Today’s university graduates face increasing competition for employment.
This competition comes not just from other qualified graduates across the globe but from algorithms, artificial intelligence and robots. And, in the face of this machinic incursion, I have just one piece of advice: Give up.
For data-intensive occupations that rely on pattern recognition and repetitive operations, machines are simply better, stronger and faster.
Algorithms now generate original written documents replacing dozens of human beings in the newsroom for reporting on sporting events, business news, and basic journalistic content. Artificial Intelligence applications are more efficient and capable analyzing the vicissitudes of the financial markets and trading stocks, bonds and futures, maximizing profit while simultaneously reducing the cost of overhead.
Robot lawyers now perform the labor-intensive work of legal discovery and review, jobs that used to involve large numbers of lawyers and even larger numbers of legal assistants. Even driving for Uber and other ride-sharing services is a short-term fix as self-driving vehicles gain increasing traction in all aspects of transportation and logistics.
Fighting to keep these particular jobs is a losing battle. The key to winning the war is learning how to partner and cooperate with these autonomous systems.
Despite their impressive capabilities, there are many things the machines still cannot do or do well. For this reason, if we only focus on what is being lost, we will miss the new opportunities. The real trick is figuring out how to work with rather than against the robots.
I’m David Gunkel, and that’s my perspective.
