However, unlike those “learned” individuals who contemplate the end of humans, I find myself increasingly contemplating the fate of unprepared humans—those who lack the skills and capabilities to survive the expansion of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), or what some have coined “Industry 4.0”.  We have an Innovation Predicament (report released February 2020) created by the rapid adoption of hyper accelerated innovation without understanding fully the ramifications and believing that all innovation is benevolent.  

An intensifying challenge for reskilling of existing worker involves caustic local and national politics.  Individuals are bringing their polarized beliefs and values to work with them resulting in management challenges previously not seen since the Vietnam War.  As divisions grow progressively vemonistic across factories, offices, and universities, so do the challenges of adapting to growing digital demands by existing workers who do not have the required competencies.  These political animosities spill over into delivery supply chains (e.g., partners, outsourcers) making it more difficult and expensive to serve the customer and recognize corporate profitability. 

To reinforce these occurrences, from a recent poll (see Society for Human Resource Management), 59% of workers state that politics have become more of an issue compared to four years prior.  Additionally, as the 2020 U.S. presidential elections draw closer, the dysfunctionality between working peers is anticipated to rise significantly as tensions come to the surface and divisive topics presented by candidates as “us versus them”.  The demands for reskilling due to innovational progression are extraordinary—but so are the limiting factors inhibiting enterprise efforts.

We can witness this in the once tightly linked corporate bond market where in one investment bank shed 99% of their staff—due to innovation, data, process, and technology automation.Additionally, there is #Gartner which has been quoted that “Most banks will be made irrelevant by 2030” with “80% of financial firms” out of business or competitively swallowed—about 1.3 million out of the 2.05 million people now employed will be out of work. Others believe that across all of finance—of which banks comprise just a segment—over 6 million workers will be displaced by 2025.  Where will these workers fit in now that algorithms have replaced their job description?

Yet, there is another school of thought.  Others believe that the very technology putting people out of work and forcing them to seek alternative employment will boost job markets.  Even as these workers struggle for skill relevancy and face rising personal costs for reskilling, the disparity of what #FSBO (financial services and banking organization) leadership should be doing when it comes to innovation, reskilling of work forces, and products and services offered to customers, span alternatives across diametric poles. 

That is the idea behind this series—to explore the challenges bankers face. Not to say bankers don’t matter—but to understand what DOES matter—to the customer, to the economy, and to the bankers.  Is it not better to ask the questions ourselves then to react to market changes? 

As consumers move 100% digital, as neobanks which have no physical footprint gain market share in an age of financial commoditization, as branch closures accelerate due to uncompromising legacy investments and strategy, should banks which have the intellect and experience be leading the disruptive transformation?  Or, are we going to wait and watch institutional numbers dwindle to “irrelevancy” (i.e., the decades long trend of losing 200 to 250 banks every year)? 

All this begs a “few” questions regarding financial innovation.  First, does innovation create banking strategy or does banking strategy drive innovation?  Secondly, as global populations move to near 100% subscription to online banking products by 2030 (under 50% now), will governments step in to enact greater personal security for transactions and identities? Thirdly, will banks emerge, a reformulation if you will, as data science and analytic enterprises feeding retail, transportation and even educational institutions?

Indeed, there is much to contemplate, debate, cajole, and scream about as we ask, “Are Bankers Necessary?”

What is the problem you wonder?  Is it not enough housing?  Is it too easy of credit?  Is it growing caustic politics, or inappropriate human behaviors?  Is it too many regulations, or government malaise on the GSE’s?  Alas, for this discussion, it is something else.

The next three decades will usher in a golden age for autonomous, artificial intelligence.  As the population peaks, the first wave of our intelligence multipliers will reach their zenith.  As the world reaches 10 billion individuals and synthetic intelligence reaches a level of human consciousness, a fork will present itself—how will these “new, synthetic lives” be governed?  Will these emerging, deep intelligence beings be part of existing societies, or will they split off, forming their own rules and structures?  Do traditional humans fully believe that if they create hyper-accelerated intelligence, why will they listen to “reason” from lesser-intelligent “animals”?  How will those innovators, scientists, and consumers defend their blind faith in creations that are no longer human influenced or controllable? 

Innovation addiction is relatively new, but from the time the first Space Invaders consoles hit the college campuses, the fire of seduction was ignited.  And, while addiction is often characterized as an individual issue or a demographic grouping, it can also be a corporate concern or an industry obsession.  Beyond individuals, the demand for data, big data by current classifications, is all encompassing in a world coming to be dominated by artificial intelligence.  As intelligence multipliers expand, so does the exponential volumes needed to train and feed these human created algorithms of hidden complexity and growing capabilities.

Whatever the rationale for rapidly incorporating innovation into our daily lives, our healthcare solutions, and of course, our high-tech automobiles, our adoption of innovations is creating culture divisions not just along generational lines, but also across economic ranges.  With the rapid pace of innovation now touching into all aspects of artificial intelligence, society is increasingly shocked by the arrivals of daily advances.  With those shocks, come fatigue as individuals struggle to keep up and incorporate changes into their personal, economic, political, and even religious identities.

Can the ramifications of our innovations (i.e., those that have powered a collective four major iterations of the “industrial revolution”), move us beyond where we are today—or are those ramifications what got us here to begin with?  Are we indeed at the cusp of failures, or can it be attributable to the normal growing pains of a new innovative revolution?

Our societies are conflicted due to the rise of nationalism and populism especially within and across our political dialogues.  Innovations are giving individuals and groups greater voice to spread their messages, while reaching individuals, providing differing viewpoints, and being able to deliver voices which once were restricted or ignored. 

• Yet where does this progression end?
• Are we asking, as individuals and cultures, the right questions?
• Are we accepting answers because we want to accept them, or because they are accurate?  
• How do innovations alter our realities, and what can be done?  
• What happens when our innovation’s out-pace protections?  
• How can we realign innovations to meet our needs—rather than the needs of opaque operators who can directly and indirectly influence outcomes?  
• Do we subscribe to extreme influencers who believe that if you ask questions, then you have a passive aggressive personality and should be ignored?