Every wave of automation arrives with the same headline: the machines are coming for the jobs. The historical record is messier and more interesting. Whole job titles rarely vanish overnight; instead the tasks inside them shift — the machine absorbs the repetitive part, and the human part moves toward judgement, repair, and dealing with the exceptions the machine cannot handle. New kinds of work appear that nobody predicted. And the transitions hurt — unevenly, and usually not the people writing the reassuring headlines. Both the panic and the reassurance tend to be overconfident.
Questions worth arguing about:
- Pick a job you know up close — a parent’s, a relative’s, your own part-time work. Which of its tasks could software or a robot do today? Which parts are hardest to automate — and what makes those parts hard?
- An electrician diagnosing a smart-home installation, a mechanic reading fault codes, a welder programming a cutting path — the skilled trades are not being replaced by digital technology; they are being rewired by it. Does “learn to code” undersell the trades, or do the trades now quietly include it?
- New work always appears — but the person who lost the old job is rarely the person who gets the new one. Who owes that person what: the company that automated, the government, the schools? Anyone?
- AI systems now write passable code. Does that change your answer about which jobs are safe — including the jobs this course points toward? Is “safe” even the right thing to ask of a career?
- Confident predictions about automation have been wrong in both directions, repeatedly. How do you plan for a working life nobody can forecast — what would you bet on, and what would you refuse to bet on?
The honest answer to this page’s title is: nobody fully knows — which is itself worth sitting with. Automation and Artificial Intelligence covers how these systems actually work, which beats arguing about ghosts. And the skills least likely to expire are the ones this course practises daily: decomposing problems, debugging, and learning new tools without fear.
Curriculum connection
A3.1
investigate how digital technology and programming skills can be used within a variety of disciplines in real-world applications
Link to original
A3.2
investigate ways in which various industries, including those that involve skilled trades, are changing as a result of digital technology and programming innovations
Link to original
A3.3
investigate various career options related to digital technology and programming, and ways to continue their learning in these areas
Link to original
B4.1
investigate current innovations, including automation and artificial intelligence systems, and assess the impacts of these technologies on everyday life
Link to original
B4.3
investigate emerging innovations related to hardware and software and their possible benefits and limitations with reference to everyday life in the future
Link to original