8 Workforce of the future: The competing forces shaping 2030 How digital and artificial intelligence are changing work The potential for digital platforms and AI to underpin and grow the world of work is unbounded. They already play an essential role in the development of all Four Worlds of Work, matching skills to employer, capital to investor and consumer to supplier. This platform layer brings a digital value chain and commoditisation and automation of the back office – but comes with warnings. While it can create a thriving marketplace, it can grow to take over the entire economic system. And with platform pervasiveness comes vulnerability to cyber ‑ a ttacks or wide ‑ s cale manipulation. Closely linked to digital is data. How governments, organisations and individuals decide to share and use it is key to all our worlds – even the most human-centric. Finally AI: the digital assistants, chatbots, and machine learning, that understand, learn, and then act based on that information 3 . It’s useful to think of three levels of AI: Assisted intelligence , widely available today, improves what people and organisations are already doing. A simple example, prevalent in cars today, is the GPS navigation programme that offers directions to drivers and adjusts to road conditions. Augmented intelligence , emerging today, helps people and organisations to do things they couldn’t otherwise do. For example, car ride ‑ s haring businesses couldn’t exist without the combination of programmes that organise the service. Autonomous intelligence , being developed for the future, establishes machines that act on their own. An example of this will be self ‑ d riving vehicles, when they come into widespread use. Some optimists believe AI could create a world where human abilities are amplified as machines help mankind process, analyse, and evaluate the abundance of data that creates today’s world, allowing humans to spend more time engaged in high ‑ l evel thinking, creativity, and decision-making. 3 For more on AI and how it’s changing work, see our 2017 report: Bot.Me: A revolutionary partnership http://www.pwc.com/CISAI 73 % think technology can never replace the human mind. 37 % are worried about automation putting jobs at risk – up from 33% in 2014. PwC survey of 10,029 members of the general population based in China, Germany, India, the UK and the US