How technology is changing our professions
One thing that revolutions in technology - industrial revolution being the first wave, and computers being the latest - have done is that they have created new jobs that didn’t exist by making existing ones obsolete.
Take banks for example. As a kid, I would observe that 30-40% of the people in the branch were employees and it would take about 30min to get your work done. Today, I see that there are only 5-10 people in a branch and it takes about 30min to get your work done! I guess there are things technology can’t solve! We have bank accounts that don’t need you to go to bank ever.
Similar is the case with secretaries, telephone operators, postmen, etc. The list goes on. These jobs added value to society and yet have become obsolete or insignificant because of technological advancements and automation.
This has resulted in creation of jobs that add fewer values and yet people are replacing traditional jobs with them.
Today, we have people travelling fulltime, doing stupid things; and uploading photos and videos on social media. We have gone from reading biographies of great people to watching the everyday lives of insignificant people! (Also, there are people who actually create great content, not to forget them.)
Thanks to technology, the entry barrier to these professions are very low. Note that it’s not easy to do it but because anyone can do it, many people are leaving their traditional jobs. I am also not criticising them or their work. Who is stopping me from doing what they are? (If my manager is reading this, please be assured, I am not quitting!!)
Today anyone can start a news website, video production company, become a singer, actor, model, comedian, etc.
Henry Ford took us from working for 14hrs to 8hrs, and now we are moving to us controlling how long we want to. We can work 14hrs or 8hrs or even 2hrs. And because of these migrations and automation, I expect in distant future my working hours reducing.
I’d like to recall a quote by someone: We must study war and politics so that our children can study science and technology so that their children can study art.
We used to have many wars centuries ago, but now we have less war - thanks to the industrial revolution. (Of course, we won’t stop warring as long as we have men with insecurities ruling us. They should try this game called PUBG!) We are now in the age where the impact of technology is so high, that we have people moving over to arts. We need fewer people to sustain and evolve our civilization. If we reach the AI singularity - the good one - then we might not need to work at all.
To all these vloggers, tik tok-ers, online gamers, online streamers, tech reviewers, singers, travellers, photographers, Instagram models, and “influencers”. We engineers, scientists, and business managers say this to you: You are welcome.
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