“I will bring jobs back to America”
That’s the promise of Trump to the blue collar workers, many of them were his voter base. I find this statement to be both misleading and sad. No manufacturing jobs are coming back. Efficient manufacturing looks like a bunch of robots on the assembly line, not a single real person in sight. It’s sad, in fact, that many of the blue collar workers that used to work in the manufacturing sector will be unemployed for a long time, until we change the way we think about jobs.
Change the Work Paradigm?
Change is hard. But the fact is, many of blue collar jobs are gone for good. There’s no bringing them back. The best thing we can do is take care of our people and help them learn a new skill, based on training and furthering lifelong learning. I found this article fascinating and right on the money, by FastCompany:
Changing the Way We Think About Jobs
I’m no expert on technology, but the team at MIT is, and this article by MIT Tech Review was an excellent explanation of current tech trends as well. They are right…no matter how hard anyone tries:
First Broad Application of AI
I like to follow the tech big players, and usually when I think of disruptors, I think of UBER, AirBnB, Pandora, Tesla, to name a few. The first real application of AI or Artificial Intelligence has been the advent of self-driving cars. UBER and Google have been at the forefront of developing this technology, and the big auto manufacturers better catch up quickly. Just announced that Ford is now in the game, investing in this as it’s probably the future of the auto industry.
So where does that leave the UBER drivers? Any job security there, when cars will soon be driving themselves? Any security for Ford, GM or Toyota when owning a car becomes obsolete and you just summon a car the moment you need to leave for a destination? Flash forward, the smart ones better be racing to adapt to this complete disruption to the car ownership model, based on technology…guess what…called artificial intelligence.
Flash Forward another 30 years
So then, how do blue collar workers find a niche and meaning in life? Universal basic income? What about the intellectual property creators, white collar workers, like me…the designers, writers, engineers, programmers? Will AI also eventually take over those jobs too? It’s a little scary to think of what my daughter will face in the job market.
I’ll conclude my thoughts on the subject with this very insightful article from Wired:
The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet. It’s the End of the Middle Class
