Self-publishing predictions for the future based on little more than gut feel is the very definition of hubris, if not a personality disorder.
Ready? OK, here we go.
There used to be an appealing fantasy that with enough determination anyone could make it to the top. They used to say, ‘work your way up from the mail room’. Didn’t they? But there is no mail room any more, is there?
In fact, think of any entry level admin job, it’s easy to imagine these types of first-rung-of-the-ladder roles disappearing all together in the next decade. I think about this every time I self-scan chicken thighs in my local Sainsburys Local.
Secretaries were replaced by Personal Assistants who are being replaced by Virtual Assistants, who’ll soon be made obsolete by apps inside our spatial computing visors.
It won’t be too long before my Copilot will talk to yours and they’ll find time in our diary, make lunch reservations, summarise actions and book our Uber back home, that’s if the whole darn thing doesn’t take place in a wholly convincing visual simulation.
The technology will outpace our ability to learn. And worse, it will rub our noses in it without even the faintest hint of shame or sympathy. The vacuum of humanity will take our breath away. Corporations will cheer. After all, no other endeavour better represents the absence of humanity than an S&P 500.
Why would a corporation (whose motive is sustaining growth, profit and shareholder value) invest in training young humans who’ll take years to learn what these new bastard robot machines can master immediately?
Having a management job will be like home ownership, out of reach for many, unless gifted by a kind elder.
In this cheery context it’s my prediction that career paths will diverge in two fundamental ways:
Those that reward us because they are inherently rewarding. For example any job that offers direct useful service to others (care workers, teachers, coaches, nurses, clergy, cooks) because it is in service to others that we find fulfilment and for which it’s hard to imagine there will ever be a convincing synthetic equivalent. Fulfilment will become, in a sense, its own currency.
And innovation. Innovation in the sectors that attend to our universal need for: health, education, transportation, entertainment, the built and natural environment.
The next generation of general AI will give superpowers to the most curious intellectuals of our time, affording them endless possibilities to explore their creativity regardless of their background, resources and connections. Finally, a democratisation of natural talent.
In that sense, a future that forces us to choose between authentic fulfilment or boundless creative invention, feels dazzling to me.
But, I could be wrong.
Comments