“I think it’s changed everything, and I think it’s changed everything fundamentally,” James Livingston, a history professor at Rutgers University and the author of No More Work: Why Full Employment Is a Bad Idea, told Vox.
We’ll (probably) always have work, but could the job as the centerpiece of American life be on the way out?
To understand the question, you have to know how the country got to where it is today. The story starts, to some degree, with a failure. Much of American labor law — as well as the social safety net, such as it is — stems from union organizing and progressive action at the federal level in the 1930s, culminating in the New Deal. At that time, many unions were pushing for a national system of pensions not dependent on jobs, as well as national health care, Nelson Lichtenstein, a history professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, told Vox. They did win Social Security, but with many people left out, such as agricultural and domestic workers, it wasn’t a full nationwide retirement system. And when it came to universal health care, they lost entirely.
From voice-controlled personal assistants to smart robots on factory floors, Artificial Intelligence is having a profound effect on our lives. No surprise then that countries all over the world are trying to stay ahead of the curve. But when it comes to investment, who’s putting their money where their mouth is? Looking at private funding, the United States leads the way — with well over 23 billion dollars going into the sector last year. Coming in second is China, with almost 10 billion dollars. That said, Chinese state investment is particularly significant. And the European Union falls far behind, with investment of just over 2 billion dollars. So why is the EU lagging? And does Germany — its largest economy — have any plans to play catch-up? An example of AI in action can be found at a Rolls Royce control room just outside Berlin. Robots destroy jobs and artificial intelligence will soon make us all superfluous. We’ve all seen headlines like that. But the reality of the situation looks a little different. Artificial intelligence is nothing more than a system that processes large amounts of data and makes predictions about the future based on that data. Engine manufacturer Rolls Royce has been a fan of AI for a long time. Even in emergencies, it keeps its cool. In the control room at Rolls Royce just south of Berlin, safety engineers monitor more than 9,000 airplane engines worldwide. Long before the owners of the commercial jets would even notice a defect, the systems here sound the alarm. Artificial intelligence at work. The systems are fed massive amounts of data. Then the owners of the aircraft are informed. The plane can then be taken in for maintenance long before the problem becomes expensive or life-threatening. In the adjacent building, engines are assembled. Many parts are custom-made, previously developed by the design engineers, who also use artificial intelligence. For example, how would it affect the engine if certain components are changed? AI helps to find the best method. The Center for Artificial Intelligence opened at the Dahlewitz site near Berlin in 2019. People here aren’t afraid that artificial intelligence will take their jobs. In fact, the mechanics will probably have to install even more sensors and cables in the future. After all, in about five years’ time, the plan is for the aircraft to fly here with hybrid drive systems — based on sustainable fuel and electricity.
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The typical Australian will change careers five to seven times during their professional lifetime, by some estimates. And this is likely to increase as new technologies automate labor, production is moved abroad, and economic crises unfold.
Jobs disappearing is not a new phenomenon—have you seen an elevator operator recently? – but the pace of change is picking up, threatening to leave large numbers of workers unemployed and unemployable.
New technologies also create new jobs, but the skills they require do not always match the old jobs. Successfully moving between jobs requires making the most of your current skills and acquiring new ones, but these transitions can falter if the gap between old and new skills is too large.
Investing in the convergence of bioelectrics & biologics for regeneration & healing — howard J. leonhardt, founder, leonhardt ventures.
Howard Leonhardt is the Founder of Leonhardt Ventures, the world’s first Innovation Accelerator focused on the convergence of bioelectrics & biologics for organ regeneration and tissue healing.
Howard is an accomplished inventor and serial entrepreneur, with 21 U.S. patents, over 100 patent claims for products for treating cardiovascular disease, and has over 40 new patent claims pending. His TALENT (Taheri-Leonhardt) stent graft, developed in the early 1990′s, holds a leading world market share for repairing aortic aneurysms without surgery.
Howard’s inventions to date have been involved in treated over 500000 patients in 60 countries.
Howard is co-leader of Startup California and Founder and Chairman of The California Stock Exchange TM (Cal-X) preparing to be the first social good impact stock exchange currently operating the Cal-X 30 Social Good Impact fund. He founded Cal-X Crowdfund Connect, a crowdfunding campaign management company, and Cal-X Stars Business Accelerator, Inc., a business incubator and accelerator focused on cardiovascular life sciences and social good impact innovations.
There are 30 regenerative med-tech and regenerative economy startups in his current portfolio. His Leonhardt Ventures angels network has raised and put to work over US$145 million in 32 companies to date, including those developing the first implantable programmable and re-fillable stem cell pump, brain, eye, and aorta regeneration technologies, and number of other organ regeneration spin offs from his patented core technologies.
Howard Leonhardt serves as state spokesperson in California for the JOBS ACT and Crowdfunding for Startup California and has given over 40 speeches on the subject. He has operated Leonhardt’s Launchpads NorCal at the University of Northern California Science & Technology Innovation Center in Rohnert Park, CA since 2008 and recently opened Leonhardt’s Launchpads Utah in Salt Lake City just off the campus of the University of Utah. He has served on the Board of Directors of the University of Northern California, a private biomedical engineering school, since 1999.
From 3 day weekends to a future where all the jobs you do not want to do are automated, leaving you to spend your time as you desire. Learning and research. Sport and recreation. Tourism and adventure. Or whatever takes your fancy…
Well 4 day working weeks are already arriving, and I then show the rate of break throughs in Artificial Intelligence in just the last decade, which are removing the repetition and boredom from our jobs, so we can spend more time on the bits that matter and that are of interest.
What do you think?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
If you want to see more about the decade of disruption that is heading our way, then check out this next…
SoftBank’s humanoid robot had big career plans, including a job at a bank and dancing with the elderly. Ask about Pepper these days, though, and the conversation gets awkward.
Imagine we go through the disruptive transition between an economy where we need to work to make a living, to one where we don’t. It is hard to imagine because in North America; we haven’t been in this situation since the colonial era. Back in the colonial era, most people were farmers and families had to build their own homes. Neighbors traded with each other and with the closest town with what they had to get what else they needed. Those were difficult days with minimal supply chains established in North America. It is not a period we want to go back to, but we may learn from our forebears to prepare us for what is to come.
It is no surprise, in this age where automation is threatening to replace all employees, that we have concerns about how we can still function as a society when automation will take over most jobs. Fortunately, the same systems that threaten our livelihoods can bring us to a Golden Age of civilization where people live free, happy lives, without the concern for survival. I talk about the future of work in an article I published earlier this year. In a nutshell, and for the purpose of this article, I’ll jump to the conclusion: there won’t be enough demand for humans to have jobs within the next 20 years to sustain an employment-taxation type of economy.
We need to transform our economy to one that fits our aspirations and available technologies.
Such changes, multiplied across thousands of businesses in dozens of industries, could significantly change workers’ prospects. Professor Warman, the Canadian economist, said technologies developed for one purpose tend to spread to similar tasks, which could make it hard for workers harmed by automation to shift to another occupation or industry.
The need for social distancing led restaurants and grocery stores to seek technological help. That may improve productivity, but could also cost jobs.
Fortunately, automakers, suppliers and government leaders are examining things like electric vehicles and where batteries and other parts come from as they push for North American production. The Department of Energy has released a National Blueprint for Lithium Batteries, and a plan to support the domestic battery production to meet growing needs as people go back to work and school in the fall.
It is tempting to see the chip storage problem as just a technology story. But it also has real-world implications for our national security as so much of defense relies on computers and communications in the era of modern warfare.
As Americans celebrate our independence, we have to re-commit to being independent when it comes to reliance on others for goods and services that fuel our lives. We can’t make everything at home, but we can make more and ensure that disruptions abroad don’t reverberate, negatively, at home. As Congress continues to debate infrastructure and other major legislation, and the COVID-19 pandemic retreats, we will need to work together to ensure that we are prepared for whatever 2022 might bring.
