The relentless march of progress and the future of work
The world of work as we know it is rapidly changing. The recent study by the McKinsey Global Institute suggests that at this point as much as 50% of existing working activities could be automated by adapting the currently existing technologies. The study’s conservative estimates indicate that by the year 2030, 400 million jobs worldwide could be given up to robots; according to the more extreme views, this figure could be twice as large. 800 million people — sounds like a considerable amount.
This trend is certainly not going to bypass the US — by the same year, between 39 and 73 million jobs in the US will be automated. A widely held belief that robotization will only affect low-skill occupations is nothing but a myth: creatives, lawyers, even computer specialists, you name it — although the percentage of specialists to be replaced varies from one type of job to another, almost every profession will be automated to a certain degree.
Some people argue that the new ones will replace the jobs lost to automation. This type of attitude is known as techno-optimism, and even though optimism is said to be a force multiplier, it doesn’t work that way when it comes to the workforce: business analysts suggest that there won’t be enough new jobs to replace ones that will be lost.
As opposed to techno-optimists, techno-pessimists believe that the current course of things will eventually bring humanity to a grim future. Sadly for them, there’s no way one could change that course or resist the process of automation. It is simply inevitable. The battle against the march of progress is pointless — the history of Luddite movement serves as a proof of that simple truth.
If you can’t fight against something, it might be necessary to shift the focus away from the opposing force on yourself. Self-improvement remains the only option: instead of thinking of automation as some kind of threat, it’s healthier to view it as an opportunity to improve on the skills that will be essential for a professional in the future. You can’t resist the march of progress — but you can adapt because that’s what humans have been doing since the dawn of time.
