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posted by janrinok on Tuesday July 28 2015, @10:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the dreaming dept.

Not long ago, schoolchildren chose what they wanted to be when they grew up, and later selected the best college they could gain admission to, spent years gaining proficiency in their fields, and joined a company that had a need for their skills. Careers lasted lifetimes.

Now, by my estimates, the half-life of a career is about 10 years. I [Vivek Wadhwa] expect that it will decrease, within a decade, to five years. Advancing technologies will cause so much disruption to almost every industry that entire professions will disappear. And then, in about 15–20 years from now, we will be facing a jobless future, in which most jobs are done by machines and the cost of basic necessities such as food, energy and health care is negligible — just as the costs of cellphone communications and information are today. We will be entering an era of abundance in which we no longer have to work to have our basic needs met. And we will gain the freedom to pursue creative endeavors and do the things that we really like.

I am not kidding. Change is happening so fast that our children may not even need to learn how to drive. By the late 2020s, self-driving cars will have proven to be so much safer than human-driven ones that we will be debating whether humans should be banned from public roads; and clean energies such as solar and wind will be able to provide for 100 percent of the planet's energy needs and cost a fraction of what fossil fuel– and nuclear-based generation does today.

In other words, every industry is disruptible by technology. Presumably, banking and punditry are forever?


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  • (Score: 2) by mendax on Wednesday July 29 2015, @01:12AM

    by mendax (2840) on Wednesday July 29 2015, @01:12AM (#215161)

    Presumably, banking and punditry are forever?

    Well, I suspect lawyers will still be around, although Shakespeare was right about what we should do about them [enotes.com]. I suspect AI will not be able to completely replace them, although AI could possibly improve on their ethics. Besides, we need lawyers to make jokes about. After all, why do lawyers wear ties? It's to keep their foreskin from going over their heads. Now, how many other professions could that joke possibly work with?

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  • (Score: 1) by Rickter on Wednesday July 29 2015, @08:37PM

    by Rickter (842) on Wednesday July 29 2015, @08:37PM (#215599)

    I haven't read that Shakespeare play, but I've heard it said that the line was spoken by somebody who hated law and justice, and wanted to get rid of the lawyers so they could crush the good guys with impunity.

    • (Score: 2) by mendax on Thursday July 30 2015, @01:36AM

      by mendax (2840) on Thursday July 30 2015, @01:36AM (#215689)

      Apparently, from what I've read about that line, Shakespeare was referring to the dishonest lawyers. But that pretty much describes the majority of them. But then I'm prejudiced. I thoroughly dislike most lawyers.

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      It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.