Pity today's career counselor

I still remember my one and only career counseling session. Our grade nine home-room teacher instructed us to choose four possible career paths. 

Given how long ago this was (before the Internet was invented!), it's remarkable that I remember my choices, or at least three of them anyway. They were, in no particular order: journalist, economist and stockbroker.  

As I think back on this, journalism makes sense, seeing as I would go on to become a reputable summer reporter for a weekly newspaper after high school. Economic trends have always interested me, so an economist was also a reasonable choice. But to this day, I have no idea what enticed my mild-mannered personality to choose stockbroker (other than my intense love of money, of course). 

After we had selected our potential career paths, we were invited to a one-on-one counseling session with our teacher. This session lasted anywhere from two to three minutes. He reviewed my choices and said: "These all look very reasonable, with lots of job opportunities in the future. Good work." 

In university I went on to major in environmental studies. Go figure.

I'm hoping and I trust that today's career counselors do a little more homework. Especially with all the changes on the horizon... You know, with the automation apocalypse and all. 

Yes, the automation apocalypse. That doomsday scenario where technology fundamentally disrupts work as we know it. The one where robots can perform all human tasks by 2060.  

Now it's true, just a month ago I wrote about how this whole technological revolution thing was overblown and that disruptions in the labour force have been going on for the last two centuries. I used the example of the Luddites who, in the early 19th Century, destroyed automated textile equipment because the new technology was taking away their jobs. As we know now, the economy survived that period and continued to thrive. 

Well, after doing some reading (sometimes it's good to research before you write), I would say there's a growing body of evidence suggesting that the technological revolution will be more severe than anything modern society has ever experienced. The pace of technological growth is exponential, as we know, and humans may have trouble keeping up.  

It's believable because it's already happening. If I were to go back in time and counsel myself on my grade nine career choices, I would say they weren't good prospects after all. Making a living as a journalist was never easy, but good luck trying to find work at a newspaper in 2017. The small-town newspaper I worked for as a teenager just closed last year. Over the last 26 years, newspaper jobs have been decimated, reduced by nearly 60% in the U.S. alone. Thanks, Internet! 

While economists are doing okay (something to do with supply and demand, I hear), stockbrokers aren't faring any better than journalists. Wall Street is increasingly automated, with jobs being replaced by advanced algorithms that interpret news stories to make split second decisions to buy and sell. From 2011 to 2016, during a stock market boom, the number of traders was reduced by 20%.

And what about farming, you ask? Well I just happen to have a story about that as well. This year, a farm in the U.K. used machines to plant, tend and harvest a crop without ever having a human set foot on the field. Machines are currently being developed that can identify ripe oranges and pick them from the trees.

From farmers to fast-food servers to lawyers to writers (maybe even bloggers!), artificial intelligence has the potential to replace workers of all types in the very near future.

Pity the career counselors. They may be out of work, too.