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The edge of tomorrow : How far into the future can we see?

Jul 27, 2023 10:27 PM IST

Economist Arun Sundararajan on how digital technologies will transform the coming decades. Work life will change, cutting-edge tech will be more accessible

What can we expect in the next 50 years? Is there even a way to answer that?

. (Adobe stock)
. (Adobe stock)

Peering into the future is built into some fields. Arun Sundararajan, Harold Price professor of entrepreneurship and professor of technology at New York University’s Stern School of Business, has been studying how digital technologies transform business, government and civil society for 25 years.

As an economist “who knows a fair bit of computer science”, he engages with questions of what the world’s largest economies and democracies will look like by 2075; what it will take to keep societies stable; how ballooning inequities can be reversed, which he identifies as a key first step.

Could he have predicted that a woman would marry an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered avatar that she created, as happened with New York City’s Rosanna Ramos and Eren Kartal, earlier this year? Or that an augmented reality headset would let users enter 3D worlds and interact with apps using gestures made in thin air, as with the Apple Vision Pro unveiled two weeks ago?

He saw the second one coming, he says, but not the first.

The big change he does see coming, is a giant shift in how we work — not just in terms of where, or what we do, but in terms of the essential formula that has stood since the dawn of the industrial revolution: that of a corporate structure that enables people in a society to support or improve their lifestyle.

Already, Sundararajan says, “the fraction of the US workforce that gets all or part of their income from something other than a full-time job is much higher than most people think. This will exceed 50% of the workforce by the end of the decade.”

What other paradigm shifts does the near future hold? Excerpts from an interview.

According to Sundararajan, in 10 years we can expect to be wearing low-cost lightweight headsets that project “floating” screens and have enough sensors that facilitate typing in the air. (Chris Macke)
According to Sundararajan, in 10 years we can expect to be wearing low-cost lightweight headsets that project “floating” screens and have enough sensors that facilitate typing in the air. (Chris Macke)

Is augmented reality the future?

Our interactions and interfaces with technology are poised for a huge shift. Most of us still use a keyboard, a mouse and one or more display screens, just like we did 20 years ago. In 10 years, expect to be wearing low-cost lightweight headsets that project “floating” screens and have enough sensors so that we can simply type and gesture in the air. Meta Quest headsets and Apple’s Vision Pro give us a glimpse into this future, though they aren’t ready for mass-market adoption yet.

You’ve said we should be bracing for major impacts in the workplace…

What we need is a mindset shift about occupations. In the 20th century, many people had careers with a single employer. Now, most people have many jobs and employers through their careers but generally stick to one occupation.

In the future, people have to expect that they will have two or three entirely different occupations as their career progresses, because tech change will require this kind of occupational shifting mid-career. We should expect that full-time employment will be the exception rather than the norm, as more people find more lucrative opportunities for independent and micro-entrepreneurial work through tech-driven platforms.

What does this mean for how societies organise themselves?

The changes in employment will place a larger burden on society to create a social safety net and career-path planning that isn’t employer-dependent. We’re used to relying on an employer for a predictable salary and a ladder to climb. This predictability and scaffolding will have to come from elsewhere.

What are the greatest challenges to erecting such a scaffolding, in time?

The world’s economies are generally ill-prepared to deal with this upheaval because much of the focus of education policy in the 20th century was on preparing people for their first occupation. We don’t even know exactly what the right mix of skills training, mentoring and credentials is for mid-career transitions. Besides which, most of the funding and prestige is still associated with improving leading undergraduate colleges rather than mid-career vocational training or lifelong learning.

In terms of education, building critical thinking and a broad worldview will remain essential, as will basic math and computing concepts. But we need to introduce more design thinking into the curriculum to prepare people to imagine and invent their own career trajectories in the absence of a corporate ladder. We need to impart financial literacy in high school and college, since many more people will, in a sense, be running small, single-person enterprises.

What does the near future look like for India, in your view?

Many of the jobs that have been created in India in the information services sector, ranging from call centre work to computer programming, over the last two decades will be hit hard by generative AI. These jobs have been central in expanding the lower middle class and middle class in the country. India needs to prepare for two things. First, the government must come up with ways to transition this talent pool to new occupations. Second, the country must look for new opportunities to expand tech-driven jobs. Aggressively growing the manufacturing sector is the right path here.

How will the climate crisis play into the uncertainty, worldwide?

It will dramatically expand the set of problems humanity needs to solve and create a new set of unfulfilled human needs. If you think about it, the expansion of the world economy is driven by fulfilling unfulfilled human needs and desires. There was no healthcare industry of consequence 200 years ago, and now it’s such a big part of the economy. Paradoxically, therefore, the economic responses to the effects of climate change will significantly expand the world economy over the 21st century, potentially creating new industries, as we have already seen with alternative energy.

We’ve tended to find solutions and ways to carry on. How hard will it be, this time around?

Although this might seem like a highly uncertain time, it’s not very volatile when compared to the first half of the 20th century, during which there were two world wars, the collapse of colonial empires, the rise of an entirely new economic system (communism), a massive redrawing of the world map and the emergence of nuclear power.

With all the computing power and AI at our disposal, we should be able to implement sophisticated systems that achieve social goals. For example, we could make taxation much more nuanced, and redistribute wealth in a much more targeted and precise way.

Since the 1980s, the pendulum has swung very far towards favouring innovation over regulation. Most economies favour rapid progress over thoughtful progress. Much like we did with fossil fuels, we are borrowing from the future — taking technological risks without understanding or internalising their possible costs, and leaving intellectual loans for future generations to pay off.

While humanity has always adapted, and technology has helped, the real challenge for the next decade or two will be imposing the right governance on technology itself.

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