When I was a teacher, much of my job was about helping students plan for the future. The idea was to determine where in the business world they might be happy and thrive. The process wasn’t difficult, if I could get a child to answer those three important questions: What do you like to do? What are you good at? What will someone pay you to do?
Over 20 years, I posed those queries to just about every student who walked through my classroom door, but looking back, I think I might have failed them, because I never saw Artificial Intelligence coming.
Like many people, I watched those sci-fi films where robots evolved and threatened human existence. Movies like Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 epic 2001: A Space Odyssey, where Hal, the computer with a human personality, took control with deadly consequences. In the same vein are The Matrix, I Robot, Westworld, and Ex Machina, where humans find themselves second-class citizens in a mechanized world.
While I don’t want to go all doom-and-gloom, the rise of the machines will change our world exponentially, primarily in the area of jobs. It’s estimated that within the next 20 years no humans will be working as travel agents, truck and ride-hailing drivers, bank tellers, sports officials, warehouse personnel, cashiers, and fast-food workers. Publications like newspapers and magazines will be entirely digital, jettisoning the folks who print and deliver periodicals. I even saw a video recently about a three-story building that was being assembled using a 3D printer. Only two men were required at the site to monitor the process, eliminating the need for construction workers.
You may have noticed that most of these jobs are considered low-skill positions, occupations that don’t require a big investment in education. But high-skilled employment will not go unchallenged. With ChatGPT—an Open AI model that can speak, think, and grow—jobs held by creatives like authors, artists, musicians, screen writers, and video game and graphic designers are also in peril.
So, what do we do now? We can’t stop AI; no stuffing that genie back into the bottle. It’s estimated that by 2030 between 400 to 800 million jobs will be eliminated by automation. As many as 375 million people will have to find new occupations. That means we must teach people to monitor and adjust. There will be no staying in one career for life. We have to learn to pivot and try new things. Be life-long learners, as the job market changes.
Recently, Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates spoke at the commencement cermony at Northern Arizona University where he offered this advice. “Your life isn’t a one-act play. What you do tomorrow, or for the next ten years, does not have to be what you do forever.”
The good news is that even though many jobs will disappear, others will emerge. A good place to start planning your future is the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a governmental agency that keeps tabs on overall job growth, as well as impending growth in individual occupations over the next ten years.
So strap yourself in and be open to a future that will be everchanging.
It should be quite a ride.
Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.
Author Anne Montgomery 