Forbidden Planet
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:
Dutton
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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