How Will Artificial Intelligence Change Education and Work?

A new report titled “Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030” explores the role of AI in various aspects of society and considers implications for our future. The increasing personalization of learning due to intelligent systems and the skills likely required for jobs in an AI filled future are important to consider.

1. Educational personalization will increase

“While formal education will not disappear, the Study Panel believes that MOOC’s and other forms of online education will become part of learning at all levels, from K-12 through university, in a blended classroom experience. This development will facilitate more customizable approaches to learning, in which students can learn at their own pace using educational techniques that work best for them. Online education systems will learn as the students learn, supporting rapid advances in our understanding of the learning process. Learning analytics, in turn, will accelerate the development of tools for personalized education.”

Such intelligent systems may help all students be able to move through their education most effectively, but will likely especially improve education of talented students who are often bored and unchallenged.

2. New jobs will emerge that are currently unimaginable

“AI will likely replace tasks rather than jobs in the near term, and will also create new kinds of jobs. But the new jobs that will emerge are harder to imagine in advance than the existing jobs that will likely be lost. Changes in employment usually happen gradually, often without a sharp transition, a trend likely to continue as AI slowly moves into the workplace. A spectrum of effects will emerge, ranging from small amounts of replacement or augmentation to complete replacement. For example, although most of a lawyer’s job is not yet automated, AI applied to legal information extraction and topic modeling has automated parts of first-year lawyers’ jobs.”

Despite AI automating some aspects of jobs, certain facets of human ingenuity are likely to remain valuable or even increase in value. Perhaps AI will amplify human talent in ways that creates interesting occupational possibilities. It will also be important to consider how to help engage people from all parts of the occupational distribution.

Tom Vander Ark has a great podcast exploring what AI means for our kids and their future. He argues that "There’s nothing that will do more to impact lives and livelihoods of young people, nothing more profound in terms of ethics and economics."

The full report can be read here. What do you think we should do to prepare our kids for this future?

© 2016 by Jonathan Wai. You can follow me on Twitter or Facebook.