Impact of Technological advancements in the job market- A Visionary View

Nowadays we are living in the fast-changing world when compared to our ancestors, at least our immediate predecessor i.e. our parents. Due to various reasons like availability of mass education and higher studies standards, stable governments, globalization, healthcare advancements, no major wars being fought, and of course the technology disruptions almost happened in every field has catered to the growing needs very specifically in Artificial intelligence and Machine learning, Bigdata, Quantum Mechanics, Blockchain, Nanotechnology, Biotechnology and Life Sciences etc. Most of us know that “the only constant in life is change” which was the prudent thinking of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. It’s been taught to us from our childhood in some way or other. Change is always very subjective to individuals’, basis the level of changes which they have undergone or confronted in their life. Most of us would have felt the real impact of change when we are faced with life changing events like birth or death of our near ones. Also, these impacts would have happened at extensive spans only. However, now the span has been shrinking drastically and in future, faster change may become our lifestyle! Somehow, we have been ignoring the lessons, knowledge and the cautions which the universe has been providing time and again. To quote a few of the instances – like, species endangerment, global warming, and emergence of new pathogens etc. This could be the right time to start thinking on these lines as we are in the pressing genuine need to equip our future generations to tackle this problem rather future lifestyle in a better way and not feel that this as a compulsion of the hour. In future there would be drastic developments of the foresaid technologies and our world would be filled with other new future technologies as well. If I try to visualize our life and our profession, jobs and industries’ readiness in specific in another 50 years or so, with my very limited knowledge and insights though, some of the high-level thoughts are as follows Gone are the days when our parents chose a profession in one company or with the government and retired after 30-35 years of service. Later, they have settled happily with their savings and pensions. In our generation, we have the luxury of clinging to the same profession, domain as a whole or allied technology with slight modifications or at the most change to 2-3 careers (altogether different) in our productive lifetime. But for the future generations, their lifestyle, ecosystem & demands; – In short, everything would be altogether new and demanding. Change alone may become their lifestyle. To cope with the new norm, we need to nurture few key skills in our descendants in addition to the regular education and knowledge already being imparted. Mental stability, undeterred self-confidence, calmness and composed mindset in handling any crisis, flexibility, dynamism and predicting near future with one’s own knowledge and happenings from the surroundings are few of the very inevitable characteristics that must be mastered by them. In future, probably Artificial intelligence and Machine learning and other advancements in technology space are going to take most of our jobs. At the same time, these future revolutions may create avenues for more new jobs. It is applicable not only to jobs which are mundane and repetitive in nature but also jobs which needed the human cognizance hitherto! I am not only talking about the unskilled laborers and jobs which are easy to be replaced by automation but also about professionals like doctors, engineers, lawyers, technology specialist and so on and so forth. Unless the future workforce is ready to adopt the neural network masters and its expectations in the name of analytical models and algorithms, they may not perform as per the expected standards of the master algorithm or could be ignored specifically by another algorithm for non-compliance! Like managers and mentors there would be lot of algorithms which would be continuously monitoring each and every action of you and of your managers too! Spending 15-20 years in the same profession, skills may go obsolete in future. They should be ready to cross skill or upskill; sometimes downscale their skills to suit a specific need within a petite duration which wouldn’t be in months but in weeks’ time. To comprehend the new demands and scenario, they need to have a strong mindset and clarity so that they can grasp things faster and be ready for it with their inherited and acquired knowledge through education and experience and of course with the then available technological advancements. So, let’s teach ourselves and our future generations about the importance of resiliency of our thoughts and yet again we will prove that we are the supreme evolved species so far in this universe! Just provided few snippets here but it would be continued in the coming articles with a different flavor… Thank you

Yours Prahaa