Coming soon: Less work, no work, new work

"Are we stepping into a brave new world? Sure are! Will there be opportunities? Opportunities galore await us all. But most of us who are resistant to change, need to remake ourselves into change agents. Why? People who buck change, will be in the 'no work' or 'less work' categories. Those who embrace 'new work', will fit into our future nicely, thank you." 

For those who put stock in the monthly jobs report - don't bother. It is only a blip on the radar. The real story is what lies beyond those reports. BTW (as an aside) - the Nobel Prize for Physics was just award to a couple of gents for their work in AI. So what? Here is the "what". With all the amazing developments in science this past year, this spooky science of AI is all of a sudden becoming real science with a real future. And AI, along with the coming wave of robotics, is going to reshape almost everything.

Before this decade is over, and if you are fortunate enough to still have a job, working next to a non-human robot will become more ordinary than unordinary. As another aside, I got a kick out of reading about a city in the Pacific Northwest who just raised their minimum wage to $20 and change. What these nincompoops who work in local government do not realize is this - that kind of a wage for unskilled workers, will only speed up the pace of automation to replace those jobs.

Remember the Longshoreman's strike which is now on pause? The membership of that union is scared to death about automation. They know of ports in countries in the Western Pacific which have automated many of their port functions. The upside? They run faster with much less cost or delays. The downside? Fewer humans and much more automation. And that is only the start. The Longshoremen which handle the ports in the eastern part of our nation, want a guarantee that for six years (the term of the contract), there will be no jobs lost to automation. Well, good luck on that one!

I have railed in the past about our public schools not preparing our young kids for the future. Will the future be scary? No, but it will be much different. How so? There will be less work, no work, and new work. All this is dependent on the type of jobs these young folks go into. Jobs which require the least skill, will be the first to go. That is the "no jobs" category. Many jobs which remain, will be on borrowed time. To replace a human with a non-human who can work 24 x 7 with no breaks, no sick time, no paychecks, and no benefits - will be very tempting for many companies. Pink slips will be as common as paychecks once automation really gets rolling.

But - there will also be a plethora of new jobs. I read an article recently about what the "hot jobs" were right now. Eight out of ten had some kind of AI skills required. And that is today. Soon many new jobs will be a wanting and there will be few folks qualified to fill them. What jobs are those? Unknown, as most have not yet been invented. But as soon as they are invented, they will need to be staffed. 

Are we stepping into a brave new world? Sure are! Will there be opportunities? Opportunities galore await us all. But most of us who are resistant to change, need to remake ourselves into change agents. Why? People who buck change, will be in the "no work" or "less work" categories. This who embrace "new work", will fit into our future nicely, thank you.