David Moss on legacy systems
From White Collar Robots: The Virtual Workforce | David Moss | TEDxUCL · · TEDxTalks
“Some of the systems we put in place are from the 70s and 80s — they're really old and changing them is a very risky thing to do — so it's much easier to use people to get the changes to the system than it is to take the risk of amending the technology.”
On , David Moss, Cofounder at Blue Prism, spoke about legacy systems during White Collar Robots: The Virtual Workforce | David Moss | TEDxUCL on TEDxTalks.
About David Moss
In a 2016 TEDxUCL talk, David Moss, cofounder of Blue Prism, discussed the concept of a "virtual workforce" to automate repetitive office tasks. He argued that service industries like banking and insurance waste human talent by having people perform mundane, robot-like data processing, and he contrasted this with manufacturing, which he said had increased productivity by 58% since 2009 while financial services productivity had fallen by 10%. Moss described the virtual workforce as software that operates like a player piano, taking over routine steps in complex processes so that human workers can focus on skills like empathy and decision-making. Moss stated that the delay in activating a mobile phone, for example, is not due to technological complexity but to outdated systems from the 1970s and 1980s that organizations avoid changing due to risk. He cited professors at the London School of Economics who advocate "taking the robot out of the human" by reassigning repetitive tasks to automation. Moss said that for consumers, this approach would mean faster service with fewer errors; for employees, it would mean more valued roles using human skills; and for organizations, it would bring consistency, scale, and improved productivity. He concluded that automation working in partnership with humans could harness talent and lead to better products, skills, and living standards.