Last few years have seen a surge in instances of people being fired due to automation. Last year, one of the India’s largest IT company fired more than 11000 people due to automation in different areas(Source). While a far larger number of people ranging between 360,000 and 670,000 have lost the job due to artificial intelligence in USA.
In a Research published by MIT’s Daron Acemoglu and Boston University’s Pascual Restrepo at the National Bureau of Economic Research, one robot is currently replacing 5.6 human workers. At this pace, one robot introduced over every 1000 humans results in the reduction of salary by 0.25 for each of the human workers.
So, Isn’t the future look bright?
Apparently not. Future doesn’t see to be bright for those unwilling to change or learn. However, if you are willing to change and learn, here are the things you need to learn for a brighter future, backed by science.
Learn the ‘human’ things.
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- Learn things that involve human touch: look at the chart given below, prepared by David Deming of Harvard University. Jobs that require social skills are placed at the higher side of X axix in the chart, showing the jobs that grew or remained same. Jobs that require lower math or social skills have almost died out.
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- If your current job is to go to an office, open some browser tabs, check emails and reply, or if it involves a repetitive thing based on mathematics (or \’rules\’), stop. Quit your job. Find something else to do. Anyone can program every mathematical and repetitive work and in no sooner than 10 years you may find yourself jobless. So run!
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- Learn Social and Mathematical Skills: Computer and machines may be artificially intelligent with the advent of AI, but they are not really intelligent at what human do best: Socialize, teach, learn and discover. Do what as a human you ought to do.
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- Be creative: whether it is poetry, art or genetic engineering – creative people have always thrived so the future of humanity is in remaining and becoming more and more creative every day.
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- Learn how to deal with AI: get a job which involves creating, maintaining/fixing automation or AI tech and teaching robots what to do and how to do it.
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- Get a job requiring empathy: Become counsellors or therapists, or teachers, vets, dentists, fitness trainers, police officers, fire-fighters etc.
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- Work and move beyond your job description: If your job description says you supposed to reply to customer queries, go beyond that and don’t limit yourself.
Conclusion
Sky is the limit for humans who indulge in real human activity: if you are doing something that a robot is ought to do, then you are already on the path to extinction. For everyone else, don’t worry, future is bright.