Winners and losers in the new technological shift

Kenya Power Company has made astronomical profits - Sh30 billion for the year ended June 30, 2024. Things are looking up for this power supplier in the future. Right? Most likely wrong. Probably theirs is a case of making hay while the sun shines.Kenya Power's energy is expensive. Probably it might price itself out of the market unless it diversifies towards cheaper and greener sources.As at December 2023, Kenya's installed solar capacity was 410MW. The speed with which Kenyans are going off the grid is very fast. Many counties, businesses and households are switching to solar to escape humongous power bills. Muranga County, for example, has installed 70 medical facilities with solar to escape Kenya Power.Kenya Power represents companies that today appear as behemoths but might be swept aside by a silent underground tectonic shift powered by shifting technologies.Technological advancesThe fourth industrial revolution is underway and Kenyans need to interrogate how these technological changes will impact them. Particularly their jobs.The fourth industrial revolution refers to the rapid technological advances of the 21st century. Green energy shifts is one of them.The world's academics have reached a consensus that climate change is accelerating. This calls for a shift towards green energy hence solar energy and electrical vehicles rise. China is leading the world towards this new future.The West, which was at the forefront towards pushing for climate action, is responding in an unorthodox manner. As opposed to promoting free market ethos, it is enacting trade barriers to Chinese green innovations.But greater world change will be ushered by automation. Industrial change pushed by artificial intelligence, internet of things, gene editing and advanced robotics.Earlier technological changes have had a positive impact on humans. Britain's industrial revolution led to a dramatic rise in life expectancy in the 1800s.But this latest one looks threatening. Machines becoming smarter than human beings. Earlier technologies impacted blue-collar sectors that required physical human efforts.This industrial revolution phase impacts traditionally protected white-collar sectors.A good example is the banking sector. Technological companies are interposing themselves between banks and their customers. This makes banks price takers with no ability to set prices. Digital currencies threaten to negate the whole rationale of central banks. Big technological companies are innovating and turning themselves into banks.Lawyers are not safe in this new coming order. Lawyers do lots of repeat work like drafting conveyancing documents or contracts. Artificial intelligence can easily recognise texts and make legal work redundant. Accounting software poses an existential risk to accountants. Writers Guild of America had a 148-day strike which sought to protect their Hollywood industry from the march by artificial intelligence. Modern factories have very few employees since new machines self-drive themselves automatically.Examples of occupations and companies threatened by technological changes are many. Imagine a world where KPLC, law firms, and accountancy firms have closed. What happens to those jobs?It has been argued that the fear of job losses due to advancing technologies is highly exaggerated. New jobs will be created, some pundits argue.In any event, they argue, similar fears abounded in yester years. Switchboard operators in the telephony industry and copy typists are all gone but big tech companies emerged with many new jobs.This is true but the new shift seems stranger than before. Imagine a self-driving motor vehicle. I once attended a seminar of US governors at Santa Fe, New Mexico when I served as a senator.One inventor of self-driving vehicles advised those USA governors to stop planning for parking. The future will not require any parking, he said. Self-driving vehicles will be moving endlessly without stopping. Parkings are a waste of prime urban real estate for idling motor vehicles that should be in a circular endless motion.Such a future disrupts jobs for drivers, parking attendants, mechanics and such.What should Kenyans do to protect themselves against potential job losses?First, we need to promote employees re-skilling and be ahead of the technological shift. That calls for the adoption of lifetime schooling mindsets. We must promote important subjects of Sciences, Technological and Mathematics in our curriculum. They form the core of this new industrial revolution. Crucial synergies with countries pushing ahead in these new technologies might help in skills transfer.Second, social protection for those left behind by the new changes.Because Kenya must never leave anyone behind.***Welcome Burning Spear to Kenya.Thank you for being a voice for Africa. Through songs like Little Love Song for Africa, African Teacher.Thanks for music that remembers African heroes like Marcus Garvey, Reverend Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.Thanks for being a voice of poor people. Lyrics like "Who will stand for the people, Musically" ( Identity). Or "Have you ever seen An African Woman's Nipples run dry because she has no food to eat " ( Song African Woman). And for adopting the name of our first president Jomo Kenyatta as your name.You are getting old but we pray God he grants you more days.Irungu Kang’ata is the Governor of Muranga County. Email [email protected].