Obsolescence of knowledge and skills: definitions and solutions

Artificial intelligence (AI) has long threatened to replace humans by machines in certain professions, since the use of AI is likely to significantly increase productivity. Today, the threat, which seemed hypothetical, is becoming a reality, with sometimes entire departments being replaced by AI, as in the case of Onclusive in Courbevoie, where more than half the workforce has been replaced by AI software . The staff replaced were in charge of media monitoring, a task whose skills are clearly no longer needed and have lost their use value for the company due to innovation.

This phenomenon of obsolescence of human skills is not new, but is in fact symptomatic of the various technological and industrial revolutions that are reshuffling the cards of useful skills.

In the past, many professions and sectors have had to adapt or disappear as a result of innovation. However, sometimes these disappearances are harmful later on, when these skills turn out to be critical or even irreplaceable at a certain stage. This can happen with certain programming languages which, although obsolete, can form the core of key programs for companies that no longer have experts in the field. We can see the same problem with skills that have become critical due to the small number of individuals who still possess them; let's take, for example, the trades of craftsmen in the construction of major works such as Notre-Dame de Paris, for the renovation of which it was necessary to relearn not only the trade of carpenter-builder but also that of timber squarer, not forgetting the lost know-how for the manufacture of the tools used in these trades, in this case the know-how of the blacksmith-tailland maker who makes the axes for cutting the timbers.

This raises the more general issue of the obsolescence of human skills and knowledge, and even their disappearance, with all the consequences for organizations and society.

Generally speaking, obsolescence [G 7 022] is a concept that describes the process by which a product, service or practice loses its use value over time, often as a result of technological advances, changes in consumer preferences or evolving social norms