People vs technology is the battle of tomorrow with predictions of 500,00 jobs being transferred from humans to machines within the next decade in Australia.

We have already borne witness to routine jobs like bank tellers, cashiers, assembly workers and others losing their jobs in favour of machines. Behind this though is not a rising militant union of robots demanding equal pay and opportunities, but rather a society that is unwilling to pay for, or see value in, human provided goods and services.

This quiet resignation and acceptance of technology’s increasing role in the workplace and the rise of its ability to cheaply and easily replace human workers is only one of the reasons we are changing our work landscape.

Not since the industrial revolution have we seen such wholesale changes to work, life and culture. Today we are literally in the eye of the storm of a new revolution in which everything we know about everything is shifting under our feet.

Phil Dobbie of Balls Radio and I debated the good, bad and ugly of this new work landscape, Phil trying to find a single solution and me pushing back insisting that there is no single solution.

To solve the conundrum of 2 billion people more on the planet and about 20 million more in Australia by 2050, more of us living longer and working longer, increased mechanisation, changing work landscapes and the reality that there will simply not be enough jobs for everyone as we currently know and have them.

I’ve long argued that we will need to reinvent work and perhaps even decouple work and remuneration to allow everyone to have enough to be able to maintain an acceptable standard of living.

In this new space the majority of us will be working when and where is appropriate, rather than a mandated 9-5 and we will work / live fluid lives with no clear boundaries between each, which each encroaching on the other as and when “life” happens.

This debate has no obvious conclusion, nor are the debate parameters clear and it is a discussion we will have to have ongoing, the one thing that is clear is that we can not take the totality of work and life past into work and life future, the two have very little in common.

Listen in now to our feisty discussion (17 minutes 35 seconds) and I’m looking forward to more of them as I join the team of regulars on Balls Radio.