We are the cusp of a revolution in which we risk being made redundant. The film Bladerunner was set in the year 2019! It’s unlikely that so much will change in the next 4 years but change is coming.
In 1800 80% of US workers were involved in agriculture. Farming methods were manually intensive in order to produce enough food to feed the population. What’s that figure today? Just 1.5%. Much of the remaining 78.5% will have gone onto higher skilled jobs.
Consider Amazon. For every $1 million of revenue it employs ‘just over’ 1 person. Walmart needs 5 people to service a similar revenue. Amazon will have robots stacking shelves and drones making deliveries far more efficiently than humans.
There will be no apocalypse but we will be seduced by the idea of AI or ‘robots’. If we, the labour force, are to remain relevant we will have to develop new skills in order to be valuable in the very near future.