A number of times I mentioned the pathway that technology takes in the media. To recap quickly, ideas start appearing on the science/engineering sites. From there, they are picked up by the technological arena. After that, we see the stories appear on the financial/business pages. Finally, the mainstream media picks up on it; this is the point the masses start to clue in.
Automation and techonological advancement are well publicized issues yet it seems that few outside the technological sphere understand what is taking place. Some will give it a glance or a brief discussion. What is absolutely amazing to me is that people actually debate the subject.
For the last few years, tech titans like Musk, Bezos, Branson, and Gates warned about what is coming. They are very explicite in their statements about how this will affect employment, government funding, and the financial plight of society.
It is no secret that wages, at least in the developed countries are flat. People, especially politicians, like to point to a host of reasons for it. The truth of the matter, technological advancement is the main reason for this. Corporations got to the point where if the labor expense got too great, investment in automation provided a better return. The automobile industry is a prime example of this. Many middle class wages were eliminated through automation.
Even more recent, the oil industry did a similar thing in West Texas. After the collapse in oil pricesin 2014, the oil industry in that area was able to not bring back 200K jobs because of a two-year advancement in automation. Again, we see high paying jobs, relatively speaking, wiped out.
Here is a quote that exemplifies what I am saying...
Tomorrow we will have robots behaving like people. It doesn’t matter if we as a ____________ will participate in these changes or not, it is going to happen.”
This sounds like a technologist talking about the future. Perhaps some futuristic blogger mentioning the plight of humanity down the road. Obviously, I cherry picked the quote to make a point.
Here is the full quote....
“In our bank we have people doing work like robots,” he said. “Tomorrow we will have robots behaving like people. It doesn’t matter if we as a bank will participate in these changes or not, it is going to happen.”
Notice the difference. This was stated by John Cryan, head of Deutsche Bank. Instead of coming from a technology person, it is being stated as one of the leaders in the financial arena.
As I said, it is spreading.
Advances in artificial intelligence and automation could replace as many as half the nation’s financial services workers over the next decade, industry experts say, but it’s going to take a big investment to make that happen.
Half the nation's financial services? What does that entail.
Looking at some stats from just a couple years ago, the financial services sector is enormous. In 2016, there were 8.2M people employed in that industry. According to BLS, there were 156M jobs total. The challenge with this is that 15.8M and 15.6M are in retail and travel/hospitality, two fields that tend not to be high paying. That means the financial services sector is 5.25% of the total employment pool but a much greater percentage when of the higher paying jobs.
https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm
If the predictions are correct, that means we are looking at 2.6% of the entire workforce being eliminated in this one sector alone. The head of Deutsche Bank knows it is coming.
We are now in the financial/business relam starting to see what is happening. It is not only the technology gurus who understand this.
Looking at the world the same way people did for the past 30 years is no longer valid. We are at a time in history where technological advancements are occurring at a pace that cannot be kept up with. In short, society does not have time to adapt using the existing methods. Politicians are usually 2 steps behind, now they are 10. The educational world has not changed in 50 years, why would anyone expect it to do so now?
Even if they did suddenly wake up, there is little that can be done anyway. This process is not going to slow down. If anything, we are going to see an acceleration from where we are today. Hence why forecasts in this space tend to go from 15 years to 7 years. The pace of advancement only picks up.
Look at the explosion in blockchain this year. This is a prime example of what takes place. Do you foresee this slowing down anytime soon? I certainly do not.
The start to solving problems is by honestly embracing what is taking place. When the IMF comes out with a report that says 700M jobs globally are at risk of being automated out, it is time to listen. This is especially true since we see this conclusion match up with those set out by Morgan Stanley and the World Economic Forum.
Technological unemployment is a real thing that is going to affect hundreds of millions globally. The pace of automation is far exceeding anything we witnessed. There is no way jobs will be created at the same pace as the destruction. Those who are going to be in demand down the road have skillsets that people today do not have. Education is going to do little since many of the older generations lack the basic mathematical, computing, and scientific skills necessary to operate in a world where software runs most things.
This is where we find ourselves. Any political, economic, legal, or educational frame work that does not take this into account is going to be way off. This is where people's beliefs and projecting what they know into the future creates a massive blind spot. This is true for CEOs of major corporations as well as individuals trying to figure out what to do for their families.
It is also one of the reasons why cryptocurrency is crucial to the future of humanity. The present world is operating on scarcity, one that is only going to increase if we keep on the same path. Cryptocurrency enables us to shift towards abundance.
That is how crucial all this really is.
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