According to
ComputerWorld, Peter Sondergaard, head of global
research at Gartner Research predicted this week at the technology
consultancy’s annual symposium that…
“Knowledge work will be automated,” said Sondergaard, as will
physical jobs with the arrival of smart robots.“Gartner predicts one in three jobs will be converted to
software, robots and smart machines by 2025,” said Sondergaard.
“New digital businesses require less labor; machines will be make
sense of data faster than humans can.”
Sondergaard’s Gartner Research colleague Andrea Di Maio
added:
Jobs will certainly be created, but how many will be
destroyed? Massive automation of manual as well as increasingly
knowledge-intensive tasks on an unprecedented scale, from truck
drivers to police officers, from bank tellers to workers in
publishing companies, from workers in the entertainment in industry
to travel agent, from consultants to teachers, will create
inevitable social tensions even in the most stable societies and
best developed economies. The effectiveness of existing welfare and
lifelong learning mechanisms will be questioned by the sheer number
of people who will not have the right skills for new jobs and by
the simple truth that computers will be replacing humans at a pace
and on a scale that only science fiction work had originally
suggested.Similarly to how accelerated technology evolution makes
today’s technology legacy in a matter of a few years, so entire
generations of workers, experts, skilled people will find
themselves in urgent need of changing their skill set and
reinventing their career path…However, if we accept that there will be uncertainty, if we
accept that the actual shape of the digital economy is hard to
predict, then the only skill that really matters is our ability to
embrace change. But, oddly enough, this may call for different
measures than those we see today. As far as education, is it really
more important to have an early experience in an industry that is
about to disappear, or should our kids actually spend time studying
more theoretical subjects, even philosophy, ancient Latin or basic
maths, to be better thinkers rather than quicker doers?…We tend to look at the half (or even three-quarter) full glass
of digitalization, but we may be denying that it will take our
economies, our societies, our families and ourselves in places that
are more difficult to predict and tougher to live in than we
actually think.
See also my review
of George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen’s Average Is
Over which makes much the same case as the Gartner folks:
The rise and spread of intelligent machines has
led to increasing income inequality and anemic job growth. And this
dynamic is likely to be permanent. Such is the arresting and
depressing thesis proposed by the George Mason University economist
Tyler Cowen in his provocative new book, Average Is Over.The American economy is becoming a “hyper-meritocracy” in which
workers will either be big earners or big losers, Cowen believes.
He blames this bifurcation on the rise of “genius machines,” which
are increasingly doing the routine intellectual work that once
supported millions of middle-income workers. If your skills enhance
the work of ever-more-intelligent machines, you’ll likely be a big
earner. If your skills do not complement the computer, you’re
liable to be a big loser. “Ever more people are starting to fall on
one side of the divide or the other,” writes Cowen. “That’s why
average is over.”
Well, I, for one, am all set with my degree in philosophy.
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