.
Presenter: Vint Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google
While technology will undoubtedly disrupt the future of jobs in a major way, many are left to wonder exactly how this change will occur. Will our future be one of peace and progress, or will the advancement of technology overtake the workforce? Vint Cerf, vice president and chief Internet evangelist at Google, believes it is best to be hopeful, if not a little cautious. While technology may radically alter the job landscape of the near future, it is not absolutely certain that these changes will create a purely negative impact; in fact, it is more than likely that as certain jobs are lost, more will be created, leading to a future of abundant, technology-enhanced jobs. In order to make this dream a reality, however, we will need to take caution with complicated work infrastructures, societal issues, and our own human frailties.
Work and education will change as new technologies are developed. As the job landscape experiences drastic changes as new technologies are developed, out-of-date jobs and education will inevitably be replaced by newer jobs with more complicated skillsets.
While many jobs may become irrelevant due to technology, many more jobs will be created by the same technology. Jobs related to designing, implementing, and maintaining new technologies will most likely keep the demand for skilled labor high. Similarly, Cerf predicts that jobs related to maintaining the environment that the technology inhabits as well as jobs related to communication will always be essential to the workforce.
Technology has always destroyed old jobs and created new ones. With the Industrial Revolution, for example, millions of jobs related to the maintenance of new machines, factory work, and new modes of transportation were created. Therefore, future technologies will most likely have the same effect.
Our current education system will need to change as jobs change. With the traditional idea of a lifelong job slowly becoming less realistic, companies and higher education institutions need to begin focusing more on continuous learning and less on static skills. Due to both the increasing rate of change in the job market as well as an increase in human lifespan, it is crucial that workers be educated on how to continuously learn in order to keep up with innovations.
“Education and the learning of new skills is going to be essential to keep up with new innovations.” – Vint Cerf
We need to be cautious about the increasing fragility of job infrastructures. While the future of jobs is promising, the kind of infrastructure necessary to maintaining increasingly sophisticated systems is leading to a new avenue of potential hazards.
The increasing complexity of today’s world is leading to more fragile job ecosystems. Because many jobs depend on complex technology, their stability is becoming more and more fragile. For example, jobs that depend on the Internet would be put into jeopardy if the Internet were to ever cease working. Similarly, the workforce’s increasing interdependency on other job sectors has made this a large-scale hazard that would affect workers across the board.
Focus needs to be shifted from the amount of jobs to the maintenance of job infrastructure. Because of the increasing fragility of jobs based on complex systems as well as an increasing interdependency between different job sectors, it is crucial that more focus be put into maintaining and strengthening job infrastructures.
“Jobs that will exist five years from now don’t exist today, and a significant amount of this work will be new work requiring new skills.” – Vint Cerf
To read or download the rest of the essays from this special report on the Future of Work and Education, download our free app on your favorite device (iStore, Google Play, and Amazon Kindle) or click to view the Digital Edition.
The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.
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The Future of Work: The Connectivity Dimension
Best Internet Concept of global business from concepts series.Elements of this image furnished by NASA
May 1, 2017
Presenter: Vint Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google
While technology will undoubtedly disrupt the future of jobs in a major way, many are left to wonder exactly how this change will occur. Will our future be one of peace and progress, or will the advancement of technology overtake the workforce? Vint Cerf, vice president and chief Internet evangelist at Google, believes it is best to be hopeful, if not a little cautious. While technology may radically alter the job landscape of the near future, it is not absolutely certain that these changes will create a purely negative impact; in fact, it is more than likely that as certain jobs are lost, more will be created, leading to a future of abundant, technology-enhanced jobs. In order to make this dream a reality, however, we will need to take caution with complicated work infrastructures, societal issues, and our own human frailties.
Work and education will change as new technologies are developed. As the job landscape experiences drastic changes as new technologies are developed, out-of-date jobs and education will inevitably be replaced by newer jobs with more complicated skillsets.
While many jobs may become irrelevant due to technology, many more jobs will be created by the same technology. Jobs related to designing, implementing, and maintaining new technologies will most likely keep the demand for skilled labor high. Similarly, Cerf predicts that jobs related to maintaining the environment that the technology inhabits as well as jobs related to communication will always be essential to the workforce.
Technology has always destroyed old jobs and created new ones. With the Industrial Revolution, for example, millions of jobs related to the maintenance of new machines, factory work, and new modes of transportation were created. Therefore, future technologies will most likely have the same effect.
Our current education system will need to change as jobs change. With the traditional idea of a lifelong job slowly becoming less realistic, companies and higher education institutions need to begin focusing more on continuous learning and less on static skills. Due to both the increasing rate of change in the job market as well as an increase in human lifespan, it is crucial that workers be educated on how to continuously learn in order to keep up with innovations.
“Education and the learning of new skills is going to be essential to keep up with new innovations.” – Vint Cerf
We need to be cautious about the increasing fragility of job infrastructures. While the future of jobs is promising, the kind of infrastructure necessary to maintaining increasingly sophisticated systems is leading to a new avenue of potential hazards.
The increasing complexity of today’s world is leading to more fragile job ecosystems. Because many jobs depend on complex technology, their stability is becoming more and more fragile. For example, jobs that depend on the Internet would be put into jeopardy if the Internet were to ever cease working. Similarly, the workforce’s increasing interdependency on other job sectors has made this a large-scale hazard that would affect workers across the board.
Focus needs to be shifted from the amount of jobs to the maintenance of job infrastructure. Because of the increasing fragility of jobs based on complex systems as well as an increasing interdependency between different job sectors, it is crucial that more focus be put into maintaining and strengthening job infrastructures.
“Jobs that will exist five years from now don’t exist today, and a significant amount of this work will be new work requiring new skills.” – Vint Cerf
To read or download the rest of the essays from this special report on the Future of Work and Education, download our free app on your favorite device (iStore, Google Play, and Amazon Kindle) or click to view the Digital Edition.
The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.
