In the late-1970s and 1980s, the alarm bells were ringing about personal computers perhaps leading to the elimination of jobs. Politicians and business leaders were, for example, citing the rise of the personal computer as the death knell for the jobs of millions of short-hand typists in the US, UK and other parts of the developed world.
We know now, of course, that they were right to say that the role of a typist was a job (almost) consigned to history, but they were wrong to suggest that computing would inevitably lead to mass unemployment. When you consider the historically low unemployment rates in places like the US and UK in 2019, and how much job growth is linked to computing, you can appreciate just how spectacularly wrong they were about the latter.
Yet, today there is a similar rhetoric around the idea of automation and A.I. A paper released by Oxford University researchers in 2013 estimated that 47 percent of American jobs were at risk from automation. As you might expect, some politicians emphasize the ‘at risk’ part of that statement. But, six years after the paper was published, America has its lowest unemployment for nearly half a century.
Automation is a reality
To get to grips with automation and A.I, you must first accept them as a reality. It is not something limited to low-paid or manual jobs. It will replace brawn and brains in the workplace. For example, one could make an argument that A.I. is uniquely placed to replace jobs within the legal system, including the jobs of lawyers. It might be in a supporting role, but it’s not inconceivable to think of opting for a machine to interpret the facts of the law over a human in the near future.
The bottom line is that automation, A.I, and computing will change jobs, not destroy jobs. Already, we have seen the evidence of changing employment structures. Today, many of us work in the gig economy, have become micro-entrepreneurs working from the comfort of our homes, buyers and sellers on eBay, Amazon, have become bloggers, vloggers and influencers. In short, we make our income, or supplement it, in ways that would not have been conceivable a decade ago.
However, the opportunities in modern online investment offered by digital disruptors like social trading platforms is changing the landscape even further. It’s disrupting the traditional sphere of finance and investment, opening it up to millions of investors that may not have found it accessible to buy and trade financial products in the past.
Inexperienced investors can thrive
It is the access to the market for the inexperienced investor, the casual trader, that is important in the context of future jobs. We won’t all become an army of investors overnight, but many of us who are not trained in finance will be able to use the tools – big data, A.I., automation – to enter this arena. For many it is a hobby now, perhaps allowing for some supplementary income, but it has also yielded professional online traders, many of whom never have or never will step foot on Wall Street.
In the end, there is a plethora of ways the jobs market has changed and is in the process of changing. There is nothing to fear, for both skilled and unskilled workers. For every job lost in a factory to automation, another – perhaps more – pops up in the digital world. The key is to embrace it, not resist it.
