In response to M. Gavaz’s post, I would like to provide my 2 cents about it.
I totally agree that digitalization is a great thing. It can definitely improve our lives and lighten up our workload. However, I do have some concerns regarding the digitalization. And with me, apparently also many other millennials.
At the moment, digitalization is praised for its potential to drive cars, be smarter or more knowledgeable than any other human being. McKinsey predicts that the following jobs will be most susceptible to automation: predictable physical work, data processing and data collection; this accounts to around 51% of the time spent in all US occupations. So, this time that we spent on these jobs can be automated or replaced. And these jobs are mainly done right now by the middle class. Stephen Hawking, also, predicts that despite that, more jobs will be available. However, these jobs are high cognitive and academic jobs, as these jobs are directed and focused on building the IT foundation for the automation and AI to work. This means that despite all these new jobs, not all people will be able to do these jobs. Only a select few will be able to do so, who have the academic background and cognitive ability to work and adapt to the IT environment.
In short, it will mainly be the low and middle class that will get the biggest hit due to the technological advancements. There is a big chance that they will not be able to find a job in the future. This worries me: what will happen to the low and middle class? Will they be left behind in the near future? Also, if this happens, there is also a high chance that the economical inequality will rise. This inequality is already rising, right now, albeit slowly.
This is not the first time that a disruption has threaten our society. It has happened with the previous revolutions, e.g. the Industrial Revolution and we also survived.
My question to the BIM’ers is: How can we best prepare the next generation for the new landscape?
I agree that this is quite a serious topic, as numerous blue-collar workers such as truck drivers will be out of work in the next 10-20 years. Entire industries will change, and not all those workers will be able to find a new job directly. The government should work diligently to fund new training programs so that blue-collar workers wont be out of work indefinitely after they lose their jobs to a computer program.