Some of the prospects for our future may sound really daunting. But as long as the world’s leading experts in business and management, sociology, and artificial intelligence stay optimistic about the situation in employment, today college and university graduates can have a good sleep. Unless they’re trying to combine their study and part-time job, of course.
Despite rapid automation of human labor, which is threatening a considerable range of professions with the possibility of extinction, the experts are sure that there is nothing we should worry about. They claim that the introduction of technology and AI in multiple spheres of our life would provide us with even more jobs.
What arguments do these optimists have? Quite impressive and persuasive ones.
For example, Stephane Kasriel, CEO of Upwork – the world’s leading freelance jobs website, makes very promising predictions about the future of employment. So, let’s follow his professional train of thought and see what you can include into your research essay.
Don’t forget to make the correct references.
If Guided by Humans, AI Will Give Us More Jobs
It won’t rob us of them. Although Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and a co-chairman of OpenAI, has recently warned that humanity should be very careful with artificial intelligence and take control over its growing power.
Unlike science fiction, real-world history still can’t give us any examples or data that could prove potential aggressiveness of machines towards their creators. Nevertheless, it’s normal that some of us, even the greatest inventors and engineers of the 21st century, express concern about the future AI and robotics can bring to people. We’re facing massive technological change, another industrial revolution, so nowadays we really can’t say for sure what effect this change will have on employment and workforce.
Consequently, predicting what jobs will disappear in a few decades (yes, some definitely will) is as difficult as predicting what jobs will appear in high demand at the same time. But one thing is absolutely clear.
We shouldn’t fear that AI will eliminate some of the current jobs. The bigger problem is our apparent shortage of knowledge and skills to fill the jobs it will give us. Our safe and happy future is in the smart cooperation with machines, not in the prevention of their potential usurpation.
Besides, machines will need creators and teachers. They will need humans. So, it’s us who will guide technology and decide what it gives and what it takes.
Education Will Re-Orient Towards the Needs of Modern Workforce
It’s an open secret that education of the 21st century doesn’t have enough resources to prepare younger generations adequately for meeting the requirements of today employment, to say nothing of the future in general. Most of professions we have in 2018 tend to get more and more complex, demanding more than a degree in Business and Management, or Chemistry, or Psychology.
A good market analyst must be creative. A good engineer is expected to be sociable. A good teacher of the English language must be able to handle digital technology. The interconnections between different spheres of knowledge and activity are getting tighter. That’s what modern educators and students must realize. That’s what must give impetus for change.
And this change is now happening all around the world, to a greater or lesser extent. Along with the upgrade of schedules, introduction of new, more complex courses, and revolutionization of classic approach to study, project-based learning is the most remarkable innovation within contemporary education system. Simply known as PBL, this teaching method implies that students gain new knowledge and skills not through theory but through active investigation of, research into, and response to authentic and complex challenge.
Probably, that’s exactly what our children and the children of our children will need in a dozen of years. Though interestingly, the idea of such learning was promoted by John Dewey, an American psychologist and philosopher, back in 1897. (It looks like he did know something.)
In Ten Years Workforce Will Freelance, at Least in the US
Stephane Kasriel provides the amazing statistics. According to his calculations, nowadays about 36% of the workforce in the United States are freelancers. That’s almost 60 million American workers! Almost half of them are now in their 20s.
Although it’s not very clear whether Kasriel’s research identifies outsourcing with freelancing, still the numbers herald significant change in the patterns of employment in the near future.
What’s more, huge corporations like Samsung or Pfizer have already turned online to hire freelance workers. Therefore, they’ve set a fine example for other progressive enterprises, encouraging them to look for and develop effective ways to adopt freelance talent. Definitely, that will boost freelancing as a social and economic phenomenon.