Work and Educationin the Age of Automation

ALEJANDRO CROSTHWAITE

Introduction

A majority of experts predict that by2025 automation will dominate vastareas of our daily way of life. In thework environment, the main impact

of this automation will be on “health care, transportand logistics, customer service, and home main-tenance” (Smith and Anderson 2014: 5). Althoughmost experts agree on the key areas of evolutionin automation and the future meaning of work,they are divided on its impact on economics,labor and education.

The Growing Automation of Work

Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet& Society Fellow Justin Reich sees automationprogressively supplanting repetitive types of labor—”even the complex routines performed by arti-sans, factory workers, lawyers, and accountants”(Smith and Anderson 2014: 11). A networkscientist for BBN Technologies noted that “interms of the large-scale, mass-produced economy,the utility of low-skill human workers is rapidlydiminishing, as many blue-collar jobs (e.g., inmanufacturing) and white-collar jobs (e.g., pro-cessing insurance paperwork) can be handledmuch more cheaply by automated systems”(Smith and Anderson 2014:14). And a data pro-grammer and data analyst foresees that,

Automated vehicles yield the elimination of schoolbus drivers, truck drivers, taxi cab drivers, thepurchase of cars themselves (as opposed to Uber-style access and ‘pay for time used’). This, inturn, impacts police forces (no speeding or parkingtickets) as their revenue streams diminish, fewerER doctors and nurses (as the number of accidentsdecline), massive change in the auto insurancecompanies and mechanisms. 3-D printing of struc-tures (houses, apartments, boats, cars, etc.) yieldsmassive layoffs in the construction and manufac-

turing industries. 3-D printing itself dramaticallyreduces the need for factories in China, Korea,etc., which in turn reduces the need for freightersplying the oceans (and the ones that are left willbe autonomous with little to no crew). Nano-drones and robotic support for farming will dra-matically modify (reduce) the number of peopleemployed in the agriculture sector (Rainie andAnderson 2017: 1).

However, Chief Economist for Google HalVarian envisages a future with less “dull, repetitive,and unpleasant work,” and with a more justbalance between work and leisure (Pew Foundation2014: 6). Retired computer software engineerfrom IBM, Francois-Dominique Armingaud,agrees and adds that this will “allow people tospend more life with their loved ones instead ofspoiling it with overtime while others are strugglingin order to access work” (Smith and Anderson2014: 6).

A Positive View on the Impact of Auto-mation on Work

According to the Pew Foundation’s 2014 canvassingof experts in the field of economics and technology,52% predict that automation “will not displacemore jobs than it creates by 2025” (Smith andAnderson 2014: 5). Although, like many naysayers,they expect that many jobs will be automated andthus disappear, they also believe that new typesof jobs will be needed and created to interact withthe new technologies (Smith and Anderson 2014:5). They also argue that the resourcefulness ofhuman ingenuity to adapt when there have beenparadigm shifts in the labor market in the past —not to mention that many will react to automationitself— has been demonstrated and will encouragethe development of new types of activities thatwill market quintessentially human skills (Smithand Anderson 2014: 5).

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PhD and Director of the Media Psychology Re-search Center Pamela Rutledge explains that“advances in AI and robotics [will] allow peopleto cognitively offload repetitive tasks and investtheir attention and energy in things where humanscan make a difference” (Smith and Anderson2014: 3). Chief scientist for Salesforce.com J.P.Rangaswami argues that the impact of automationwill vary according to the different economies:“Some classes of jobs will be handed over to the‘immigrants’ of AI and robotics, but more willhave been generated in creative and curating ac-tivities as demand for their services grows expo-nentially while barriers to entry continue to fall.For many classes of jobs, robots will continue tobe poor labor substitutes” (Pew Foundation 2014:2). Moreover, retired European Union official,board member for EURid.eu, and Internet Societyleader, Christopher Wilkinson, sees the impactof automation by 2025 to be limited mostly tobanking, retailing, and transportation (Smith andAnderson 2014: 3).

These experts’ expectations are based onseveral assumptions held by those who hold apositive view on the impact of automation onwork. These experts maintain that history, sincethe First Industrial Revolution, has shown thatrevolutions in technology need and generate in-novative occupations while substituting older orobsolete ones. Also, certain jobs or skills canonly be performed by humans: tasks that require“empathy, creativity, judgment, or critical thinking”to name a few (Smith and Anderson 2014: 3).

Although these “positive-outlook” experts areconcerned that our present-day financial, gov-ernmental, and scholastic institutions are not ca-pable of giving a positive spin to the future ofautomation, many of them believe that these in-stitutions are capable enough to minimize itsmost negative aspects (Smith and Anderson 2014:3). Finally, even those who predict the fast andunavoidable automation of work believe that theadvances of automation by the year 2025 willnot be substantial enough to significantly impactthe labor market —the 10-year time-frame issimply too short.

A Negative View on the Impact of Au-tomation on Work

In the same 2014 canvassing of experts, 48%predict that a large amount of manual and mana-gerial occupations will disappear (Smith and An-derson 2014: 5). This will exponentially increase

income inequality, unemployment, and disruptthe current social, political and economic order.

These experts’ negative view on the impactof automation on work is based primarily on thefact that we are already experiencing higher un-employment due to the automation of some eco-nomic sectors and that this can only worsen inthe near future. These higher rates of unemploy-ment and job displacement will only increase thealready widening breach between the haves andthe have-nots at the national and internationallevel (Smith and Anderson 2014: 11).

Internet law and policy expert Robert Cannonexpects that “everything that can be automatedwill be automated” (Smith and Anderson 2014:10). The Economist’s digital editor Tom Standagepoints out that today’s automation revolution ishappening at a much faster pace than previousrevolutions, due to its versatility and growingcapabilities; whereas “previous technologicalrevolutions happened much more slowly, sopeople had longer to retrain, and [also] movedpeople from one kind of unskilled work toanother” (Smith and Anderson 2014: 10).

Founder of the Relationship Economy eXpe-dition (REX), Jerry Michalski, shares the viewthat the robotizing of most human work is years,not decades away; and that the lone servicesspared will be jobs that “require local humaneffort (gardening, painting, babysitting), distanthuman effort (editing, coaching, coordinating),and high-level thinking/relationship building”(Smith and Anderson 2014: 10). In consequence,Justin Reich anticipates that non-routine jobswill increase in the service market, which can bedone by most anyone, but “these will not pay aliving wage— and there will be some new op-portunities created for complex non-routine work,but the gains at this top of the labor market willnot be offset by losses in the middle and gains ofterrible jobs at the bottom” (Smith and Anderson2014: 11). Consequently, Tom Standage concludesthat the “income gap between skilled workerswhose jobs cannot be automated and everyoneelse will widen, [becoming] a recipe for instability”(Smith and Anderson 2014: 5).

As a programmer and data analyst stated,“The combination of nanotechnology and AI willactually reduce the number and type of jobs (aswe currently understand the term). I foresee sig-nificant economic, social, cultural turmoil overthe coming 10 to 20 years, with millions ofpeople thrown out of work –with little to no ‘of-

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ficial’ jobs available for them” (Rainie and An-derson 2017: 1).

Changing Meaning of Work

Both those who predict a positive as well as anegative impact of automation on work agreethat automation will change humanity’s connectionto work itself “by returning to a focus on small-scale or artisanal modes of production, or bygiving people more time to spend on leisure,self-improvement, or time with loved ones”(Smith and Anderson 2014: 14).

Many of these experts also envision that themeaning of work itself will change with the au-tomation of work. Architect of the evolution ofthe World Wide Web and professor of computerscience at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, JimHendler, states that “the notion of work as a ne-cessity for life cannot be sustained if the greatbulk of manufacturing and such moves to ma-chines” (Smith and Anderson 2014: 6). Internetpioneer and technology innovator Bob Frankstonconcurs and sustains that “we’ll need to evolvethe concept of a job as a means of wealth distri-bution” (Smith and Anderson 2014: 13). Thus,according to Senior Fellow at the Center for aStateless Society, Kevin Carson, “the concept of‘jobs’ and ‘employment’ will be far less mean-ingful, because the main direction of technologicaladvance is toward cheap production tools… thatundermine the material basis of the wage system”(Pew Foundation 2014: 14). This will lead, ac-cording to Carson, to an “increased employmentin small shops, increased project-based work onthe construction industry model, and increasedprovisioning in the informal and householdeconomies and production for gift, sharing, and

barter” (Smith and Anderson 2014: 14).As a network scientist for BBN Technologies

explains, We can already see some hints of reaction to thistrend in the current economy: entrepreneurially-minded unemployed and underemployed peopleare taking advantages of sites like Etsy and Ta-skRabbit to market quintessentially human skills.And in response, there is increasing demand for‘artisanal’ or ‘hand-crafted’ products that weremade by a human. In the long run this trend willactually push toward the re-localization and re-humanization of the economy, with the 19th- and20th-century economies of scale exploited wherethey make sense (cheap, identical, disposablegoods), and human-oriented techniques (both olderand newer) increasingly accounting for goods andservices that are valuable, customized, or long-lasting (Smith and Anderson 2014: 14).

The Director of the Institute for Communication& Leadership IKF David Krieger concludes that“labor is a creature of the industrial age and willdisappear with automation of production in allareas. Humans will no longer be divided intocapitalists and workers, but will need to find anew self-definition based on creativity andmeaning instead of labor and management”(Rainie and Anderson 2017: 3).

Education in the Age of Automation

Most of the experts canvassed in 2014 by thePew Foundation agreed, despite their differentviews on the impact of automation on work, that“our existing social structures —and especiallyour educational institutions— are not adequatelypreparing people for the skills that will be neededin the job market of the future” (Smith and An-

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derson 2014:5).Pamela Rutledge underlines that “there will

be many things that machines can’t do, such asservices that require thinking, creativity, synthe-sizing, problem-solving, and innovating” (Smithand Anderson 2014: 8). In simple terms, only themost uniquely human-skilled persons will surviveautomation. However, pioneering Internet soci-ologist and self-employed writer, consultant, andeducator, Howard Rheingold, laments that the“education systems in the U.S. and much of therest of the world are still sitting students in rowsand columns, teaching them to keep quiet andmemorize what is told to them, preparing themfor life in a 20th century factory” (Smith andAnderson 2014: 12). J. P. Rangaswami warnsthat “driven by revolutions in education and intechnology, the very nature of work will havechanged radically —but only in economies thathave chosen to invest in education, technology,and related infrastructure” (Smith and Anderson2014: 5).

According to the experts canvassed, educationitself will have to evolve in the near future. Edu-cation will have to take place mainly on-lineeither as “self-directed… offered or required byemployers… [or] hybrid online/real-world classes”(Rainie and Anderson 2017:7). The best 21st

century curricula will provide the skills to bepermanent learners. Traditional universities willstill play a role but they will have to diversifyand differentiate focusing on hard-to-teach humanskills such as “emotional intelligence, curiosity,creativity, adaptability, resilience and criticalthinking” (Rainie and Anderson 2017: 4). Thistype of “institutional” education will need to beenhanced by some exploitation of “augmentedand virtual reality elements and gaming sensibil-ities” (Rainie and Anderson 2017: 4).

Even though by 2025 corporations and busi-nesses will still tend to give more credence totraditional college degrees, more and more theywill accept “alternate credentialing systems asself-directed learning options and their measuresevolve practical, experiential learning via ap-prenticeships and mentoring” (Rainie and Anderson2017: 7). In a few words, the true test of an em-ployee’s knowledge will be their real-workresumes (Rainie and Anderson 2017: 7).

Professor in the department of sociology atthe University of Nevada, Las Vegas, SimonGottschalk, believes that the types of skills thatwill be valuable in the higher paying jobs will be

“the ability to efficiently network, manage publicrelations, display intercultural sensitivity, mar-keting, and generally what author Dan Golemanwould call ‘social’ and ‘emotional’ intelligence.[This also includes] creativity, and just enoughcritical thinking to move outside the box” (Rainieand Anderson 2017: 4-5).

Professor emeritus of communications andlongtime distance-learning expert from the Uni-versity of Sao Paulo, Fredric Litto, notes that“we are now in the transitional stage of employersgradually reducing their prejudice in the hiringof those who studied at a distance, and movingin favor of such ‘graduates’ who, in the workplace,demonstrate greater proactiveness, initiative, dis-cipline, collaborativeness –because they studiedonline” (Rainie and Anderson 2017: 5).

Nevertheless, a data programmer and dataanalyst cautions that a predicted “60 to 80 millionAmericans alone will be thrown out of work inthe next two decades. There is nothing the vastmajority of these people can be trained on thatwill replace the income/work they do today”(Rainie and Anderson 2017: 1). Systems architectand policy analyst at the Protocol TechnologiesGroup, Miles Fidelman, agrees:

The trend is pretty clear. We will need less ‘workers’in the future. For a long time, science fiction pre-sented us with visions of a world where machinesdid all the work, and people enjoyed leisure,artistic pursuits, etc. These days, a more dystopianreality is emerging –where a few party, a fewmore do a lot of work, and growing numberssearch for work. We’re going to need a fundamentalreshaping of our economy, not training people forjobs that are simply not going to be there (Rainieand Anderson 2017: 3).

A current engineering student concurs:

New job training will be irrelevant, as the transitionfrom labor to automation will be an exponentiallyaccelerated one. The solution will be democraticsocialism to redistribute money, as no one willhave the buying power to purchase goods as [there]will not be enough jobs. This democratic socialisttransition will lead us to the post-capitalism, post-scarcity society… This is not a problem of education–indeed, it is easier than ever before for someoneto self-educate– rather, it is an inevitable stage inhuman civilization that must be managed by vastlyincreasing state-funded welfare (for example, aUniversal Basic Income) (Rainie and Anderson2017: 1).

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Conclusion

Most experts predict that by2025 automation will be anintegral part of our daily lives.This automation may especiallyeliminate certain jobs in theblue-collar sector but it willalso impact white-collar work-ers –where highly-skilled work-ers may thrive but the vastmajority will end up in lowerpaying service jobs or perma-nent unemployment. However,based on historical trends sincethe First Industrial Revolution,new types of employment willbe needed and created. Also,human adaptability and inge-nuity, as well as education,will generate new types of oc-cupations that will emphasizedistinctively social compe-tences like empathy, creativity,judgment, or critical thinking.This reality will transform themeaning of work in our dailylives mostly in a more encour-aging and humanly advanta-geous way. This will be espe-cially true if today we makethe right choices in govern-mental and social policies andexpressly in education. Unfortunately, most expertsagree that our present-day financial, governmental,and scholastic institutions are poorly equipped todeal with the current and coming automation togive it a positive and socially beneficial outcome.

A large number of experts likewise remind usthat both potentially positive and negative impactsof automation on work are not inevitable. Ulti-mately, we humans are in control, to a greater orlesser extent, of the final impact of automationon work. As put by the Editor-in-chief and pub-lisher of the MIT Technology Review, JasonPontin, “there’s no economic law that says thejobs eliminated by new technologies will inevitablybe replaced by new jobs in new markets... All ofthis is manageable by states and economies: butit will require wrestling with ideologically fraughtsolutions, such as a guaranteed minimum income,and a broadening of our social sense of what isvaluable work” (Smith and Anderson 2014: 15).

Bibliography

Pew Research Center. 2014. The State of AmericanJobs. Philadelphia, PA: Pew Research Center.

RAINIE, Lee, and Janna Anderson. 2017. TheFuture of Jobs and Jobs Training. Philadelphia,PA: Pew Research Center.

SMITH, Aaron, and Janna Anderson. 2014. AI,Robotics, and the Future of Jobs. Philadelphia,PA: Pew Research Center.

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