"Some occupations will go away, and new ones will be created, but even together, those will be a distinct minority of the world’s occupations."
"Some occupations will go away. . ." Oh that's rich: "Some." Ginni's way of understating the upcoming bloodbath.
[Quoting entire article below the link, as it's behind a paywall]
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ginni-rometty-on-how-ai-is-going-to-transform-jobsall-of-them-1516201040
Ginni Rometty
Jan. 17, 2018 9:57 a.m. ET
Today, the technologies grouped together under “artificial intelligence” are entering mainstream business and daily life. As often happens with radically new tools, some people worry it will destroy jobs.
The good news? A number of recent studies, including one commissioned by IBM, indicate that history is likely to repeat itself. Some occupations will go away, and new ones will be created, but even together, those will be a distinct minority of the world’s occupations.
In some ways, this is reassuring—but let’s not miss the real wake-up call. The vast majority of us in the workforce today will need to change how we do our jobs. Whether you’re a doctor, engineer, lawyer, music producer, teacher—or CEO—we are all going to do our work with the aid of analytics and forms of AI. We’ll do it to enhance the quality of the decisions we make. We’ll do it to keep up with the speed of data. We’ll do it to learn at exponential rates, because knowledge in every field is growing exponentially, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
AI—better understood as “augmented intelligence”—complements, rather than replaces, human cognition. It will become essential for transforming what we already do, and it will open a new landscape of the possible, helping us solve some of society’s perennial challenges, from curing disease to protecting personal data to securing critical infrastructure and more. Machines that learn will make both themselves and humans smarter than we have ever imagined.
Because of this, we face an imminent, profound transformation of the workforce. Are corporations ready? Are they retraining their people, including their professionals, and helping them develop new skills? Are they developing new models of work?
Jobs like cybersecurity, data mining or app development don’t necessarily require four-year college degrees, but they will need specific skills that aren’t being widely taught yet. Are school systems and universities adjusting? It isn’t just about teaching coding and creating the new curricula of data science and machine learning. Are medical schools, law schools, schools of public policy and business schools changing what and how they teach?
The next technology revolution promises to be every bit as consequential as previous shifts, from the steam engine to the internet. However, this will happen only if AI is ushered into the world responsibly and thoughtfully. At the top of that list is the issue of skills. I believe it will be the issue of our time, and education must be fundamentally revamped to address it. That’s not just a job for schools. It requires all of us working together—business, academia, government and civil society—to ensure a future that belongs not just to the few, but to all of us.
Ms. Rometty is chief executive officer of International Business Machines Corp.