Automation, Amazon go, and the Future of Education
September 17th was a long long-awaited day: Chicago is only the second city in the U.S. to get an Amazon go store, and last Monday was my first experience with this high tech grocery shopping experience. I wanted to share a bit about my visit, and also draw some parallels I noticed with education.
The Process
First I downloaded the app outside the store and connected my Amazon account — then I was greeted by a friendly employee. Next I walked to the glass doors, scanned my phone and walked right in. After taking my food off the shelf, I literally walked right out of the store and got a receipt sent straight to my phone a few minutes later.
You might be asking yourself, so how does this work? In Amazon’s words: “We used computer vision, deep learning algorithms and sensor fusion, much like you’d find in self-driving cars. We call it ‘Just Walk Out’ technology. Once you’ve got everything you want, you can just go. When you leave, our ‘Just Walk Out’ technology adds up your virtual cart and charges your Amazon account. Your receipt is sent straight to the app.”
The Experience
This trip wasn’t all that different than your typical grocery store visit, other than the buzz and excitement you could feel by everyone shopping. Unfortunately I couldn’t document the experience with video, but they did let me take a few pictures.
The store is like a mini grocery store with mostly food for the busy downtown worker hustling to grab a bite before rushing off to work. There was a great selection of quick and easy breakfast and lunch meals, along with a wide variety of snacky type of foods. To say the least, there were plenty of options that would bring me back in the future.
Implications for Education
The question I want you to consider: how are our schools preparing students for a workforce of automation and AI? Sure, tech from companies like Amazon, Alibaba, Google, etc. will create new jobs, but those jobs will be for highly skilled workers. It’s crucial that more parents start to consider the implications of these advancements in technology and how it will impact their student’s future, because what I witnessed at Amazon go is only the beginning of a very long trend.
Thinking about this advancement on a macro level, James Manyika, the director of the McKinsey Global Institute calculates that on a global scale, “the adaptation of currently demonstrated automation technologies could affect 50 percent of the world economy, or 1.2 billion employees and $14.6 trillion in wages”.
“Could affect” is the key here. That means positive or negative effects. There are several sources that have a variety of estimates on the impact of technology on the job market. One thing we can count on is that we won’t live in a knowledge-based economy going forward. Companies like Amazon are less likely to pay people for what they know, rather than what they can do with information at their disposal. However, there seems to be a disconnect between the way we’re preparing students and the reality of this future of work.
We must start to focus on skills that technology can’t replace, like creativity, empathy, caring for others, working on teams, emotional intelligence, entrepreneurship and innovation. Technology in schools schools doesn’t teach that. Teachers do. In order to prepare the next generation of students we need a two pronged approach. First, parents have to push the schools to change from the bottom up, and teachers will gladly follow their lead. Next, if Google and Apple are among 15 top companies where you can get hired without a college degree, then administrators must encourage policy makers for changes in the qualifications for students to graduate from the top down. Most importantly, as a whole we can’t just simply view education as an expense, but an investment in our future.
