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The future of jobs and education

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

As AI and other Robo automation tools and technologies become increasingly proficient it is increasingly clear that more and more jobs will suffer the same fate – automation.

 

Life is a learning experience, or so they say.

Broadly speaking educational activities can be split into two categories – “Life skills” and “Professional Skills”. The Life skills that we all need to learn and the way we learn them have remained relatively consistent across the ages – how we all learn to communicate, socialise and survive. But you can argue that today’s education system is skewed towards the second category, the teaching of Professional Skills and it’s this category that will face the greatest opportunities and challenges over the next fifty years.

While educators prepare their students for a life of learning it’s more true to say their role is to prepare students for life long careers. But while that was a relatively simple task in the past it’s now much more difficult.

In the past educators could teach someone Law, for example, and it would be fair to say that we could have expected those students to remain gainfully employed within their chosen profession for at least forty years if not until their retirement. Today though technology is replacing paralegals and while I don’t take this view there are sceptics in the legal profession who are publically prosthelysing that their industry will be completely automated by technology within just fifteen years.

In a world where educators are used to educating Generation Y, Z and eventually Alpha students for life long careers what happens when jobs, at least for humans, in those careers – and even across entire industries cease to exist?

Furthermore, and as a demonstration of society’s titanic short sightedness we live in a role based society where the majority of people, particularly in business typically believe that people are only suited to fit one role. A software salesman can’t sell hardware just as a hardware salesman can’t become a lawyer and a lawyer can’t become a data scientist just as a data scientist can’t become a software salesman. And so on. If we are to assuage some of the hundreds of millions of redundancies that we’ll all face in the next twenty years society has to change its thinking. After all there’s no reason why many of us can’t learn new skills.

 

The changing nature of the job market

Over the next twenty years Governments and academia estimate that between 30% and 50% of all of todays jobs will be replaced by technology however, unlike the disruptions of yesteryear where technology replaced Blue Collar jobs todays technologies are replacing White Collar knowledge workers and its this shift that could have dire consequences for you and your children’s future career prospects.

Some of the world’s best self learning Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Computer Systems are already replacing advisors, analysts, artists, commentators, consultants, doctors, journalists, musicians, paralegals, PhDs, teachers, translators and even the data scientists who created their original Algorithmic Models. Machine Vision systems are replacing quality inspectors, maintenance workers, security analysts and security guards. Hardware robots and drones have already replaced many of the Blue Collar factory and warehouse jobs and now they’re replacing bar staff, maintenance workers, porters, soldiers, waiters and surgeons while their new, modern day software only counterparts are replacing administrative staff, customer service clerks and FX traders.

In other areas Autonomous Vehicles – from cars and trucks to aircraft and half a million ton cargo ships are eliminating drivers, operating crews, parking attendants, pilots, sailors and traffic wardens. Avatars are replacing actors, bank tellers, call centre agents, teachers and pre and post sales support staff. Cloud reduced the need for change managers, enterprise architects and operations staff while the Internet of Everything is reducing the need for engineers, inspectors, facilities managers and maintenance staff. Smarter Cities will reduce the need for police, street cleaners and a myriad of other public servants while Wearables and Telehealth are both reducing the demand for secondary care workers, doctors and personal trainers.

The lists go on. Look around you and I’d be surprised if you yourself aren’t already seeing some of these changes occurring – albeit gradually, for the moment. Unlike the industry disruptions of the past though where jobs were destroyed but where new ones sprang up worryingly no one, from the UN to the G8 have any idea what the jobs of the future might look like and while some point towards jobs that need creativity, empathy and social skills the machines are already acquiring those skills…

 

The future of education

Education is one of society’s corner stones – after all as government spokespeople say it’s what prepares us to become “useful and productive members of society” but as the jobs market continues to shift education needs to shift ahead of it – decades ahead in some cases, preparing people for jobs in twenty, thirty, forty and even fifty years time and the less that we talk about people living longer and having to retire even later in life the better… let’s keep things simple here.

The Education Industry has a unique dilemma. On average it has eighteen years to prepare people for careers that span over fifty years and as the pace of technological change continues to accelerate trying to provide people with skills that keep them sharp and employed throughout their lifetime is no small feat. As we’ve seen, if the analysts are right then by 2036 atleast a third of todays jobs, the ones that ostensibly most academic institutions are busy preparing Generation Y and Z for will have taken by the machines.

The upshot of all of this is that the Education Industry needs to be developing hard and soft skill curriculums that prepare their students for a changing world but often the education industry is at least one or two generations behind the technology curve – a curve which is increasing exponentially.

Take for example todays chronic shortages of Cyber Security experts, Data Scientists and Software Developers – roles that are cited time and time again by the Fortune 500 and Governments as being in great demand. For Generation X, who are often at greatest risk of being made redundant these topics, and the subject matter underpinning them would have had to have been included in the 1960’s and 1970’s curriculums and how many academies in the 1960’s prioritised programming as a subject – how many do it today? Even now, as we live and stand in the “Digital Age” the answer is very few. While we could argue that academies are now beginning to catch onto software programming as a crucial part of the curriculum today’s scientists have already moved on and are programming biology. Where are those skills in the curriculum?

The apparent difficulty we have in forecasting the jobs of the future could leave two or more generations struggling for jobs. In the meantime though and curriculums aside the education industry faces a unique opportunity – the opportunity to reach out to everyone on the planet and provide them all with access to insightful, valuable content and there are three areas, Curation, Distribution and Consumption that are all going through paradigm shifts.

 

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Curation

Every one of us has a unique individual learning style so curating educational materials that get the most from each student is no small task. In the past the majority of content was standardised and the same materials were pushed out to every individual in the same way – irrespective of ability or learning style. Inevitably some people took to it and others didn’t and for those who didn’t they got left behind.

Over time course books and course work content became digitised and now we have a plethora of interactive apps, E-Books and other on demand materials. The digitisation of the Education industry, albeit gradual is a turning point. Now in digital form materials are accessible to everyone and everything, humans and machines and as a consequence they can become Smart.

Today all of our educational course materials are curated by humans but there will come a tipping point. By 2030, equipped with Artificial Intelligence and with unlimited access to powerful cloud computing resources curriculum savvy machines will be able to tap into the power of the cloud to create materials that, based on a wealth of available data are specifically tailored to the needs, aspirations and learning styles of each individual student.

Device embedded cameras and machine vision systems will be able to analyse students facial expressions and body language to calculate how engaged and invested they are as well as how easy or difficult they’re finding a particular subject or topic. Behavioural analytics will analyse writing styles, patterns and speeds to measure competency as well as surface the early signs of learning disabilities such as ADHD, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, Dyslexia and even memory problems.

With so many different modes of feed back the AI engines, or AI Directors as they will come to be known will create rich, adaptive, personalised educational materials in real time. Gamified and embedded with AI, behavioural, contextual and semantic analytics, Augmented Reality (AR), Natural Language Processing and Universal Translation and Virtual Reality (VR) content will be able to take on a life of its own even going so far as providing students with their very own, personalised VR teaching Avatar that could take the form of anything from a talking tree to a representation of Jonny Depp.

 

Distribution

Over the past twenty years we have seen a significant change in the way that content is distributed. In the past students had to attend a classroom but now educators including MIT and Harvard as well as corporate organisations like P&G and General Electric are offering students from around the world the opportunity to attend their own versions of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) – courses run over the internet, often for free that have not tens but hundreds of thousands of participants.

The proliferation of new channels creates new opportunities and problems for educators whose curriculums are often standardised and highly regulated. The internet and the proliferation of new “Over the Top” content, via channels that can include YouTube and WhatsApp as well as Disney, Harvard and the app stores means that children have access to a world of new material of variable quality and sometimes questionable perspectives.

As more and more content goes Over The Top (OTT) how we find it and where we find it will also change. Today we’re already beginning to witness the creation of Smart Content – ostensibly the third wave of disruption to hit the content industry. The first being printing and the second being the internet, smart content is content embedded with AI and Machine Learning that rather than waiting for its audience to seek it out seeks them out instead. Imagine, for example content that can analyse and see new trends in the jobs markets months or years before they materialise and that can push the the right types of content to you so you are prepared, virtual CV in hand, for when they materialise.

Today only 3 billion people are connected to the internet but over the next decade new Stratospheric Network Platforms like Google Project Loon, Facebook Project Aquila and OneVu will connect the last 4 billion giving them all the same access that you and I take for granted. While we might think that distribution is already ubiquitous the fact remains that only 40% of the planet is connected and that in itself presents educators with an opportunity.

 

Consumption

Consumption will be one of the most rapidly changing parts of the learning equation. Students will increasing become accustomed to AI, AR, Avatars and VR powered content but over time these technologies will give way to platforms, for which there are already working prototypes, that use Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) to transmit content directly into our brains.

The adoption of all of this content, whether it’s VR or BCI based will always be influenced by accessibility, affordability and design and the easier the content is to absorb the more potential we’ll realise.

The good news is that many of todays modern Millennial organisations have already embraced a culture of design thinking. How many of you think that your three year old would embrace technology so quickly if it was difficult to use – okay, they need your finger to unlock your iPad but I’m guessing, that is if they’re anything like my children that they know how to navigate and use your gadgets with impunity and that in some cases they can use it better than you do.

Today and in the future it’s often the frictionless customer experience, often dubbed Design Thinking that accelerates the pace of new technology adoption. Well thought out and implemented correctly Generation Y, Z and Alpha have already shown us that they will embrace new technologies like ducks to water and as these new technologies get curated into new products and services, moral and ethical implications aside they will have no qualms about embracing technologies and capabilities that not so long ago were thought of as magical.

As one student put it when asked to describe today’s technology to a person from the 1800’s “In my hand I hold all of the world’s information.”

Just think what you could do with that… hmmm.

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