Future of Work: Riding the Wave of Change

Precisely this question came up during a recent look at how you should prepare for an AI and Data Analytics Driven future.   Well done, non technical piece.  Its not only about full blown AI taking over your job, its also about cognitively augmented workers doing that as well.    In Knowledge@Wharton:

The Future of Work: How You Can Ride the Wave of Change
For the average job-seeker or any parent wondering what kind of livelihood awaits the next generation, the current headlines are the stuff of anxiety attacks. Last month, the Associated Press announced that it would begin using an automated writing service to cover more than 10,000 minor league baseball games each year. Driverless trucks may soon be taking over from humans, elbowing out an entire profession. New technology purports to bring great change to a surprising number of fields, including law, medicine and financial services. What will be the human toll and net effect on the economy? Has the U.S. reached an epoch of irreversible job loss?

To a large extent, the public discussion over the future of work has followed a storyline that says technology and globalization are coming to whisk your job away. But behind the obvious forces, other perhaps more powerful factors are at play, says Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli, director of the school’s Center for Human Resources. “If one wanted to look at single changes that matter a lot to work, the biggest in my view has been ideology, the shift from the idea that business had a responsibility to all stakeholders toward the idea that they have responsibility only to one – shareholders.” He adds that the second most impactful change has been the rise of China and “the addition of maybe 500 million semi-skilled workers to the world labor force. Neither of those were predictable a decade or more in advance of them happening.” ... "