It’s becoming increasingly clearer that the answer to the question of whether machines will take over our jobs is not ‘if’ but ‘when’. It’s also not a future scenario, it’s a current reality for increasingly more and more people.
MSN has a post putting forward 12 Machines that want your job:
- Landline installers are losing jobs as mobile phone companies dominate
- Postal workers are losing their jobs as we increasingly use email, text message and Skype
- Airport check-in clerks are losing jobs as we move to using kiosks to self-check-in
- Warehouses are replacing people with machines that can automatically pick off of shelves and move pallets around
- It won’t be long until truck drivers begin losing their jobs to vehicles that can drive on their own
- Take a look at the article for more….
On one hand the opportunities for freeing up space for us to do new things is tremendous, on the other there are some significantly serious challenges that need to be solved in a ‘New Machine World’.
- Are schools adequately preparing our children for this new world? Are educators even being exposed to this new and currently emerging world?
- How will we solve the certain and growing divide of the have-jobs and the have-not-jobs? How will those who’s jobs have been replaced provide for themselves and their families?
Andrew McAfee from an interview with MIT Technology Review:
The spread between the haves and the have-nots continues to grow, and more importantly, the absolute standard of living of the people at the middle and the bottom goes down. That is the economy that I don’t want to head into.
Find 16 minutes in your day and watch Andrew McAfee’s TED talk…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0RQE3A47Hw
