If you’re going to spend $100,000 and complete a 4 year degree, don’t you want to make sure those skills are still relevant by the time you complete your degree?
The truth is that some of the oldest, traditionally “safe” jobs are under threat from machines, technology and artificial intelligence (AI).
Accounting clerks and book-keepers, office administrators, financial and insurance administrators, personal assistants and secretaries, librarians, real estate agents, transport drivers – are all at risk.
So the question is, will your current and future job still be relevant or will it be taken over by artificial intelligence (AI)?
Read: Top 10 safest high paying jobs for Australia’s future [Updated 2021]
The full recording is available inside the Digital Investors Program.
Liz Raad: AI and job security. This is something that we are definitely feeling within our community, which is interesting. We’ve had a lot of people come back to us and say, “Look, I’ve just lost my job. I have to go full time online digital now, because I don’t have a job anymore”.
And, the other trend that we’re now seeing, is that move towards contract work. Who’s felt that in their industry (or their job), where people aren’t being employed full-time anymore? Or even working on a part-time basis, they’re being employed on contract?
So, there’s way less job security in that regard. And, we have to be aware of that.
Having One Job Is Incredibly Dangerous
No matter what our job roles are, we need to be aware that having one job is an incredibly dangerous place to be in this environment. – Liz Raad, eBusiness Institute
Matt Raad: Yes, and that’s across the board. I’m always interested when speaking to our group of students – who has had experience with lower job security? I’m presuming that’s pretty prevalent.
Liz: And when you think about all of us working from home lately, there is a lot of that in terms of middle management. There’s going to be a very big shift where one person can be managing a lot more people. If you’ve got a lot of people working remotely, or working from home, or in perhaps small satellite offices etc.
So, the workplace environment is going to change. And some of you may have seen this coming for years. The growth of the trends that were already coming is now accelerating, and technology is already disrupting.
Perhaps tradies would be the only safe vocation? Although there’s AI bricklayers out there now!
Matt: I agree that tradies are still booming. They’re still going really well.
Securing Your Future With Digital Skills
So, what do we do as digital marketers who want to work from home in our jimmy jams? For those of us who don’t want to get on the tools and get our hands dirty and stuff like that. What do we do to help these tradies? We sell them leads. We do their website builds, sell them leads, and improve their SEO.
Liz: There’s a famous saying that says when there’s a gold rush, you don’t have to be the poor old prospector on the edge, digging for gold, and getting all dirty. Instead, you’d be the one selling them the shovels.
So, in this case we provide the tradies the support and the tools. We facilitate the access to this online world by building websites, by creating sites that review products, that guide people in the right direction.
Remember – we answer questions, we solve problems, and we help people. And that’s what people need the most, because there’s still a huge proportion of the population who don’t get this and need help, which is awesome because that’s what we can do.
Matt: When you think about this on the flip side, it’s the tool to get people to buy the physical product. It gives them the background information (or product review) that they need to help make a decision.
Liz: So, Artificial Intelligence are programs that can basically think for themselves. The programmer no longer has to say, “If this, then that”. For example, “If this happens, then you should do this” etc. The program is able to learn for itself, “When that happens, I should do this”. It can actually strategize.
To be honest, this has come as a shock to a lot of people. People never thought that a computer would be able to beat a human in chess because it is so complicated and so forward thinking. And that’s what happened with IBM’s Watson in 2010 when it was able to beat human Jeopardy!
And then they thought, “well, it can beat them in chess, but it can’t beat them in GO”.
Matt: Have you seen the game GO? There’s a really cool doco on it on Netflix at the moment. But GO is a very complex game in terms of thinking.
Liz: They thought it would take decades for a computer to be able to beat a person in GO, but it’s happening now.
Matt: Google AI learned GO in a day.
Now the other thing that they’re using AI in is in healthcare, which is something that’s particularly relevant right now.
Liz: So in terms of professional jobs, we used to all think that we go to uni, we get educated, and we do a profession. We’re going to be safe, and we’re always going to have a high income.
Jobs Being Replaced By Artificial Intelligence
But today, accounting jobs are all being automated and done by AI. Lawyers are really struggling too. And also with paralegals, AI can do a huge amount of the work that paralegals used to do.
Matt: They did that study. It was on another doco that we were watching recently about AI. In this doco, they completely replaced this paralegal team and the AI sorted it within hours. And the young girl who was running it was looking a bit shell-shocked at the end!
Liz: She was thinking, “Maybe I shouldn’t be a paralegal now!”
Matt: And she admitted that the AI did a better job than what her team did.
To learn more, read: Top 10 safest high paying jobs for Australia’s future [Updated 2021]
If you’re a member of the Digital Investors Program, you can watch the full recording by logging into your membership site here.
If you’re not a member and want to be, you can get access to the full recording by becoming a member of the Digital Investors Program.
If you have any questions, contact us here.
