AUTOMATE YOUR LOVE
Automation has always been problematic, but it is not all doom and gloom.
We think of automation as a modern phenomenon, however one of the first major upsets was in the textile industry in the 19th century with the invention of the Threshing Machine.
Even without robotic arms, mysterious flashing lights, or terrifying Terminator/iRobot/Space Odyssey connotations, the adoption of the Threshing Machine in factories was enough to bring about the creation of a oath-based militant group who stole into factories at night and smashed the machines to pieces, if they weren’t burning the places down entirely.
The resistance came from a fear or frustration about losing their livelihood, which is quite understandable. The same is true today when ‘the machines’ threaten jobs, or even whole industries. However, comedian John Oliver rightly states ‘a job automated is not necessarily a job lost’, and as such fear may not the an appropriate response.
He rightly states that automation replaces tasks, not people. Through automation we are able to do more with fewer resources, and often new jobs open up in place of the ones that were lost. For example, when ATM became the primary way that people withdraw cash, the people that used to work as bank tellers were free to perform different tasks, and employment in the banking industry actually went up.
It is important to consider that most of what we do now didn’t exist 100 years ago. In fact there are whole industries that didn’t exist 100 years ago. In the early 1900s 40% of people in America worked in agriculture. Today this number is 2%. This does not mean that this 38% percent of the population that would have been working in agriculture now have nothing to do. What it means is that they are doing jobs that no one back then could have predicted would exist.: Software engineer, digital marketer, influencer etc.
Given that the world’s technological advancement shows no sign of slowing down, we can safely assume that many of the jobs people now do will performed by machines or software in the future, but that there will be new trades and professions available that aren’t around now.
From this we can say with a reasonable degree of confidence that one’s ability to learn will become an increasingly important. Our ability to be adaptable and pick up new skills will most likely define how successful we are. We may even have to throw out the idea of a single career in future. It may come to pass that having 4 or more distinctly different roles throughout our lives may be the norm.
While this may sound frightening, it is also invigorating. The fact that the whole world regularly needs to start from scratch in terms of learning a new skill set, means that there is the opportunity for newcomers to be successful.
Computer giant Dell claim that: 85% of jobs that will exist In 2030 haven’t been invented yet, so no one currently has the monopoly on them, there are no incumbent power houses that dominate these fields.
Industries such as renewable energy will grow in size, neuroscience may reach a point where memory surgery is possible, organ farming could well become a thing, and, less horrifyingly, refuse disposal will no doubt be something that needs managing creatively and at scale as the population of the world hurtles ever upwards.
With automation being a constant (at the slowest), are you ready for the world it is creating?