Some jobs may not exist at all in the future: taxi drivers are likely to be replaced by self-driving cars; cashiers and retail staff will largely be replaced by machines that will let you pay for items yourself (such shops already exist). Deliveries might be done by drones, and much of telemarketing and customer service will be done by artificial intelligence (AI).
And while accountancy, construction, law and medicine will still exist, they will look very different. “For example, right now we are in the early stages of fully-automated surgery,” says Badminton. “So you could say that at some point in the future, you would roll up at a hospital, you go in, get prepped – maybe there are some humans to help out in the prep – but no human touches you in surgery, and ultimately you heal faster and the machine operation can tap into the knowledge of all the surgeons in the world – that’s the trajectory we are heading towards.”
What is more, AI has proved to be more effective than human doctors in terms of diagnosing certain conditions. That, of course, has huge implications for human doctors. Similar advances are being made in dentistry, where robots are already doing routine jobs better than humans can do them.
In accountancy, work that used to be done by humans is now being performed by computers; while in law, AI will be able to read through vast swathes of research that previously a recent graduate would have had to plough through. A study by the multinational professional services network Deloitte concluded that 100,000 legal roles will be automated by 2036.
But amid all the disappearing jobs there is good news. “While there will be a shift towards automation, I think we’ll be a world of the human and machine working together in symbiosis,” says Badminton. “We will be freed from repetitive work to do more creative things together. I call this new world the ‘wisdom economy’.”
He explains: “AI will not be good at creative problem solving, empathetic reasoning, philosophical debate and the human group dynamics of collaborating for a very long time. Deep human connection, empathy, curiosity – very human things – will be vital. Our human inquiry is still going to steer the ship.”
Carolyn Parry, founder of career coaching and training company Career Alchemy and president of professional body the Career Development Institute, agrees. “As AI increases, the parts [of us] that make us human – our empathy, creativity and problem-solving ability – are going to be more important than ever,” she says.
Parry adds that our resilience and adaptability will also be vital as the rate of change in the world will keep increasing. Most importantly, she believes, parents and grandparents should not assume that what worked for them will work for their children – quite the opposite.
“What parents can help their kids with is to get them to think originally – and I’m not just talking about drawing and design here, I’m talking about original thinking. New developments will come at the intersection of so many different disciplines. So if you think about a Venn diagram, you take three different disciplines and you overlap them – that’s where the opportunity is. This is where the cure for cancer will come from.
“Anything related to Stem [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] is good – if it interests them. But if it doesn’t, don’t push your youngster down a route they don’t want to follow. It’s a recipe for a disastrous start in life.”
Jobs of the future
Human-centred Designers and Ethicists
Salary: £100k+ (Estimated 2040 salary, taking inflation into consideration)
Today they would be: Systems designers, software engineers, professors of ethics, psychologists, philosophers
Education needed: Anything from computer science, philosophy, psychology and design and ethics. “There are a lot of people doing master’s degrees and PhDs in this field today,” Badminton observes.
When we use technology such as Facebook or Twitter today, we do so by agreeing to their terms and conditions. In exchange for us being able to communicate and access information, we hand over lots of our data. If we post pictures of our children, Facebook owns those picture. If we share details of our health, it owns that information, too. In the future, that will change, according to Badminton.
Technology will be designed so that the human using it will be the priority, not the company. “A human-centred design turns the tables on everything. It says, ‘Let’s put the rights of the person using the system ahead of the company’s rights; let’s work out ethically how we can work with them,’” says Badminton. “It asks, ‘What’s going to be right and fair for the human individual?’ ”
Twitter is already operating this way, but many more qualified individuals will be required to roll out the approach across other tech-based businesses.
Data Scientists and Brokers
Salary: £75k+
Today they would be: Software developers, data and business analysts, database administrators, AI trainers and engineers
Education needed: Computer science, data analytics, psychology, statistics, economics, data science
“By 2040, data will be created at a rate of more than 200 petabytes per year [a petabyte is 1,000 trillion units of text or information], with more than 8,000 digital data interactions per person every day – one every 10 seconds or so,” says Badminton.
