Exponential technologies will make virtually all jobs obsolete, so what can you do about it?
It’s a widely shared view and expectation that exponential technologies such as: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality (AR/VR), Bitcoin, Biotech, Internet of Things (IoT), 3D Printing, and Robotics, will replace many jobs. Estimates of how many jobs AI alone can replace in the next few decades range anywhere from 10% to 55% depending on the methodology.
However, these high numbers are too conservative. I propose that exponential technologies will eliminate virtually all jobs. I realise this is a scary proposition, but unfortunately I have good reasons for saying this, which I will expand on below.
We have to get ready for a tsunami of changes in all areas of life, and it will make us question not only how we can make a living, but more fundamentally our place on this Earth as humans.
AI can already do many tasks better than humans, and this happened much faster than anyone expected (aside from a few futurists). Software can now identify and name images of objects or living things better than average humans with an error rate below 5%.
We can tell a cat from a dog well, but humans make mistakes more often than the AI when facing more complex image recognition problems. Many of us can’t confidently tell a pug, a French bulldog and an English bulldog apart. Well trained AI has no problem with such tasks. And while recognising dog breeds may not seem like a very important task, think of image processing in the medical field where recognition of a tumour could save your life. In such critical areas every percentage point gained over human expertise means real lives are saved, so we can’t not morally stop progress.
The number of fields where AI already rivals human experts is endless: risk analysis, trading, military applications, driving, legal practice, journalism, etc. Any profession where good decisions need to be made consistently is threatened/augmented by AI. As we deploy more automation to various processes, we will also generate more data, which in turn will make AI even better. There will be a point when even the world’s top experts won’t be able to outperform a well trained AI system, because the AI draws from the expertise of millions. It becomes a hive brain of humanity.
Other exponential technologies like robotics paired with AI enable robots to be not only super human strong, but also super human smart too. In China robo-cops have been deployed to survey highly frequented areas to find criminals and detect criminal activity. These robo-cops can search against a database of millions of faces, and tap into the behaviour patterns generated by tens of thousands of hours of observation videos. With some “practice” such robots will take over many unexpected professions like policing, firefighting, rescue work, construction, etc.
We don’t have to explore all exponential technologies to realise that the impact on jobs that can be replaced will be tremendous. However, many believe that there are still going to be jobs that can’t be or won’t be replaced by AI, robots, or IoT because they require the understanding of complex situations, including humans themselves, or environments created by humans.
While I agree with the above premise, that certain jobs are just too hard for non-human intelligence to tackle, the reality is that entrepreneurs will reinvent whole industries entirely. Never mind the individual human jobs that will be replaced. The needs will be fulfilled in a novel way by entirely new technological solutions. How so?
Let’s take the profession of elder care nurses. A task widely believed to be irreplaceable, because only a human can provide the required compassion, understanding, and care that an elder person requires. But, what if old age isn’t a thing anymore?
Today we have an understanding of what causes ageing. One day in the not so distant future, likely with the help of AI, we will find a way to stop ageing, and some time later we will be able to reverse ageing too. People will be able to live virtually forever (unless hit by a self driving truck), and live in a body of their chosen age. Old age bodies will be a choice and not something we suffer from. The profession of elder care will be a thing of the past like town criers and pinsetters.
How about teaching? Well, the industry of eduction is changing aggressively too. In the adult learning area in many countries (especially in Asia), PHD level education is done through online courses with just occasional consultation with real world teachers, who may only be present through a video conference to the students. In such a setup, the students meet their professors in person only once per semester. Immersive VR courses for any level for various professions will provide the most engaging learning experience imaginable.
For the profession of teaching, let’s look at a more ambitious potentially industry changing technology. What if one day we will be able to learn by simply uploading knowledge to our brains, instead of relying on a human to convey ideas? Learning a skill like programming in C (if that’s still relevant), or acquiring a new dead language like Latin just for fun, will be a matter of going to an e-learning centre at a mall where the knowledge will be beamed up to our brains within a few hours. A dozen research institutes around the world are working on brain-computer interfaces (BCI) that will make this possible. If not BCI, something similarly revolutionary will make the profession of teaching virtually obsolete as well. Aside from a few subject experts putting together course experiences to teach the latest discoveries, there will be little need for class room teachers in a few decades.
So, is there anything left for humans to do? Yes, there will be some jobs left, but not many.
For the least skilled, for a good while, teaching AI by labelling objects, sounds, situations, emotions, strategies, etc. will be a sure way to get some income. This is a profession that thousands are already doing. However, this new profession may not be future proof either, because eventually AI will be able to learn on its own by finding its own sources of data. It will watch hundreds of millions of YouTube videos, and read all the books ever published to gain new understanding of the physical world and human culture. One day those countless challenge videos will come in handy to teach the AI the limits of human endurance.
Many of us will work alongside AI. Over time the level of automation will increase, and human involvement will decrease, to a point where a human will just be a moral observer to ensure the AI doesn’t make a mistake. This has already started happening in many areas. For example radiologist routinely consult AI based systems to diagnose patients, and venture capitalists at Google rely on AI to pick the startup teams that show the highest chance of success based on prior data.
A relatively small number of highly trained engineers, product managers, designers, and other professionals will build the AI and automation systems to automate the rest of us out of our jobs that we trained for a lifetime.
AI depends on data. The more data there is, the better the AI. The better the AI, the more people use it, and thus it can generate even more data. This creates a vicious cycle where the winners take it all. Technologically advanced countries (like the USA and China) with large markets and thus data will race ahead of the smaller countries and will gain an ever increasing advantage.
Now, if you like Abba, start playing the video and keep on reading.
It is known that people without a job are much more likely fall into depression and even commit suicide. But even if people can remain sane without a job, it’s going to be hard to find meaning in life without “anything” useful for them to do. We could be looking at a massive breakdown of society.
All this sounds pretty grim. Is there an upside to these likely events? Yes, we can foresee multiple things happening that will make this new reality bearable.
Everything will be much cheaper. Thanks to all tasks being done optimally by robots, everything from property to bread will be significantly cheaper. And by a lot.
Typically labour costs make up a huge part of any manufacturing process. When everything from acquiring raw materials to delivery is be done by machines, at each step we accumulate saving and the savings compound. The prices of goods and services equivalent to currently available quality and utility could go down by as much as 90%.
This means that even if you only have a low paying job, you will still be able to pay for your needs and live a comfortable lifestyle. You won’t have access to the casino on the moon, like the rich folks, but you will have your VR googles to enjoy a perfectly realistic immersive concert experience, and eating healthy cloned steak with vertically farmed broccoli on the side.
There will be new jobs that currently do not exist, and the demand for certain existing jobs will increase. In a highly technological and virtualised world, the demand for original human made objects, and human live performances will likely skyrocket.
People will be able to spend more time with their loved ones because either they can afford to, or because they have nothing else to do. Love, friendship, philosophy will gain a bigger importance. People will find meaning in engaging with each other and their own thoughts, instead of deriving self worth from their work and their achievements.
We will be able to clean up the mess created since the industrial revolution. When intelligent robots can do work tirelessly, we will be able to assign them to tasks that are currently unimaginable manually, like cleaning up the oceans, or do close to perfect recycling by picking out useful raw materials from garbage. Fundamental industry changing technologies are likely to emerge in the area of environmental protection as well. Packaging waste may no longer be a problem once we can design and mass produce materials that instantly decay away once discarded.
If you doubt the possibility of such technologies becoming the reality within 3 decades, look back to the year 1989. The web was just born, and people on talk shows laughed at the idea that people will work on the internet one day. Today, virtually everybody works on the internet at least partially (think of email and social media). Tablets and communicators that were imagined for the distant future in sci-fi movies like Star Trek are now a commodity, and our devices are way cooler than imagined. To top it off, technological advancement is not linear, but exponential. In the next 20–30 year we will experience as much innovation as we have seen in the last 100 years. The ideas I outlined above will be commonplace.
So, how do you prepare for the coming job crisis? I obviously don’t know for sure, but I do have eight hints (the luckiest number in Chinese culture), and would be happy to hear your further ideas:
- Establish your life in a technologically advanced society. This could be the hardest one to pull off, but it’s probably the most important one. Try to move to the United States, China, or the areas where these top technological predators have strong economic and cultural influence.
- Learn exponential technologies so you can part take in building future technologies, not just suffer from and enjoy its consequences. You don’t need to change professions, just explore how such tech will revolutionise your area, and see if you can spearhead it yourself.
- Learn Mandarin and the Chinese culture. China will likely overtake the United States in AI within a decade thanks to the fast technological advancement happening China, and the many more users who generate data. Being able to effectively participate in Chinese controlled economic ecosystems will double your chances for survival and success.
- Become a skilled artist. Acquire a skill that will be appreciated by other humans even when robots can do it better, because of your “human touch”.
- Save as much as you can, and invest in exponential technologies in any way you see fit. Learn about non-inflationary currencies like Bitcoin, that will likely lose less value in the future than centralised fiat currencies.
- Watch and read sci-fi, because the writers have thought through all kinds of future scenarios. Some of the future scenarios will come true, and recognising the signs will help you make better life decisions going forward.
- Read historical novels and history books. History repeats itself and humans act quite predictably in all situations. Having an understanding of human nature in changing conditions could literally save your life one day.
- Give yourself time to think, dream and fantasise. I find the format of meditation too restricting, but I agree with its premise. When you have a minute, don’t instantly reach for your phone and waste your brain cycles on memes. Instead, let your eyes and mind wonder. Analyse the information that is coming at you. Question the obvious. Notice the opportunities that are available to you.
