By Mike Walden
At the numerous presentations I give during the year, I am frequently asked this question: What is the most important issue facing the country? Since I know the question is coming, I’m always thinking about it. Also, since I’ve been making public presentations for almost half a century, my answer has often changed.
What is my current answer? I think the most prominent issue today is ensuring we have a training system in place that qualifies workers to perform the tasks needed in the future.
Notice the words I’ve chosen. I used “training system” instead of “education” to emphasize that there are ways of learning skills in addition to formal education programs.
Also, recognize I used the word “tasks” rather than “jobs” or “careers.” This, too, was on purpose. As I will explain, many experts think modern technology will eventually divide many jobs into tasks done by machines and tasks performed by people.
The major reason I assert our training system for the tasks of the future is our most pressing issue is because I think both key components of my statement, training and tasks, are facing pressure to change. Consider the formal educational system, which dominates today’s broader training system. Many K-12 schools are struggling to recover from the educational losses suffered during COVID. Also, many K-12 schools are still trying to find educational methods and tools that can achieve success for all students.
At the higher education level, the two big issues are relevance and cost. Recently, more employers — one survey found half — have concluded college degrees are no longer needed for many jobs. At the same time, the surge in college tuition and accompanying student debt are putting higher education out of reach for many young people.
While questions about training are being asked, technological developments appear poised to change the nature of work in a dramatic way. Of course, this is not new. Beginning at least 300 years ago, the creation of machinery and new tools changed what workers did. The most recent version of this was the development of the computer. I’ve had a front row seat to watch the implementation of the computer in numerous jobs, including mine as a college professor.
But many observers say the next phase, artificial intelligence (AI), will generate impacts we’ve never seen before. The new and unique impact of AI is that it will be able to accomplish cognitive tasks, something that up to now only humans have been able to do.
The conclusion is the workplace will be shaken up like never before. There will be a re-sorting of the work tasks humans do and the work tasks that technology — specifically AI — will do. For people, this means a big change in the training we will need for the redesigned human tasks.
This is why I believe understanding the restructuring of workplace tasks and the necessary training for humans to do those tasks pose our most important future challenge.
It shouldn’t be surprising that there are pessimists and optimists about our ability to succeed with this challenge. Some pessimists see traditional technology combined with AI ultimately performing most of the work tasks needed in the economy. Hence, there will be little work left for humans. As a result, most households would need to be supported with public financial payments. Education and training would be confined to teaching people how to enjoy life and pursue hobbies. While some may consider this result desirable, pessimists argue such a lifestyle would leave a void of purpose that most humans need.
The optimists think human work will not disappear, but it will be very different. Perhaps ironically, many optimists predict the very technology generating the job disruption, AI, could be used to quickly train workers for new tasks.
How would this happen? One idea is using AI to create personalized learning instructors for students, potentially for all levels of education. The AI tutor would use information about the student’s academic strengths and weaknesses to develop customized learning programs implemented at a pace specifically for the student. Rather than a one-size fits-all method of teaching, the AI tutor would be the ultimate in a “specific size for each student” approach.
In the fast-paced changes anticipated in the future job market, there is also a worry that educational institutions won’t be able to adapt quickly enough to the new tasks workers will perform. As a result, some experts anticipate more companies training their hires on the job. Many higher education programs would then focus primarily on basic skills like communication and use of technology. As a result, the average time spent at a college or university could be reduced to one or two years. But would this limit students’ exposure to broader topics, like history and literature, and what would be the consequences?
Of course, most of this discussion is speculative. Still, I think there is a coming overhaul of education and training as a result of the upcoming disruption in the labor market due to technology like AI. Do you think this is the biggest issue facing us in the future, and if so, how should we respond? You decide.
Mike Walden is a Reynolds Distinguished Professor Emeritus at North Carolina State University.
Inflation, namely in the housing market. People can’t afford homes.
Getting rid of the Communist Republican’t Tyrant Vindictive Putin Dictator Want-a-be. Is the biggest issue in this country. Next would be reeling in idol worshipping hypocritical Christian Want-a-be’s
Whoa!
Lay it out there.
I agree .
Definitely something to ‘ponder’!
Each person must make the effort to qualify for new positions.
However, I don’t see the average person making that effort.
They will , however, sit back, complain, and gripe because their
‘government handout’ is big enough.
But, from my experience I suspect Latinos will learn fast and work hard.
They seem to be the new ‘backbone’ of our manual labor pool.
I am a white man living in Smithfield.
Election maladministration as it leads to all the other problems we are seeing.
There is no such thing as artificial intelligence (AI)! We need not fear it, but only be aware that such fear is driven by people who believe AI to be a “superior” entity rather than the same evil generation who would use it to exploit and influence our thinking. Intelligence is an ability that exists only in living creatures of which humans have far superior intelligence to all other creatures. True intelligence requires the ability to form ideas, mental sensations and concepts of phenomena that are not present and/or do not exist. Artificial intelligence is only a simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems, by reciting what the machine has already been provided and programmed to accomplish by mortal people like you and me. There is nothing new about the new phenomenon we now refer to as AI. Slide rules were invented to rapidly perform mathematical solutions. Calculators came next. Computers even later. They all require inputs (programming) by humans to solve anything and can solve nothing on their own. Given a question, today’s computers can provide almost any answer it has stored with amazing speed and apparent recollection. It is not true memory recollection, but the ability to match facts that have been stored into computer memory chips by humans. It is astounding in today’s world to see the complexity and speed of their answers and solutions. We must be aware that any greatness of these stupendous feats is only due to human intervention using technological advances.
We must be careful as we go forward to maintain integrity and truth. Because computers require input, they can be manipulated by humans with an evil agenda. Examples of recent times can be readily seen by efforts to change history. History is past fact, truth, and cannot be changed. Truth is absolute and pure, without contamination or question. God is truth. Those in the media can give false witness using a deceptive agenda to serve themselves or a cause to influence viewers with vast commercial ads/TV shows that normalize unrighteous behavior. Examples include the portrayal of the homosexual and transgender lifestyle. Election counting machines can be programmed and corrupted with incorrect results. It will be harder and harder to know the truth from the lies and deceit. We must be careful to ensure that truth is the outcome we live by in a righteous world. “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4) “And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.” (Mat 24:12) The use of so-called Artificial Intelligence in the hands of the wrong people is a tool of Satan.
“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” (Romans 1:24-32) Have faith my brothers and sisters and stay on the narrow path.
@carl. Oh how we forget Matthew 7-1
“Judge not, lest ye be judged” But this is what happens when want-a-be christian’s pick and choose only the part of the bible they wish to believe and ignore what parts they don’t want to believe.
Glad you read my paragraph. I pray it works on those who don’t understand the context and the truth and think they are wise in their own eyes.
@Getting rid of the Orange Idiot, your comment is the CLASSIC example of projection. Hope your enjoying your inflation, lack of world respect, new wars, astronomical increases in crime, paying for phones, medical care and luxury hotel rooms for illegals while veterans get nothing, trans men in locker rooms with 15 year old girls, a president who can’t put a coherent sentence together even after ‘preparing’ for a week, who can only halfway function between the hours of 10am-4pm, whose advisor includes his drug addict, porno addicted son who sells his fathers influence for $$, who makes up Steele dossier and Russian collusion and uses the DOJ to ‘punish’ his opponents, who takes NO responsibility for his own failures….
Apparently your a MAGA NUT, enough said.