If you’ve not heard the phrase
“technological unemployment,” brace yourself; you’ll be hearing it a lot over
the coming years.
Technology is automating jobs out of
existence at a record clip, and it’s only getting started.
Yes, my predictions of endangered
jobs will likely strike fear into the hearts of countless millions trying to
find meaningful work. But while crystal balls everywhere are showing massive
changes on the horizon, it’s not all negative news.
For those well attuned to the top
three skills needed for the future – adaptability, flexibility, and
resourcefulness – there will be more opportunities than they can possibly
imagine.
As an example, for people who lived
150 years ago, having never seen a car, the thought of traveling 1,000 miles
seemed like an impossible journey. But today, 1,000-mile trips are not only
common, they’re trivial.
This is precisely the shift in
perspective we’re about to go through as the tools at our disposal begin to
increase our capabilities exponentially.
As I describe the following
endangered jobs, understand there will be thousands of derivative career paths
ready to surface from the shadows.
We live in unbelievably exciting
time, and those who master the fine art of controlling their own destiny will
rise to the inspiring new lifestyle category of “rogue commanders of the known
universe.”
Stained glass driverless car
Cause of Destruction: Driverless
Cars
When DARPA launched their first
Grand Challenge in 2004, the idea of autonomous driverless vehicles for
everyone seemed like a plot for a bad science fiction novel about the far
distant future. The results of the first competition even bore that out with
few of the entrants even getting past the starting blocks.
The 2005 contest, however, was far
different with five teams completing the 132-mile course through the dessert,
setting the stage for the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. The Urban Challenge
proved for all that these vehicles were rapidly coming up the acceptance curve.
Over the past few years, Google’s
involvement has made driverless cars a common water cooler topic, causing
virtually every transportation company in the world to launch their own
driverless research team working on autonomous features.
Between now and 2030, driverless
features will pave the way for fully autonomous vehicles and the demand for
drivers will begin to plummet. On-demand transportation services, where people
can hail a driverless vehicle at any time will become a staple of everyday
metro living.
Endangered Jobs
Drivers
1. Taxi Driver
2. Limo driver
3. Bus drivers
4. Rental car personnel
Delivery Positions
5. Truck drivers
6. Mail carriers
Public Safety
7. Traffic cops
8. Meter maids
9. Traffic court judges
10. Traffic court lawyers
11. Traffic court DAs
12. Traffic court support staff
Misc.
13. Parking lot attendants
14. Valet attendants
15. Car wash workers
Cause of Destruction: Flying Drones Flying drones will be configured into thousands of different
forms, shapes, and sizes. They can be low flying, high flying, tiny or huge, silent
or noisy, super-visible or totally invisible, your best friend, or your worst
enemy.
Without the proper protections,
drones can be dangerous. The same drones that deliver food and water can also
deliver bombs and poison. We may very well have drones watching the workers who
watch the drones, and even that may not be enough.
Even though drones will be
eliminating huge numbers of jobs, they will be creating tons of new
opportunities for professions that haven’t been invented yet.
That said, here are a few of the
jobs that drones will help disappear.
Endangered Jobs
Delivery Positions
16. Courier service
17. Food delivery
18. Pizza delivery
19. Postal delivery
Agriculture
20. Crop monitors/consultants
21. Spraying services
22. Shepherds
23. Wranglers/herders
24. Varmint exterminators
Surveying
25. Land and field surveyors
26. Environmental engineers
27. Geologists
Emergency Rescue
28. Emergency response teams
29. Search and rescue teams
30. Firefighters
News Services
31. Mobile news trucks
Remote Monitoring
32. Construction site monitors
33. Building inspectors
34. Security guards
35. Parole officers
Cause of Destruction: 3D
Printers
3D printing, often described to as
additive manufacturing, is a process for making three dimensional parts and
objects from a digital model. 3D printing uses “additive processes,” to create
an object by adding layer upon layer of material until it’s complete.
Manufacturing in the past relied on
subtractive processes where blocks of metal, wood, or other material has
material removed with drills, laser cutters, and other machines until the final
part was complete. This involved skilled machine operators and material
handlers.
3D printing reduces the need for
skilled operators as well as the need for expensive machines. As a result,
parts can be manufactured locally for less money than even the cheapest labor
in foreign manufacturing plants.
This technology is already being
used in many fields: jewelry, footwear, industrial design, architecture,
engineering and construction, automotive, aerospace, dental and medical
industries, education, geographic information systems, civil engineering, and
many others.
Endangered Jobs
Manufacturing
36. Plastic press operators
37. Machinists
38. Shipping & receiving
39. Union representatives
40. Warehouse workers
Cause of Destruction: Contour
Crafting
Contour Crafting is a form of 3D
printing that uses robotic arms and nozzles to squeeze out layers of concrete
or other materials, moving back and forth over a set path in order to fabricate
large objects such as houses. It is a construction technology that has great
potential for low-cost, customized buildings that are quicker to make, reducing
energy and emissions along the way.
A few months ago the WinSun
Decoration Design Engineering Company used contour crafting to “print” 10
houses in a single day using a massive printer that was 490 feet long, 33 feet
wide, and 20 feet deep.
Last week, an Italian 3D printer
company named WASP, demonstrated a giant, three-armed printer filled with mud
and fiber to build extremely cheap houses in some of the most remote places on
Earth.
This type of technology will have
major implications on all construction, building, and home repair jobs.
Endangered Jobs
Home Construction
41. Carpenters
42. Concrete workers
43. Home remodeling
44. City planners
45. Homeowner insurance agents
46. Real estate agents
Cause of Destruction: Big Data &
Artificial Intelligence
It’s becoming an ever increasingly
blurred line between big data and artificial intelligence.
A few months ago, Stephen Hawking
opened the world’s eyes to the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI), warning
that it has the potential of outsmarting humans in the financial markets.
More recently, Elon Musk made
headlines when he said artificial intelligence could be “unleashing the demons,”
and researchers from some of the top U.S. universities say he’s not wrong.
In spite of growing fears, AI will
be entering our lives in many different ways ranging from smart devices, to
automated decision-makers, to synthetic designers.
When Kristian Hammond, CTO of
Narrative Sciences predicted, “By 2030, 90% of all the news will be written by
computers,” he was referring to AI software that is quickly coming up the
learning curve.
Endangered Jobs
Writing
47. News reporters
48. Sports reporters
49. Wall street reporters
50. Journalists
51. Authors
Military
52. Military planners
53. Cryptographers
Medical
54. Dietitians
55. Nutritionists
56. Doctors
57. Sonographers
58. Phlebotomists
59. Radiologists
60. Psychotherapists
61. Counselors/psychologists
Financial Services
62. Financial planners/advisors
63. Accountants
64. Tax advisors
65. Auditors
66. Bookkeepers
Legal Services
67. Lawyers
68. Compliance officers/workers
69. Bill collectors
Misc
70. Meeting/event planners
71. Cost estimators
72. Fitness coaches
73. Logisticians
74. Interpreters/translators
75. Customer service reps
76. Teachers
Cause of Destruction: Mass Energy
Storage
Any form of mass energy storage will
dramatically improve renewable energy’s role in the marketplace. The first
companies to commercialize utility-scale energy storage stand to make a fortune
and pioneer some of the most significant advancements to the world’s power
generation and distribution system in decades.
While we are not quite there yet,
significant technological breakthroughs are on the horizon and major
installations will soon become commonplace.
Large-scale methods of storing
energy storage include flywheels, compressed air energy storage, hydrogen
storage, thermal energy storage, and power to gas. Smaller scale commercial
application-specific storage methods include flywheels, capacitors and
supercapacitors.
In 5 – 10 years the mass,
grid-scale, bulk energy storage industry will likely be a rapidly growing
industry much as solar and wind are today. Electricity generated but not
consumed is a waste of natural resources and money lost. Energy storage will
change all that.
Endangered Jobs
77. Energy planners
78. Environmental designers
79. Energy auditors
80. Power plant operators
81. Miners
82. Oil well drillers, roughnecks,
83. Geologists
84. Meter readers
85. Gas/propane delivery
Cause of Destruction: Robots
Robots taking jobs from
manufacturing workers has been happening for decades. But rapidly advancing
software will spread the threat of job-killing automation to nearly every
occupation.
Anything that can be automated will
be. A robotic “doc-in-a-box” will help diagnose routine medical problems in
many areas, while other machines will perform surgeries and other procedures.
If the human touch is not essential
to the task, it’s fair to assume that it will be automated away.
Over the coming decades, robots will
enter the lives of every person on earth on far more levels than we ever
dreamed possible.
Endangered Jobs
Retail
86. Retail clerks
87. Checkout clerks
88. Stockers
89. Inventory controllers
90. Sign spinners
Medical
91. Surgeons
92. Home healthcare
93. Pharmacists
94. Veterinarians
Maintenance
95. Painters
96. Janitors
97. Landscapers
98. Pool cleaners
99. Grounds keepers
100. Exterminators
101. Lumberjacks
Final Thoughts
The question remains, will
technology become a net-destroyer of jobs or a net-creator?
For each of the endangered jobs
listed above, I can easily come up with several logical offshoots that may
amount to a net increase in jobs.
As an example, traditional lawyers
may transition into super-lawyers handling 10X the caseload of lawyers today.
Limo drivers may become fleet operators managing 50-100 cars at a time.
Painters may become conductors of paint symphonies with robot painters
completing entire houses in less than an hour.
If it cost a tenth as much to paint
your house, you’ll simply do it more often. This same line of thinking applies
to washing your car, traveling around the world, and buying designer clothes.
In a recent column I wrote titled, “The Laws of
Exponential Capabilities” I explain how every exponential decrease
in effort create an equal and opposite exponential increase in capabilities. As
today’s significant accomplishments become more common, mega-accomplishments
will take their place, and we need to set our sights on far more of tomorrow’s
“mega-accomplishments.”
It is simply not possible to run out
of work to do in the world. But whether or not there will be a job tied to the
work that needs to be done is another matter entirely.
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