How Learning Online Helps Us In The Automation Race
If you search “will robots take my job” in your browser, you will find a website that lists the automation risk level for each occupation within two decades. This simple website is based on Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne's research. In the report, The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerization?, they examined over 700 occupations in the US using a Gaussian process classifier to estimate the probability of automation for those jobs.
Overall, the results showed that around 47% of US employment is at risk. The research adopted from this methodology in the UK showed that 35% of the current jobs in the UK can be replaced by machines and AI.
Our current situation, the technological revolution, is the industrial revolution of our time. In both revolutions, people feared to lose their jobs to advancements in our society.
Will automation cause massive unemployment, or will new technologies create new opportunities and increased jobs? How can you prepare for these changes? What can you do if your occupation is under threat?
Competencies Of The Future
To prepare for these changes, we need to adapt to the new labor market. According to the World Economic Forum Report 2018, new categories of jobs will emerge that will require reshaped competencies and upgraded skills.
“One job for a lifetime” is becoming a thing of the past. We now need to be prepared to take up several different occupations during our professional careers. By developing the right competencies, we can:
- Adapt to new environments
- Be resilient to constant change
- Be open to different expectations
- develop a high tolerance to failure
The ability and willingness to learn new skills are one of the most important competencies. As we can read in the Mckinsey Global Institute report, “even when some tasks are automated, employment in those occupations may not decline but rather workers may perform new tasks.”
New technologies will create new jobs, and we may actually face a great labor demand in the market. For example, spending on development and deployment in the new technologies sector is expected to increase by more than 50% by 2030. This could create 20 to 50 million jobs globally.
If we see this global change in jobs as an opportunity instead of a problem, it is not so frightening anymore. Although new jobs is a good thing, “up to 375 million workers may need to switch occupational categories.” To transition to new occupations, workers will need to be open to change and ready for it by learning new skills.
What can you do to meet the demands of the market? How can you develop competencies for the future?
Learning Routine
Automation and AI development are inevitable, so workers must adapt. Ideally, employers and governments would support workers with training programs and relevant social policies. However, it’s not an ideal world, and you can also be ahead of the game by preparing now.
eLearning is a great way to adapt and prepare for the future. It provides the opportunity to learn almost anything, anywhere, and at any time. The wide range of online courses offered continually grows, and new technologies are implemented to create learning solutions dedicated to different categories of users.
eLearning can prepare us for global change as learning online allows you to create a personalized learning path. You can decide when and how much time you will spend on developing new competencies. You can choose from platforms with various learning categories or select courses from online learning platforms focused on one category, such as programming.
Let's have a look at some of the competencies you can develop through eLearning to prepare for global changes in the labor market:
- Upgrade both technical skills and soft skills
- Receive constructive feedback
- Learn discipline and how to take responsibility by working individually
- Open yourself to new areas of competencies with a wide range of online courses
- Improve your ability to learn quickly and adapt to change
- Become more comfortable with working online
How To Outfox Machines And AI
Although AI will do most things better, more quickly and more efficiently than humans are capable of, we can be ready for the new possibilities it will create. We can remain in demand by adapting to new challenges. Being open to change and learning new skills will always be our greatest asset.
Sources:
- Will Robots Take My Job?
- The Future of Work
- A study finds nearly half of jobs are vulnerable to automation
- Jobs lost, jobs gained: What the future of work will mean for jobs, skills, and wages
- Will a robot take your job?
- The Future of Jobs Report 2018
- Umiejętności płynne
