Last week I wrote about Canada's granting agency for social science and humanities research.
I said that I would take a few weeks to look at some of the future challenges that the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) has posed to researchers. In my typical fashion I see these questions as a way to think about how we might better live together in the world.
One of SSHRC's six future challenges areas asks us to consider: "What new ways of learning, particularly in higher education, will Canadians need to thrive in an evolving society and labour market?"
SSHRC question came to life for me this week when I opened up the Globe and Mail Business section to find an article by Barrie McKenna entitled, "Will driverless cars lead us down a jobless road?"
McKenna cites a Pew Research Center study that argues that "[a]dvances in robotics and artificial intelligence are already wiping out large swaths of low skilled, mostly male-dominated jobs." He reports that "[b]y 2025, entire professions, including truckers and taxi drivers, could vanish."
McKenna balances his piece with a response from the Canadian Trucking Alliance. Marco Beghetto says that "The technology exists...but I don't see a day when the political and regulatory landscape would allow that in most settings."
The argument is that there are not likely to be scenarios where no human being will be required to oversee work. The real concern arises when there is a small but elite group of skilled workers that can control the automated environment versus a larger pool of under or unemployed labourers.
The potential for a deeply divided income distribution is worrisome.
The critical aspect of the McKenna article comes in the last paragraph in which he cites the lead researcher from the Pew Center arguing that, "We have the ability to decide which of these futures we inhabit...Many of the worst consequences of automation can be overcome with better polices, such as living wages, an enhanced social safety net and an education system that better prepares students for the work of the future."
But all of these things: better public policy and living wages, an enhanced social safety net and a better education system require us to research how such an environment can come about and what are the best practices. Remember that we don't know what we will face in terms of these "disruptive technologies" that will change the face of social and culture norms. There are broad implications that can alter the way we live together.
These changes do not have to be negative but we need to think about how we can support resilient communities and educated citizens to face these challenges.
It should not be lost on any one of us that this question about what new ways of learning our children may need comes at a time when we anxiously await news about whether or not our children will be heading back to school at all in September. Remember that the children we are sending to kindergarten today will be the teenagers entering university in around 2027 - two years after the predicted decline of transport industry jobs.
We need to be having conversations right now about how our education system will prepare our children for these disruptive technologies. The problems of the mid-21st century are challenges we should be wresting with now.
Researchers do this work but the related commitment by citizens and government has to exist so that good science is accepted as the basis for good public policy decisions.
When we think about the important challenge question that SSHRC poses we should think that every day presents us a crossroads for the kind of society our children and our grandchildren will face.
Remember as well that while our history can inform our understanding of the impacts of disruption our imagination and creativity can be powerful tools to assuage their impacts. This is why we need the poets and the artists and the writers. They too are researchers in the question of our long-term well-being.
As much as research requires good data, reliable methodology, and careful analysis it also requires a certain vision about what might be possible.
I can hardly wait for my students to get back in September so they can be part of the next generation of students to tackle SSHRC's question.
