- Automation and the gig economy are radically changing how we work.
- How we learn must keep pace with these new technologies.
- We need learning to be cross-disciplinary, personalised and focused on human skills.
- Together, government and the private sector can future-fit education.
We are in the midst of a profound social and economic transformation that has been catalysed by breathtaking advances in automation and artificial intelligence, and unprecedented access to data and computation. The impact of these technologies pervades nearly every sector of our economy, affecting a wide range of occupations across healthcare, finance, transportation, energy, manufacturing and beyond. As with previous industrial revolutions, these advances have the potential to bring extraordinary benefits to society, contributing to tremendous prosperity in the long run. Innovations will also transform the future of work, exacerbate the skill bias of recent decades, and contribute to a growing chasm between the best and least educated in society.
There are a significant number of predictions and analyses about the risks posed by advances in these technologies. One such study, conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), estimated that about 14% of jobs across its member countries are highly automatable and another 32% will be radically transformed by technological progress.