As AI makes inroads, people, companies and nations must digitise or watch their prospects die

When Amazon bought the online pharmacy Pillpack last week for around US$1 billion, the stock market valuation of several large pharmacy retail chains fell by US$14 billion. That is the power of clicks (online e-commerce companies) over bricks (and mortar) high street retailers. 

The once powerful GE being taken off the Dow Jones market index is an indication of how old-style manufacturing and distribution companies are being marked down on a daily basis, whereas tech companies are valued in stratospheric terms.

The old economy is facing massive creative destruction in the shift to the new economy led by the Internet of Things  (everyday objects with online capability and communicating with each other), which involves digitisation and then retailing.

The conventional wisdom is that digitisation is good for the consumer, but bad for jobs. When I am told that artificial intelligence can already tell from a picture of a human iris whether the person is male or female, and human ophthalmologists can’t, I know almost all jobs are now under threat. Job insecurity across all fields explains the populist votes for change and sentiments against immigrants, foreigners and globalisation.