Education Week - September 27, 2017 - 5

ROBOTS COULD TAKE OVER SPECIFIC TASKS,
RATHER THAN ENTIRE OCCUPATIONS
experts say the nation's educators can take one prediction to the bank.
"Change is going to come," said Lee Rainie, who
heads the study of technology for the Pew Research
Center."Standing pat is not an option."

IF YOU COULD PROTOTYPE A 13-YEAR-OLD WHO IS LIKELY
to thrive in the 2030 labor market, she'd probably look a
lot like Emma Yang of New York City. (See profile, page 12.)
The private school 9th grader has already designed
an app to help diagnose concussions. She's used neural
networks to train computer programs to identify lung
tumors. Her latest project, an app called Timeless, uses
algorithms to help Alzheimer's patients recognize the
family members in their photos.
Yang is insatiably curious. She asks big questions. And
she has killer people skills.
"You don't have to be a doctor or a politician to effect
change in the world," Yang told the crowd at her first
TEDx Talk, delivered in July in Washington. "Solve the
problems you see around you."
Elite-level technical abilities, the probing mind of a scientist, and a deft human touch: That's the experts' best
guess about the combination of traits that will guarantee
rewarding employment in tomorrow's economy.
Facebook, for example, recently offered advice to students who want to work in artificial intelligence. Take
all the math you possibly can, the company suggested-
while also finding time to study computer science, economics, engineering, neuroscience, and philosophy;
cultivate mentors; think about vexing challenges in new
ways; and publish your own open-source code.
It's heavy, heady stuff.
But such advice also raises red flags, especially for those
observers who are most alarmed by the ways technology
is upending the labor market.
One fear is that the bar for making today's students
future-proof is becoming unrealistically high. And even if
America's schools could churn out a steady stream of Emma
Yangs, some experts worry it might not matter.
Robots and AI-powered digital agents already rival humans at translating languages, playing strategy games,
and flipping hamburgers. They've started driving cars and
diagnosing cancer. Increasingly, they're able to learn by
observing humans, rather than being programmed by us.
That all means big problems, says futurist Martin Ford.
The labor market is a pyramid, Ford wrote in his 2015
book Rise of the Robots. Automation has already begun
devouring the pyramid's base, replacing assembly-line
workers, warehouse stockers, and cashiers.
Paralegals, radiologists, line cooks, truck drivers, insurance underwriters, travel agents, lab technicians, tax
preparers, and office assistants could all be next.
And with artificial-intelligence systems starting to
write their own code, it's entirely possible that many of
the six-figure computer-science jobs currently available
could eventually be lost to technology, too.

Technology may not eliminate many jobs entirely,
but it could change the way most work looks.

Percent of job
activities
that can be
automated
with existing
technologies
> 90%
> 80
> 70
> 60
> 50
> 40

Fewer than 10 % of occupations could see nearly all their
required activities automated by existing technologies.

8%
18

26
34
42
51

> 30

> 20
> 10

But in about
60% of occupations,
technology could
automate a third
or more of the
required activites.
73
91

SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; McKinsey Global Institute analysis

In such a scenario, how many jobs would be left at the
top of the labor-market pyramid?
Turn your gaze back to Facebook, Ford suggests. The
company may be worth $500 billion, but it employs just
20,000 people. Only 75 work in artificial intelligence.
Now you can see why lots of reasonable people are
drawing dire conclusions.
In 2014, for example, the Pew Research Center surveyed
1,896 experts. Nearly half said they "envision a future in
which robots and digital agents have displaced significant
numbers of both blue- and white-collar workers." Many
are worried that the trend "will lead to vast increases in
income inequality, masses of people who are effectively
unemployable, and breakdowns in the social order."
What would such a future mean for today's schools?
"Whatever you do," Ford warns, "it isn't going to be
enough."

LIKE MANY PEOPLE IN PUBLIC EDUCATION, LAURA ARNOLD
has mostly tried to avoid such gloomy forecasts.
It's not that workforce preparation is missing altogether from the K-12 conversation. For decades, the
sector has talked about "vocational education," "linked
learning," "21st century skills," and more.
And it's not that Arnold herself is busy fighting other
battles. As an associate commissioner in the Kentucky
education department, she's helped turn her state into a
national leader in career-and-technical education.
But the horizons for such efforts in public education
tend to be short-term. Reliable data on local workforce
trends only extend out five years, Arnold said. Companies
are focused on what they need right now. Schools struggle
to meet even those immediate demands.
Taking time to consider the long-term implications of
artificial intelligence can seem overwhelming.
"We need to be at the table for these discussions,"

Change is
going to come.
Standing pat
is not an option."
LEE RAINIE

Director of internet
and technology research,
Pew Research Center

Schools & the Future of Work / www.edweek.org/go/futureofwork

http://www.edweek.org/go/futureofwork

Education Week - September 27, 2017

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