, shorter life spans, and damage to economic growth and the GDP.
The future isn’t all bleak, however, as in many industries the number of jobs lost to automation is predicted to eventually be offset by the number of jobs created. In some industries, this is set to happen as early as 2030, although it’s difficult to say how accurate this prediction could be.
This long-term potential for automation and artificial intelligence to help boost workplace productivity and innovation is precisely why so many millennials are drawn to this idea in the first place. In fact, many companies have been incorporating more AI into their offices and modernizing their facilities to attract more millennial employees.
The Deloitte 2017 Millennial Survey found that 62% of millennials believed automation could improve overall productivity in a workplace and 53% believed it could increase economic growth. In large, those surveyed saw automation as an opportunity to pursue career paths that focused on more creative activities within their companies. However, 53% also believed that the workplace will become more impersonal and sterile as a result.
A GenForward survey showed that 40% of millennials believed that automation would threaten their jobs, with people of color being especially concerned for their employment statuses, while a majority believed advancements in technology will lead to a decrease in the number of jobs available to them.
Additionally, a clear majority of millennials of all racial backgrounds agree that the government carries an obligation to look after those who are left unemployed or displaced as a result of automation, even if this means raising taxes substantially.
Different surveys of millennials point to different views on the expanding technology, painting a rather complicated picture on the future of automation and the opinions of younger generations. In many ways, millennials, as the most tech-savvy generation, are driving workplace automation. And as a result, we will be the first generation to fully feel the impact of the age of automation.
Millennials are a generation born into the aftermath of the financial crash and entering the job force during the Great Recession. Despite being more highly trained and educated compared to our parents and grandparents, we’re struggling to find better jobs, buy homes, and afford the same standard of living as our predecessors have enjoyed.
Possibly the most unnerving aspect of workplace automation and the advancement of artificial intelligence is that we cannot accurately predict what will happen as a result of this fourth industrial revolution.
Some of the more negative predictions have declared that it would be impossible for the job market to create as many jobs in order to cope with the rapid losses. While product innovation can offset the losses through a “substitution effect,” in which the success of a newly introduced product can make up for the jobs creating the now-redundant product, process innovation would only displace jobs rather than produce new ones.
In just five years, millennials will make up an overwhelming 75% of the workforce, entering into this position with little to no savings and for many, no clear plan for retirement. In an already-unfortunate situation, government intervention is not only welcome but necessary to ease the public through an uncertain transition period.
With the inevitable advancement of automation and AI technology, the solution here is not to reject technology altogether. Rather, we need to train the workforce to be able to adapt and perform a new set of skills, while providing the means to survive in the meantime. This is where Yang’s proposed idea of the “Freedom Dividend” comes in.
For city-dwelling white-collar workers, the threat of automation seems too far off to worry about — we’re too focused on our own lives right now. We’ve got rent, bills, and student loans to pay and still have yet to find high-paying jobs that will allow us to have health insurance and eventually purchase our own homes. But as Yang would argue, automation is rapidly changing the world around us, economically and politically.
“We’re going through the greatest economic and technological transformation in our nation’s history,” the Democratic presidential candidate told The Hill. “It’s called a fourth industrial revolution, and it led directly to Donald Trump being elected in that we automated away 4 million manufacturing jobs in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Iowa.”
And if you think your profession is an exception from this coming change, Yang himself put it best, “you’ll probably be wrong eventually.”
In this dystopian future scenario, Yang’s idea of a universal basic income, as crazy as it may sound, could be the most logical solution, at least in the short term, to avoid another financial debacle.
If handled well, in years to come, automation could be an opportunity to upgrade current jobs, but if handled poorly, we could be looking at a widening income gap.
Feature image (left) via Andrew Yang for President 2020, (right) via @YangGangDefense
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