We’re hearing more and more about how technology will change the world of work, and how in ten years time it will have created new jobs that right now don’t even exist as concepts. That’s a tad mind-bending.
The thing is, that it’s already done just that. When our parents were looking for their first jobs, the idea of being able to make a living from filming themselves putting on makeup (beauty vlogger), or by making games to play on tiny wireless phones (smartphone app developer) would have sounded insane. To us though, they’re perfectly acceptable jobs to have. But what comes next?
It’s impossible to know all of the jobs that could be around in another ten years time, but a few likely candidates could include:
3D clothing designer
Not that clothing isn’t 3D already, but just imagine if, when 3D printers become more widely available, we take to downloading patterns and, instead of going to the shops to buy clothes, we can print them at home instead. Someone will need to design the digital printing files.
Artificial farmer
It’s being proposed that one way to reduce the environmental cost of cattle farming on the world could be to grow meat in a laboratory setting from stem cells. Maybe one day being a farmer will involve more test tubes and microscopes than hay and fields.
Ethical philosopher
As technology takes over jobs which were previously only able to be performed by humans, we’ll have to rely more on algorithms rather than inherent human judgement. This will raise questions about what the algorithms should instruct the tech to do in difficult situations. For example, if a car is going to crash and kill either the driver or a group of bystanders, should it protect its owner, or the public? It’ll be the job of the ethical philosophers to debate and decide what the program should do.
These are just a few ideas. They may happen, they may not. What it does mean is that as the workforce of the future, we’re going to have to practise being adaptable!
