THE BAD NEWS
The professions that will be lost in favor of bots in the medium term, those repetitive, routine & predictable)
- transportation and ancillary industries like car manufacturing (already)
- agriculture / food production & packaging
- storage
- manufacturing
- retail
- some medicine
- data entry
- payroll clerks
THE GOOD NEWS
- creative arts (artists, creators, designers, etc., but arguably)
- infrastructure maintenance & engineering (arguably)
- human sciences-related professions (psychologists, etc.)
- scientists
- athletes & ancillary professions (coaches, trainers, etc. but also arguably)
- politicians
- social workers (things like nurses, etc.)
TRENDS
(software is eating the world)
- “technology destroys jobs, but not work”
- perhaps even larger income inequality b/c of automation and ro bots
- rise of the temp-staffing industry (as response to the loss of jobs and elimination of permanent employment), also due to bots
- multi-job future (one person having 7-8 “jobs” in a day)
- people will have to reinvent themselves more than ever
- return of the renaissance man (multi-talented people will benefit the most)
WHY is it happening
- pros:
- progress (the world becomes better overall than it was before automation)
- arguably leaves more time for the displaced people to reform, reorient themselves towards better things, ideally
- albeit forcefully, people will be relived of jobs they hate (which, as a factoid, is most people on this planet), thus free to pursue things they like, or even love.
- a lot more creativity professions will see increased competition
- cons:
- income inequality will widen at the very least, at first
- sudden loss of income for a many people at once, thus straining the socio-economic arrangements various counties and systems have in place (imagine millions of people claiming unemployment and social security funds at once, or making bank runs, etc.)
- pros:
HOW TO (deal with progress, by reinventing oneself)
short term (right now)
- find, among the professions that won’t be immediately taken over by robots & automation, a few that you enjoy thoroughly. See my “ways to find your calling” piece (to be written)
- invest in yourself, heavily! Take as many courses incidental to your passions and talents, hone them to mastery, as the competition will be fierce, to say the least.
- set yourself apart by combining (where it makes sense, of course) more than one profession that won’t be immediately taken over. Example: photography and music composition, or digital editing
medium term
- cultivate a renaissance man (or woman, or gender neutral, whatever) mentality in all your endeavors. Learn many things very well. Really, master them. Use the wealth of world knowledge and even ‘shortcuts’ to getting to mastery. Imagine if your homie Leo DaVinci were alive today. Or if he’d have to compete with you over the next few decades for a job. Who would land it, him or you? My $0.02 is on him. Any given Sunday. Because being great at many things is not only better than being great at one thing, but it used to, and it will be necessary.
- constantly course-correct based on new information available as time goes by. Some seemingly “safe” professions won’t stay that way forever. Keep an eye out for what’s coming, particularly in the long term, and adapt. Take up new goals, pursuits of excellence; that way you will never be out of ‘fashion’
long term
- always seek to bring value to everyone, the world, and everything you enterprise; when commissioned for any task/job/role, overdeliver! I can’t stress this enough. Unless you end up working for your robots overlords…
- always try to find solutions to problems. There will always be work for a ‘fixer’. And there won’t be much work for idle complainers.
- give up the fixed mindset. Growth mindset, baby. That’s where you live. “The sum of parts is greater than the whole” thing. Very few things are zero-sum in this world. Your mindset and mentality ain’t one of them. Regulate your behavior accordingly.
- embrace (this) change. Evolution has wired us all to naturally resist it, in various degrees. But embracing it and working from within change is yielding better results than resisting.