A Blueprint for How We Can Beat the Robots

No matter where you go, people are worried about the future of jobs and their careers.

A generation ago white-collar middle managers worried about losing their jobs in corporate restructuring. Now the question on the minds of workers, from small-town accountants to Wall Street lawyers, is not whether their job will be downsized or outsourced to a person overseas, but whether it will be given to a robot.

We have reason to be worried.

The world is moving at a dizzying speed, and nowhere is the pace of change more noticeable than in the modern workplace. Advances in automation and artificial intelligence pose a threat to blue-collar and white-collar occupations in almost every industry. The skills needed to keep up in almost any job are increasingly churning at a faster rate. Couple the automation trends in the workplace with the changing nature of work itself: nearly all new job growth these days is in contract and freelance work in the gig economy.

A new book by the president of Northeastern University is a well-argued and interesting take on how our education system can adapt to help workers complement technology rather than try to compete with it.

While much of the popular press about how technology will disrupt work focuses on working-class jobs from convenience store cashiers to long-haul truck drivers—an issue that was a driving force in President Trump’s rhetoric about displaced workers during the 2016 election—even the college-educated among us are worried about whether our occupations, let alone our jobs, will last until retirement. And if the jobs don’t last, then what? How and where will we get training for what’s next? That is if anyone really knows what is to come.

While plenty of economists, technologists and futurists are trying to guess what is next, few of them discuss how education should adapt to the changing realities of the workforce. That is, until now, thanks to a new book by Joseph Aoun, the president of Northeastern University.

Aoun is one of the most thoughtful and innovative university presidents I’ve met in my two decades of covering higher education around the world. His book, Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, is a well-argued and interesting take on how our education system can adapt to help workers complement technology rather than try to compete with it.

Aoun’s book is not tedious policy tome nor is it just for educators. Indeed, business leaders and those responsible for recruiting and cultivating talent in an ever-changing workplace will find its engaging stories and level-headed recommendations useful. I recently caught up with President Aoun to find out why he’s so optimistic about the future of work and how more schools and colleges can develop a robot-proof curriculum.

My exchange with him follows.

Q. Although many of the advances in artificial intelligence were created in labs on university campuses, do you think that higher education leaders are appropriately focused on the consequences of AI and automation for the future of their institutions? 

I know of only one or two universities that have adapted their academic planning to prepare for the revolution of artificial intelligence. The facts are clear: Smart machines are getting smarter, and many of the jobs performed by people today are going to disappear. Some studies predict that half of all U.S. jobs will be at risk within the next 20 years. And it’s not just blue-collar jobs; today, intelligent machines are picking stocks, doing legal research, and even writing news articles. Simply put, if a job can be automated in the future, it will be. On the flip side, new jobs will emerge—including jobs we can’t even imagine today.

We have to make sure that as we teach the essential technical and data literacies of the 21st century, we do so in a way that simultaneously develops in learners the higher order mental skills—systems thinking, creativity, and critical thinking—they’ll need to be robot-proof.

While we’ve heard a lot about the expected job loss attributed to artificial intelligence, very few are talking about the implications for higher education. We owe it to our students to be thinking about how to prepare them for the coming sea change to the future of work.

In my book, I offer a blueprint for how we can accomplish this. We will need to re-envision the curriculum, invest in experiential education, and put lifelong learning at the heart of what we do.

It will not be easy, but we have a responsibility—to the students of today and tomorrow—to change the way we do business.

Q. You lay out a new learning model for the future, with three new literacies and cognitive capacities to make students robot-proof. But many higher education institutions are not focused on these literacies and capacities. Does this require us to change the higher education system as we know it or can tweaking the status quo get us to where we need to be for your new learning model?

I call my new learning model “Humanics,” which is the curriculum for a “Robot-Proof” education. It is based on the purposeful integration of technical literacies, such as coding and data analytics, with uniquely human literacies, such as creativity, entrepreneurship, ethics, cultural agility, and the ability to work in diverse teams.

Higher education has the elements for a Robot-Proof model, but we need to be much more intentional about how we integrate them. As I’ve mentioned, our curriculum needs to change so that technical and human literacies are truly unified.

We have to make sure that as we teach the essential technical and data literacies of the 21st century, we do so in a way that simultaneously develops in learners the higher order mental skills—systems thinking, creativity, and critical thinking—they’ll need to be robot-proof.

Q. The book lays out a compelling argument for experiential learning, which of course, Northeastern has been a leader in for decades. Yet only a handful of institutions have embedded co-op programs throughout the curriculum like Northeastern has. Why are so many colleges and universities still focused on theory and not on theory and practice?

I believe that experiential education is the most powerful way to learn, and therefore the ideal delivery system for the humanism curriculum I outline in the book.

This means recognizing that learning happens beyond the classroom, through co-ops and meaningful internships. These experiences impart independence, problem-solving skills, teamwork, and deepen understanding from “what” into “why.” By experiencing the world, students learn a broader, more empathetic way of thinking. Moreover, student learning and faculty teaching is enriched by the cutting-edge, real-time experiences students bring back into the classroom.

For too long, we have debated a false dichotomy that pits the liberal arts against science and technology.

While it’s true that only a small number of institutions have developed co-op throughout the curriculum, many are moving in this direction. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t receive a call from university leaders—many from outside the U.S.—asking how they can develop experiential learning programs.

For many institutions, it’s easier said then done. There are high barriers to entry. For example, at Northeastern, we have 3,000 employer partners across the globe and a campus infrastructure to help student pursue their academic journey. There are also cultural barriers, such as getting faculty members comfortable with being questioned by students who have fresh and relevant experience.

I wouldn’t expect a majority of colleges and universities to build what it has taken Northeastern more than a century to develop, but seeing so many institutions move in an experiential direction is good for learners.

Q. You write in the book about “systems thinking,” arguing students who are able to connect the dots will be able to compete with machine learning. But most of higher education is still organized in silos, around disciplines. Even majors are siloed on most campuses. Is this a call to get rid of majors, departments, or even schools within universities?

When I talk to business leaders they tell me that they are seeking people with strong technical skills. But most quickly add that they would give their right arm for more systems thinkers— “quarterbacks” who can lead diverse teams by seeing across disciplines. And every student should be culturally agile, able to communicate across boundaries, and think ethically.

For too long, we have debated a false dichotomy that pits the liberal arts against science and technology. To be sure, the jobs of the future will require advanced technical knowledge and individuals with STEM competencies. But because machines are not original or flexible thinkers, the jobs that only humans can do will also require creativity, judgment, ethics, and critical thinking.

The key is purposeful integration. As you suggest, we need to break down the academic silos that have been built up over time based on a faculty-centric view of the curriculum, not a learner centric view.

Q. Most of the discussions about the future of work are downright scary and imagine scenarios where millions of talented people will be unemployed. You tend to be optimistic in the book. Why?

It’s true that the scope and pace of the changes driven by artificial intelligence are unprecedented. As a result, many more jobs are at risk than ever before. And as intelligent machines replace more white-collar workers, the wage gap between less educated and more educated is likely to increase, exacerbating inequality.

I’m optimistic because we have a blueprint to make students robot-proof. We know the changes that are necessary to innovate and adapt.

Just as higher education stepped up to meet the demands of the agricultural and industrial revolutions in generations past, I’m confident institutions can prepare the learners of today for the A.I. revolution of tomorrow.

Nothing less than our nation’s future economic success depends on our doing so. 

Jeffrey Selingo is author of There Is Life After College: What Parents and Students Should Know About Navigating School to Prepare for the Jobs of Tomorrow. You can follow his writing here, on Twitter @jselingo, on Facebook, and sign up for free newsletters about the future of higher education at jeffselingo.com.

He is a regular contributor to the Washington Post’s Grade Point blog, a professor of practice at Arizona State University, and a visiting scholar at Georgia Tech's Center for 21st Century Universities.