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?