Jobless Future

In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers revived a debate between Vivek Wadhaw, a technology entrepreneur and academic, and futurist Ray Kurzweill, about the jobless future.

Summers echoed the words of Peter Diamandis, who says we are moving from a history of scarcity to an era of abundance. Then he noted that the technologies that make such abundance possible are allowing production of far more output using far fewer people.

Wadhaw, in his own research, agrees with Summers’ beliefs. “Within two decades,” he says, “we will have almost unlimited energy, good, and clean water; advances in medicine will allow us to live longer and healthier lives; robots will drive our cars, manufacture our goods, and do our chores.”

The unfortunate reality is, however, that this won’t leave much work for human beings. The exact same situation occurred in the industrial age, and individuals like Henry Ford became renowned for their ability to increase productivity using machines without decreasing employment. Summers remains hopeful this approach can be duplicated by our governments, that they can create “enough work for all who need work for income, purchasing power, and dignity,” but Wadhaw states he’s wrong on all accounts.

Changes in technology are happening at a scale which was unimaginable before and will cause disruption in industry after industry. There won’t be much work left for human beings following our advancements. Wadhaw believes self-driving cars will be commercially available by the end of this decade, eventually displacing human drivers-just as automobiles displaced the horse and buggy-and will eliminate the jobs of taxi, bus, and truck drivers. Drones will take the jobs of postmen and delivery people.

Robots and 3-D printing have made it cheaper to manufacture in the United States and Europe than in China. Robots are already replacing manufacturing workers and industrial robots have advanced to the state at which they are capable of doing the same physical work as human beings. The operating cost of some robots is now less than the average Chinese worker. Unlike any human worker, however, robots don’t complain, join labor unions, are prone to work-place injuries, or get distracted. They are prepared to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and require minimum maintenance. Slowly, robots are predicted to take the jobs of farmers, pharmacists, and grocery clerks.

The manufacturing industry isn’t the only sector that’s about to be shaken up. The reinvention of finance, health care, the energy industry, and communications are each individually and collectively about to receive a makeover that’ll leave the face of our world unrecognisable.

We are already witnessing a controversy over Bitcoin as many technology and retail companies are supporting it.  Crowdfunding is stirring up the venture-capital industry and making it less relevant because it provides start-ups with an alternative for raising seed capital. We will soon be able to crowdfund loans for houses, cars, and other goods. With card less transactions for purchasing goods, we won’t need the types of physical banks and financial institutions that we presently have.

Medical sensors in our smartphones, clothing, and bathrooms will soon be monitoring our health on a minute-to-minute basis. Genome sequencing combined with electronic medical records, and lifestyle and genetic data, will provide enough information for physicians to focus on preventing disease rather than curing it; medications can then be prescribed based on individual genome rather than the current one-size-fits-all basis of today. The more information we are gaining access to has become too overwhelming for humans to effectively analyse. Artificial intelligence not only can analyse it, but can do so at the same rate of discovery.

Carl Bass, Autodesk CEO, once described our future as: “The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.”

The governments of today are incapable of keeping up with the advances that are happening in technology, let alone develop economic policies for employment. Even the courts are struggling to understand the legal and ethical issues of advancing technologies. The industrial age lasted a century, and its consequent changes have happened over generations. Now we have start-ups rewriting the matrix mainframe at rates beyond measurable human competence.

Five years ago, the world was panicked over running out of oil. Today, solar energy is only one of maybe a hundred advancing technologies that could disrupt the energy industry and eclipse the fossil-fuel industry. Competition between communication companies alleviates landline businesses with the rise of mobiles, which in turn is then replaced with data, which then leads to a fight for wider Wifi ranges.

The speed of internet is parallel to our speed of advancement, but our governments have not a clue how to protect our data and personal information, control cable and internet monopolies, regulate advances in genetics and medicine, and tax the sharing economy that companies such as Uber and AirBnb inhabit. Wadhaw asks the question, “How are policy makers going to grapple with entire industries’ disruptions in periods that are shorter than election cycles?”

No matter what the jobs of the future are, it is guaranteed they will require greater skill and education. Manufacturers who want to bring production back already complain they can’t find enough skilled workers in the U.S. for their automated factories. Technology companies that write the software also complain about the shortages of workers with the skills they need. We are being educated by a generation that wasn’t prepared for the advancements we’ve already made and are going to make.

In every industry, a major disruption is happening. 10, 15, even 20 years from now the world will not look the way it does today. The vast majority of companies who are presently leaders in their industries will likely not even exist. This is because industry executives are either unaware of changes that are coming, are reluctant to invest the type of money that is be required for them to reinvent themselves, or are protecting legacy businesses. Most are focused on short-term performance.

Regardless, we have a predicted 10-15 years in which there is a role for humans. In the U.S. and Europe, the number of available jobs will actually increase before it decreases. The increase will be in the building of new factories, robots needing production and programming, and new infrastructure needing development. The installation of new hardware and software on existing cars to make them self-driving will require new auto mechanics. Our future needs to manufacture new medical sensors, install increasingly efficient solar panels, and write new automation software. After these are all accomplished, however, we will reach a cliff that will roll us off into an economic downfall.

We are at a pivotal point of opportunity in our economic state where we need to realize our personal desires. Passion will become our new driving force as jobs become scarce. Confucius stated, “Choose a job you love and you will never work a day in your life,” and it has become truer now than ever before. Our future is predicted to be bleak, but with greater potential for growth in the human experience than ever before. Don’t stress about getting the right job right now because that job may not actually still be there for you in the coming decades.

It’s not a bleak future we’re describing. A jobless future is still full of potential. Instead of focusing on what isn’t, focus your energy on the pursuit of happiness, on what kind of a person you want to be, and what you’d like to contribute. Jobs may become scarce, but volunteering will never become extinct. Following your passions over following the trail of money will become the next entrepreneurial experience, and deviated definitions of a job will become the norm. Longer and healthier lives alleviate the immediacy of finding a partner and having children early, allowing a greater span of time to explore yourself and explore this world. Advocating for travel may pay off in the long-run when the jobs of today are relinquished to the jobs of tomorrow.