Digital Value Creator

∷苏敏

W hat do we talk about when we talk about Apple's Siri? You know that virtual intelligent assistant in your iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch. Well, apart from saying directives1,we usually ask questions. So what questions do you ask Siri? Does it ever occur to you that maybe in the near future you can even ask Siri the following questions?

＊ What is my housing fund2account number?

＊ Why do I have a lower salary pay this month?

＊ I've been working in Siemens for over 10 years,so how shall I benef i t from Long Service Award?

……

Sound familiar to you? Actually these are some of the most frequently asked questions from Siemens China employees. And I have a whole list of them, which, however, is just the tip of the iceberg. Statistics show that there are over 4000 phones calls and emails for HR call center each month and among which approximately 5% of the questions are irrelevant, or not within HR service scope. Some of you may have such experience as when calling AskHR3for a seemingly HR-related question and then was told to dial somewhere else for solution. This happens every day in your daily work, especially for newcomers, who probably do not have a clue on whom you should ask in the fi rst place. Also there are quite a number of call

centers in Siemens, and as most call center operators repeatedly answer similar questions every day, can we combine those call centers altogether as one Artif i cial Intelligence Service Center?

So I come up with the idea that in the near future there will be a virtual intelligent assistant, like Siri,who can help Siemens employees by answering whatever questions ranging from IT, fi nance, HR, to all service functions. By the way, we can call it SIRI too with all capital letters, which stands for Siemens Instant Responding Intelligence4.

1. directive： 指示，命令。

2. housing fund： 住房公积金。3. AskHR： 是西门子内部的HR（人力资源）热线中心，为员工提供各类与HR相关的服务。

4. Siemens Instant Responding Intelligence：指西门子即时反馈智能系统，简称SIRI。

5. built-in app： 内置应用。

Imagine this SIRI as a built-in app5in your smartphone, compatible for both iOS and Android.You can start the service by entering your GID number6and the password. Then talk to SIRI like this, “Hey SIRI,how can I register my training course?” It will probably answer, “OK, here's what I found” by displaying a fl ow chart which shows the whole process explicitly. Or ask SIRI, “Why there's an extra individual income tax deducted in my salary this month?”7You are expected to hear the following answer from SIRI, “Because you enrolled in the commercial insurance which, as one of the company benef i ts, is subject to individual income tax.” While at the same time such links as “Click here to learn more about individual income tax” or “Know more about commercial insurance” are appearing on the screen. You can even ask SIRI, “How many shares can I get from the company?” It is smart enough to match all your information, say your annual target compensation8,if you've ever invested in Siemens shares, how long have you been holding for the shares, is it long enough to entitle 1/3 of the free shares, and Siemens share price… and then SIRI will do the math. Before telling you the result, it also takes conf i dentiality into consideration9by saying “Since the data is highly conf i dential, this requires your earphone. Or choose to receive an encrypted10email on this question.” Likewise, it also provides you with some hyperlinks if you want to dig it a little deeper. Of course, SIRI will do all these in a blink of an eye. In short, SIRI is always there for your enquiries 24/7 as long as your smartphone isn't powered oあ. In other words, you are always digitally connected with SIRI. You can ask SIRI whatever you want and get a plausible11answer.You may even fi nd it amusing to ask SIRI hilarious questions.

在跨国大公司，即便是资历较老的员工，也常常因公司内部各种薪酬福利制度等方面的问题而困扰，有时甚至连某个问题到底要问询哪个部门都感到迷惑。这时，你多么希望身边触手可及的Siri能变身成为公司的维基百科小助手，随时解答你提出的一切关于公司制度、员工福利等各类问题。然而你可曾想过，在不久的将来，Siri很可能会取代你的工作？

You: “Hey SIRI, tell me how much does my boss earn?”

SIRI: “This is about you, not your boss.”

You: “How good do you think I can get for my PMP12result this year?”

6. GID number： 即Global ID number，是西门子公司的员工在全球范围内的唯一员工号。

7. individual income tax： 个人收入所得税；deduct： 减去，扣除。

8. annual target compensation： 年度目标薪酬。

9. take sth. into consideration： 考虑到……，将……考虑进去。

10. encrypted： 加密的。

11. plausible： 似乎合理的。

12. PMP： 即Performance Management Process，西门子公司内部的年度绩效考核管理流程。

SIRI: “Talk to your boss, seriously.”

But what if SIRI answers “I'm not quite sure about it” or “I cannot fi gure it out”? Well in that case, your question is probably beyond SIRI's knowledge scope and you can turn to your local HR or other colleagues for help.

The development of this app will surely be complicated and time-consuming as it takes a lot of eあorts to get digitalized, to collect all the standard answers of FAQs13, which may vary from each other in terms of local policies. It also takes eあorts to accurately match the key words from hundreds of thousands of questions related. Technically, it adopts speech recognition, advanced machine learning technologies,and voice synthesis14system or having human voices recorded if we want SIRI to be more humanlike.Undoubtedly, this also requires collaborations among all related functions as well. And all these eあorts and investments are worthwhile because when fi nally launched, it covers over 90% of employees' daily questions, which not only saves personnel cost in the long run, but also improves user experience. And the remaining 10% of the questions will be solved by human professionals.

The good news is, in fact, this SIRI already has its 1.0 version which is called CARL—your digital HR assistant helping you fi nd answers to HR questions faster and easier than ever. While on the fl ip side15,there's also the bad news as some of you may wonder if SIRI is stealing my job, especially for employees from call centers I guess. Well, this isn't just for call center operators. I believe you must have heard about the fi rst self-service bank in Shanghai—China Construction Bank—where you cannot fi nd one single bank clerk or account manager or even security guard. And think about those self-driving cars or Skype translator, or even the latest Google Assistant that amazed the world. A recent study predicts that 25 million jobs might disappear over the next decade. I mean artif i cial intelligence is coming and it is rebuilding our jobs—jobs turning from singular-tasked to multi-skilled, repetitive to innovative, and operational to insightful.Imagine your IT helpdesk staあ to be the virtual intelligent assistant maintainer or developer, your junior HR assistant to become the professional career counselor or psychotherapist16, or even jobs currently we do not know—you know those brand new jobs that emerge in the age of robotics.As our technology gets more advanced, more and more jobs are designed to have comprehensive skills and creative ideas. I believe it is high time for us not only to re-design our jobs, but also to unlock our hidden talents and passions in our everyday work so that in the age of artif i cial intelligence, instead of being replaced, we can survive or even thrive with robots which help us fi x those boring routines.

As British writer Serena Mackesy17once said, “Most people have to get to a point where they don't have a choice before they'll change something.” Well, just stop being that “most people” who are forced to change. Start changing your daily work by bringing every little bit new idea that matters, or even ideas that have an adrenaline rush18. It is those innovative ideas and thoughts that separate us from robots and that will def i nitely make our life and work a lot easier and more meaningful as well.

13. FAQ： 即frequently asked questions，常见问题。

14. voice synthesis： 语音合成。

15. on the fl ip side： 反过来说，另一方面。

16. psychotherapist： 心理治疗师。

17. Serena Mackesy： 赛雷娜·麦克西，英国作家，著有畅销小说《坏女孩》。

18. adrenaline rush： 肾上腺素冲击，形容（突发性的）一阵兴奋。