What To Do If Your Profession Can Be Programmed

Robots are and will continue stealing our jobs, period. Unfortunately, the automation of thousands of jobs worldwide is a double-edged sword, on one hand it reduces business costs and prices for consumers but on the other, it removes humans from the work force and leads to mass unemployment.

In Tyler Cowens latest book Average is Over he states that, “If the machine is smarter than you or sometimes smarter than you there’s a new scale, and that’s knowing when to defer.”

In the digital/knowledge economy, ideas are value. Machines are quickly replacing jobs that once relied on coin-operated humans, those who could conform to complete standardized tasks, yet our education system continues to churn out such workers.

“The current (educational) structure, which seeks low-cost uniformity that meets minimum standards, is killing our economy, our culture, and us.” ― Seth Godin

60’s Factory – School 2013

But is it all doom and gloom? Not entirely. One trait that we humans continue to dominate in (yet are still only skimming the surface) is the understanding of our psychological state. Humans are extremely emotional creatures with complex needs and desires, which leaves robots unable to compute. The jobs of the future will be those that provide and foster to our intrinsic motivations. Marketers for example are already moving away from the old-fashioned interruption mentality to one that understands the consumer’s emotional needs including trust and respect in order to make a sale.

“Pretty much everything today can be seen in relation to a love-respect axis. If I don’t love what you’re offering me, I’m not even interested.” – Kevin Roberts

Automation is inevitable and more jobs will be lost, but instead of grieving this change we should see this as a step forward for mankind.

Thousands of menial jobs that once hampered the cognitive function and creative abilities of millions of workers will soon become obsolete. What we should protest is the fact that our schooling system, our financial economics and our mindsets are extremely outdated leaving thousands of people out in the cold.

Only by continuously trying to understand ourselves and self educating through exploration, collaboration and experience will we be able to innovate for a better future in terms of business, the economy and most importantly, human need.

“When it comes to automation we haven’t seen nothing yet.” – Federico Pistono.