Facing the Robotic Era

Speculations are rife on the human state in an impending robot era. In one of Tim Ferris podcasts, the guest mentioned that robots are likely to take over all the tasks that need efficiency. Most of the routine tasks, for instance, data entry or cleaning, are better done efficiently than in parallel with daydreaming.

The guest also mentions that humans would be in charge of the relatively inefficient tasks - science research, art, relationships, etc. For instance, science research is inherently inefficient as significant breakthroughs are made after years of repeated trials. One starts with a hypothesis, makes a few assumptions, collects data, tests the hypothesis, alters it depending on the results and repeats the process.

I thought this is a very interesting thought. Lives will change and that too dramatically. How do we get kids ready for this? Here are some humble thoughts, which would keep evolving.

1. Joblessness will become an integral part of life, at least for a significant subset. Also, a job may not entail the 9 to 5 routine. Naval Ravikant mentions that people should learn to work in a boom-bust fashion. This means many would face boredom as a challenge. Children should have enough practice to get around this. They should be bored and should find ways to fill their time with interesting activities. 'Avoid getting bored' is the first of the seven habits in the book 'The 7 habits of happy kids' by Sean Covey (yes, right guess, he is the son of Stephen Covey).

2. As mentioned earlier, managing relationships would become all the more important. It probably augurs well for kids to play among themselves for a larger period of time rather than sit at home watching TV of revising what is taught at school.

3. Linked to the above point, empathy will be of critical value. We would be in a polarized world with people who have work and who have no work or patchy work. To think from another person's perspective is one of the biggest challenges humans face today. Troubles are on unless we succeed in teaching kids (at least some of them) to be empathetic. It's unclear how to train on this, but that's a different topic of interest.

4. Creativity will rule the roost. Anything that's not creative will go to the machines. Let's teach kids to think and be creative. Information and memory will be redundant.

5-10. Who knows?

We the people of ...

A conversation between A* and his teacher on Republic day. This is after one of the kids talked about how the Preamble to the Constitution starts:

the other student: We the people of India
A*: We the people of the earth
teacher (hearing A*): We the people of the world
A*: We the people of the universe
teacher: We the people of the multiverse
A* (after thinking for five seconds): We the people of God!

I thought the conversation was quite relevant in the Trump era.

Parent's Conundrum

A scenario: your 8-year old son mentions to you that his friends are playing some inappropriate games. He also mentions he did not want to join and so just came off. Now you have a strong enough intuition that this is true. Now the question is, how are you going to react?

Here is my take:

Ask your son to continue playing with his friends but avoid taking part in the dirty ones. This is assuming you are fairly confident about your son's discriminatory abilities.

All good. What about your responsibility towards the parents of the other kids? I think you should definitely mention the dirty games to their parents so that they would be able to correct the kids. Now there is the likelihood of those parents disbelieving you. There is the likelihood of them accusing your child of lying. Never mind, how does it matter? Let them react; you have done your part.

But the offshoot of the whole episode is your son possibly losing the friends. Even if the parents believe you, in all probability, they would question their kids and say enough for the kids to realize that your son spilled the beans. And this is where things break up. You do not want your son to suffer.

What is the way out now? I talked about this conundrum to a more enlightened friend. She had a very clear advice. At a neutral instance raise this with your son and talk to him about your responsibility towards the other parents. Ask him for an opinion on what you should do. Make him feel empowered. It is also a great opportunity to point out the value of righteousness. If you go ahead and talk to the other parents after getting a buy-in from your son, you are in a much better position to avoid your son's heartbreaks even if he loses his friends. Why? Your son will for sure anticipate that. Kids are smarter than we think they are.

There is Nothing on the Other Side of Fear

I heard someone saying on a podcast that there is nothing on the other side of fear. As a person who gets bothered about the mundane and the minor, the statement struck me. It also goes along with the fact that we are much smaller than a germ in this gigantic universe. I remember Abel saying that the universe has been around for billions of years and in that context, he was too young (He is too young in any context). Naval Ravikant in his podcast with Tim Ferris says that the universe may go on for billions of more years and our coming and going make no difference.

The idea is more than obvious, but I thought it is worth reminding myself. Every breath is an opportunity. There is nothing that can be negative. There is nothing on the other side of fear.

The Tools System

I came across a schooling system called Tools of the Mind in the book 'Nurtureshock: Why everything we thought about children is wrong' by Pro Bronson and Ashley Merryman.

Tools of the Mind or the Tools system was designed by neuroscientists. The curriculum mainly focusses on developing two important skills:
1. Children should be able to maintain undistracted focus on the task at hand
2. Children should have enough practice in higher order thinking from a very early age

The system is introduced at the kindergarten level. Most of the learning happens through play-acting. For instance, while learning about a hospital, children play out the parts of various associated characters. Significantly, each child puts down her part of the play including the minutest details. Teachers would help them out in creating the script. The details would include drawings and words. Later while acting, children are encouraged to meticulously follow the script. Distractions are weeded out by reminding them of what is in the script and what is not. The whole exercise provides them excellent practice to shut out distractions and have a single-minded focus.

Scripting out details of their part of the play also helps them develop planning skills. This stimulates the part of the brain responsible for executive functions. The part of the brain that deals with executive functions and self-evaluation are critical to the child's ability to assimilate and concretize advanced and abstract topics.

Likewise the Tools system also has the exercise of grouping children into pairs and making one of them narrate a story. The other child is mandated to listen and comment on the story. This develops the child's evaluation skills, which gradually help make judgments on own work.

Many components of the Tools system could be relevant in countries like India. It may not be easy for schools to change systems, but they could try and add some parts of the system, at least at the very junior levels. At the same time, parents can adopt these ideas to have novel learning sessions with kids. Simple exercises can be designed to encourage the child to practice objective evaluation.