Economic Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Millennials

Emergence of Massive Layoffs & the Future of Jobs

There seems to be a healthy degree of skepticism and apathy around the question of whether machine-learning, algorithms and AI have the potential to make us unemployed. We have years of experience, maybe a white-collar job, how could we be displaced? Experience in management, how could it happen to us?

For Millennials, this is the future we have to look forwards to. We will be asking each other what was our job before the age of Automation? By 2030, the average Millennial will be in their early 40s. The world we will live in, will be quite different. The story of the highly educated professional's life being disrupted, is a story and a narrative that will continue to become more common. 

The age of automation may touch blue collar workers and unskilled workers the most, but it touches everyone post 2025. Could even my job stability be disrupted?

However, that's exactly what think-tanks all over the world are suggesting. With a plethora of information age type events, how many of these will impact jobs:

• Driverless Cars
• Smarter Virtual Personal Assistants (Siri type systems)
• More on-demand services 
• Chat Bots that will disrupt customer service (call centers & SMS)
• Advent of drones, droids, androids, smart OS, responsive environments
• FinTech, blockchain and new startups 
• Machine-learning & Big Data optimizing human systems
• HealthTech and EdTech joining FinTech in disrupting of major institutions
• Maturation of exponential tech such as 3D Printing, Quantum computing, IoT, AR-VR, predictive analytics, Bio-Tech and new forms of AI of course

Experts conservatively estimate 30% of jobs will be automated by 2025. That's less than 10 years from now. 

The Age of Robots?

As a society, we seem more interested in the political debates of today, than the employment reality of tomorrow. We dismiss the age of robots and automation as crazy sci-fi of academics and TedTalk speakers. However, some reputable firms & institutions have been talking about this. 

1. In the UK, Deloitte and the University of Oxford predicted that 10 million unskilled jobs could be taken over by robots.
2. University of Oxford researchers Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne estimated in 2013 that 47 percent of total U.S. jobs could be automated and taken over by computers by 2033.
3. White collar jobs are not safe, and will also be disrupted. 

Researchers are beginning to see that artificial intelligence, robotics, and new disruptive technology are challenging white-collar professions that previously seemed invulnerable.

Stages of Adaptation 

With disruption comes mini-information ages that are periods of transition. The on demand economy is fueling the gig-economy of freelancing and entrepreneurship. The age of automation begins to unpair and decouple salary and work with human meaning and sustenance via a universal basic income (UBI) and other alternatives. 

Millennials in particular will be the ones to organize a post-information economy, or will the elite ensure that capitalism goes on as business as usual for the profit of the few?

However it's still a capitalism rules society, where the rich continue to profit gauge and take great pains to maximize ROI of each stage and each new wave of technology. Technology therefore, doesn't just change our unemployment situation, but the very way we relate to work and $ money. With it, the nature of the nuclear family and the possibility of young people to have start families. 

There will be casualties, increasingly vulnerable populations are already feeling it, huge inequality means some classes will be dangerously disrupted causing social unrest and the strong possibility of economic collapse and political unrest. We've already begun to witness this in: 

• High youth unemployment
• Migration issues
• Rising Wealth inequality 
• High post-graduation unemployment
• Higher debt to household income ratios 
• Unaffordable housing 
• Salaries that don't scale with inflation 
• Governments that don't reveal true unemployment figures (skewed data)
• Governments that don't reveal objective measures of growth 
• Greater public activism as in Brazil

This is not just a debate about the workforce or technology, but the age of automation heralds a changing playing field in human existence that influence nearly every vertical of society as a collective species all over the world. Historically you can see it as a culmination of the industrial age, however it more likely heralds the true beginning of the information age. 

Massive Unemployment 

How do societies and economies cope with massive unemployment? Just ask Greece, Spain, Italy and others. The problem is the unequal distribution of wealth becoming the real social issue, as the age of automation begins to more fully manifest itself. 

The elitism embedded in the less ethical kind of capitalism that now exists, will have to be displaced if we are to survive this age of Automation in a way that's dignified to the majority and not just to the privileged minority and upper-class of society. Massive unemployment will lead to a reset of our society that will also be an unheralded opportunity to create a better and more equal system for all. The sociological & historical consequences for which, we have not seen in hundreds of years. 

A bot-based economy of 2030, is the new normal we have to adapt to now, and not simply continue with a business as usual approach. The on-demand economy is not truly disruptive in comparison, and is just a small ripple before the storm. What kind of a world do we want to live in? What human activities are truly lifestyle and meaning defining for the emotional experience of what we hold most dear? How will we survive economically the transition?

In this series, professionals share how they measure success and use data and hack the future, to the job done. Read more here, then write your own#MyMetric post).  As a future trends analytics, I look at how disruption will impact society and that's the metric I'm most interested in writing about. 

What will you do if  (and when!) you lose your job permanently to AI, machine-learning and automation?

As a futurist, I'll be covering these changes as they relate to Retail technology and many verticals. This automated world is yet another challenge for digital natives (sometimes called Millennials) will have to face and the true future of the Gen Z cohort. What skills will continue to be most in demand in a post-automated economy?