When was the last time you had to calculate something in your head? How about navigating to a new location from memory alone? Depending on your age demographic, you might have answered these questions differently.
Learning to drive has often been a mark of independence. It is a big step towards adulthood. Now, imagine thousands of self-driving cars swarming big cities; will the future generation in 20 years even need to learn to drive?
Technology has made great progress in removing the necessity for humans to store and retain knowledge; whether it is in accounting, manufacturing, or navigating. With technology taking up more of our day to day ‘thinking’, where does that leave us as a species in the pursuit of knowledge?
The consequences of this inevitable rise of smart machines, robots, artificial intelligence and cognitive tech are clear: our future does not lie competing in jobs around information storage, data processing and repetitive computational tasks – technology beat us, hands down. Our future appears to be more about being human and less like machines. This is despite our devices often being an extension of our self through social media channels.
In 20 years, it’s estimated that up to 50% of all jobs don’t exist yet. Imagine jobs such a “space travel tourist experience designer”. We’re already seeing the rapid uptake of things such as robot counsellors like Woebot. There will be jobs not just to design, maintain and manage AI. But also how would we manage a future workforce that never sleeps.
What knowledge will mean something in the future? Emotional intelligence and even cultural intelligence are moving to the front of the line in many organisations in a lot of the change work we see rolling out. Will we as a species be required to sit in a space of ambiguity of ‘not knowing’ what we need to know for the future? What in fact will be described as human wisdom?
A TED talk given by Sir Ken Robinson points out that returning to what we did as children: sitting in play, experimenting, listening, dreaming and failing fast and trying again should be what we focus on in education. Paradoxically, machines gathering data, information and to some extent knowledge, may free us up to focus on nurturing our creativity and attaining wisdom.
Finding yourself floating aimlessly with no apparent goal in the same empty environment and looking for a lifeline towards your future goals, it’s time to connect with us.
earth2mars is dedicated to helping individuals and organisations break through old restraints and embrace change for the future with a new mindset.
Email the team at space@earth2mars.com.au.
