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Today's 6th graders will hit their prime working years in 2030.
By that time, the "robot apocalypse" could be fully upon us. Automation and artificial intelligence could have eliminated half the jobs in the United States economy.
Or, plenty of jobs could still exist, but today's students could be locked in a fierce competition for a few richly rewarded positions requiring advanced technical and interpersonal skills. Robots and algorithms would take care of what used to be solid working- and middle-class jobs. And the kids who didn't get that cutting-edge computer science course or life-changing middle school project? They'd be relegated to a series of dead-end positions, serving the elites who did.
Alternatively, maybe Bill Gates and Elon Musk and the other big names ringing the alarm are wrong. A decade from now, perhaps companies will still complain they can't find employees who can read an instruction manual and pass a drug test. Maybe workers will still be able to hold on to the American Dream, so long as they can adjust to incremental technological shifts in the workplace.
Which vision will prove correct?
30 years into the Information Revolution and schools are only just now realizing they should teach kids how to code...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Saturday December 16 2017, @03:54PM (1 child)
Finally someone mentions the industrial age. Fun though that discussion about medieval serfdom was, I was thinking the Industrial Revolution is a better parallel to circumstances today. Medieval times was very much "it's good to be the king", a member of the nobility, while terrible for everyone else, the 99%.
In the early 19th century, people could be independent farmers, scratching a living from the land. They were very self sufficient. Grew their own food, even made their own clothes, aka homespun. But wow, was homespun a massive labor sink. Grow your own flax or cotton crop, then women spent hours and hours at the spinning wheels to turn the plant fibers into individual threads, which were then woven into usable bolts of cloth with more hours of labor at a hand loom. The Industrial Revolution ended all that. Mechanized clothing manufacturing and a whole lot of other things. Took a while longer to replace the horse, but that eventually happened too.
Formerly independent farmers were forced into taking factory jobs and worked mercilessly. Had stuff like 12 hour work days 6 or even all 7 days of the week. Manufacturing upended the economy, driving prices down on things the farmers could produce. The ones who tried to stay on the farm were then unable to produce enough to afford the services and goods they still needed, and to pay taxes and raise a family.
More wealth was being produced than ever before, but the lion's share was going straight into the pockets of a few wealthy industrialists. Our capitalist system doesn't have really any policies at all to rein in the irresponsible and destructive greed, arrogance, and contempt of the super rich. Workers were driven to organize themselves into unions and go on strikes. It took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get these foolish owners to see that it wasn't good for anyone, even them, to have such wealth inequality, and to acknowledge that 40 hours was about the maximum a work week should be. The 40 hour work week is backed by scientific studies that show that workers pushed to work longer hours than that are so much less productive that they accomplish less than if they'd worked only 40 hours. But now we seem to have a new generation of super rich who don't know that and if they do hear about it, don't believe it.
The robot apocalypse could easily go the same way as the Industrial Revolution. Just when we need policies to keep society and civil norms from being shredded, the greedy super rich are hell bent on tearing apart everything they see as an "unfair" restriction on their ability to ruthlessly exploit the masses, if not outright liquidate them.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 16 2017, @05:27PM
In other words, as labor became more valuable, workers had more power to get the things they wanted from employers. Perhaps we should think about ways to make labor more valuable rather than less? It's working for the rest of the world.
Currently, it is. The majority of people throughout the world are becoming more prosperous, knowledgeable, and healthier, just like in the industrial revolution. But that isn't the narrative you wish to spin, eh?