What Will the Future of Work Look Like?
Three researchers associated with one of the oldest universities in Europe, Belgium’s KU Leuven which was founded in 1425, embarked on a project to predict future milestones in how work will change in the years and decades to come. They wrote their analysis for the Harvard Business Review.
Some of the predictions are on the mundane side, but others are pretty far out—literally in some cases, including interplanetary travel. It’s fair to say the researchers were not focusing on making the best, most likely predictions. Rather, the researchers' primary focus was on gleaning lessons from the methodology they used.
Step one was collecting 485 Belgian newspaper articles in which an expert made a prediction about the future of work. They found almost all of these experts fell into one of three groups: technology entrepreneurs, economics professors, and bestselling authors or leading journalists. Each group largely predicted similar outcomes, but there were significant differences when comparing the predictions of one group to the predictions of a different group.
Next, they crafted scenarios describing the future of work based on each group's predictions, and then they asked a total of 570 experts pulled from each of the three fields—technology, economics, and writing/journalism—to rate the likelihood of the scenarios. The experts were asked to assess how likely the predictions in the scenario were and when they were likely to occur. From this, the researchers put together a fun timeline of the possible future of work—a few of those predictions are below, but first, the real point of the research.
In the final piece to this research puzzle, the researchers had the experts take personality tests to assess their values and beliefs. The technology entrepreneurs tended to have an optimistic view of the future of work; economists were more skeptical, needing to rationalize predictions with evidence; and then there’s the writers and journalists, falling into their stereotypical pessimist category.
“In general, members of each expert group found it hard to understand how it was possible for the others to have such different beliefs about the future of work. After all, their predictions were based on objective numbers, figures, historical trends, and scientific research—how could anyone argue with that? The answer, of course, is that each of these experts were trained in a specific field, with its own set of rules and assumptions about how the world works,” the researchers wrote. “This leads to homogeneity within disciplines and heterogeneity between disciplines. It also explains why these competing groups of experts find it so hard to understand each other’s point of view.”
That’s the complex explanation for their snarky short explanation: “We can’t predict the future of work, but we can predict your prediction.” Their advice for business leaders:
“First, from now on, whenever you hear or read something about the future of work, don’t just look at what is predicted (and by when), but also who is saying it and why.”
“Second, what is your utopia for the future, and what is your dystopia? What should we do—or stop doing—in the short-, mid-, and long-term to move towards your desirable scenarios, and to reduce the risk of undesirable ones?”
“Third, what do you have most control over from your position of power and influence in society? What forms of power and influence do you not have? Can you partner with others who have sources of influence complementary to yours, and who share the same utopia?”
Ok, finally, let’s take a look at some of the things on the timeline they created. The timeline has 17 specific predictions, we’ll take a look at a few from various points on the timeline. (The researchers did not add commentary to the predictions, that’s this article author’s somewhat snarky analysis.)
2029—New technologies create new types of occupations and industries. Commentary: Say hello to the researchers’ skeptical economist prediction! After watching Gutenberg invent the printing press, the Wright brothers fly in Kitty Hawk, Fleming find a use for penicillin mold, and ARPA invent the Internet, the economists will accept that new technology creates new occupations and industries. Or at least they’re confident enough that it will by 2029.
2037—People work alongside robot colleagues. More and more jobs entirely replaced by technology. Commentary: Those skeptical economists are really going out on a limb this time: In 13 years, it will be routine for people to be working alongside robots. You can see the trend taking shape highly advanced and technologically savvy companies today. Check out Chipotle, which is rolling out robotic avocado peelers that will halve the time it takes to make guacamole for your burrito bowl.
2044—Surveillance societies become the norm worldwide. Commentary: Oh those pessimistic journalist types! I mean it’s not like there’s evidence that the two most influential countries—China and the United States—have any interest in becoming surveillance societies.
2052—Humanity depends on technology for everything. Commentary: On this point, the pessimists and the optimists might be in agreement, albeit with presumably different outlooks on what that means. Heck, even the skeptical economists can get on board with this one; after all, even if you go off the grid on a self-reliant, find your own food and shelter kind of way, you’re almost assuredly bringing some supplies only made possible by the technological innovation from the last 200 years or so.
2063—Technocratic elites start colonizing other planets. Commentary: Whoa, when tech bros enter the prediction market, they go big! Only the true technology optimist can think that we’ll be building colonies on other planets in less than 40 years. The physics of science fiction is likely, well, fiction, so other star systems will be out of reach without multi-generational travel plans. That means we're colonizing the Moon or Mars. Maybe there will be International Space Station-style facilities on one or both of those bodies in 40 years, but in the meantime, we're still quite Earth-bound.
2074—Human civilization is irreversibly changed by an uncontrollable superintelligence beyond our comprehension (technological singularity). Commentary: This is the last entry in the timeline, and there you have it: our destiny is The Matrix.
