Tag: future

When will Humans Retire?

The number of people on the planet who are 60 or older will more than double from 1 Billion in 2015 to 2 billion in 2050. With the implementation of Artificial Intelligence and robotics, when will humans retire?

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Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

The global population is getting older.

We are informed about the fact that we are all living longer, the global population is getting older and it happening now! The number of people on the planet who are 60 or older will more than double from 1 Billion in 2015 to 2 billion in 2050 — an increase from 11 per cent of the global population to 22 per cent for the over.

At the same time, the number of people below the age of 24 will have no significant growth. To put it into perspective that is almost 10,000 people reach the age of 65 every day in the USA.

SOURCE: UNITED NATION, “WORLD POPULATION DATA”

Retirement age is increasing.

As a consequence of the increase of the over 60’s, our governments have already started to raise the official retirement age. Countries have slowly been increasing the retirement age from 62/65 to 67 around 2023.

Governments are already contemplating to change the retirement age to 75 or even 80 by 2035.

I believe that government retirement strategies are unsustainable!

50+ Syndrome

Training opportunities, leadership programmes and talent management schemes are absolutely necessary for a modern workplace. The majority of these initiatives focuses on young employees, to develop young talent into management/leadership roles. These initiatives are in place to help the company to grow and develop.
An employee learns and develops new skills. The company builds loyalty and better company branding, which enables the attracting of new talent.

The challenge is that once an employee reaches the age of 50, what do modern companies offer? There usually are not a lot of development opportunities or re-skilling opportunities for the 50+. Thus this encourages our 50+ employees, especially our senior managers sit fast and hold onto their positions as long as they can.

For the majority of people aged 50+, (who are not headhunted), find it extremely difficult to find and secure a new job.
Primary reasons are the interviewee experiences out-ways the interviewer’s experience as well as their unconscious bias of older people.

Are business making the right decision about development opportunities for the 50+ workforce, if the retirement age will increase to 75 years old?

Now comes the biggest game changer

By 2023, 50 per cent of the tasks that we perform in a modern workplace will be executed by Artificial Intelligence and robotics. In a report from the world economic forum, by 2023, 70 million of today’s jobs will disappear, and at the same time, 130 million new job roles will appear, job roles that we may not even exist today. Fifty-four per cent of the workforce will need to be re-skilled.

Who will get re-skilled? The under 50’s? The under 25’s? Everybody?

It does not compute!

From a work perspective, Artificial Intelligence and robotics will focus on assembly, productivity, agriculture, finance, construction as well as learning more and more skills as they develop.

Humans will need to focus on human interaction (e.g. nursing, caring), complex problem solving and innovation. The way we work will change, we will probably only work a few days a week and a few hours a day.

If we are all working to the age of 75, will there be enough work for us all to do? Will we get paid the same amount of salary as we do today?

Our governments need taxes to be able to exist and to sustain the governmental services required by the population.

Will they be able to collect enough taxes without the introduction of taxation on Artificial Intelligence and robotics?

Will we ever retire?

To be able to retire, we need to be able to work and pay taxes and save money so that we can retire. Over the next ten years, the way we understand about retirement will need to change, as well as the way understands work. As Artificial Intelligence and robotics become more de facto, the impact on the way we work will be destructive.

By 2030, I believe the concept of retirement as we know it today will have disappeared!

 

Technology addicts at the age of six.

How much time does your child spend on the internet or the game console every day?

This is a question I have been pondering with for many years! I have been watching my children grow up with the internet.  I also have studied students at school and the university who are  totally connected and integrated  to the internet. It has not been until now that I have evaluated how much of this digital lifestyle has/will totally changed the world.

A recent study in the UK has shown that 38 percent of 2-5 year olds own an Android tablet, and 32 percent own an iPad; almost a third (32 percent) of these children  also have a mobile phone.  This study also found that 37 percent of parents said that their child spent between one and two hours a day playing with technology and the internet , and 28 percent said between two and three hours playing with technology and the internet .

In China, the average amount of time of 8-10 year olds spend on the internet every day is eight hours, with children over the age of 10 spend an average of eleven hours every day on the internet.

In the USA, the average time of 8-18 year olds spend on the internet every day is over six hours.

In South Korea, 10 percent of 5-9 year olds spend on the internet every day over ten hours.

This is a world wide problem!

Two million of the youths in South Korea are classified as internet addicts as well as an amazing one hundred and sixty thousand 6 year olds now classified as Internet addicts,  In the USA, 23 percent of the youths are classified as video game addicts with the numbers are rising every day.

South Korea have recognised that they have the highest rate of internet addiction in the world and has decided to set up a network of boot camps across the nation to offer their children a digital detox.

Digital Detox Centres are starting to appear in many countries across the world, designed mainly for adults addiction but the will soon be filled to capacity with children.

There are so many consequences on today’s society with regards to the digital lifestyle. We need to reconsider how we should adapt to this, and we need to reconsider it now.

My questions are around how to be a parent and lead you children in this new addictive digital lifestyle. For example, Professors often make comment that ‘Multitasking is for adults and not for children’ but we can see that the children’s lives are dependent on the ability to multitask.  Another example is how to handle our children when there is no internet connection ,  when the technology fails or the battery is running out. Finally, how do ensure that our children brains and ability to learn will not burn out by the age of fifteen and that they mentally burn out by the age of twenty five?

The answer is that nobody knows, we must learn and adjust at the whilst the new digital lifestyle evolves and takes over our lives.

The children of today will be the adults of tomorrow, it is up to us as parents to secure that our children will have a safe environment to live in so that they do not  just end up as internet junkies!

george e muir

A need for a Citizens Digital ID

Are you tired of having to create a user account every time you access a web site or an app on your smartphone. Not to mention  trying to remember all your passwords for every account! Often you are asked to use your Facebook account or Google+ account or a twitter account since these sites allow a loose connection to an email address.

Would you realistically then book a flight using your Facebook account or login to you bank account using you’re a twitter account or login to your workplace computer with your google+ account?

It is pretty clear that the answer is no!!

The thought would never cross your mind because it is not safe, it does not have enough personal information and your employer would never allow it. What we need is a Trusted Digital ID for all citizens and some countries have already started to explorer this idea.

For example,  Estonia has a highly-developed national ID card system. Much more than simply a legal picture ID, the mandatory national card serves as the digital access card for all of Estonia’s secure e-services. The chip on the card carries embedded files which, using 2048-bit public key encryption, enable it to be used as definitive proof of ID in an electronic environment.

In Barcelona,  they promote a Digital ID for the citizenship of Barcelona, a digital identity that is saved on their smart phone..

Canada’s Governments and businesses have declared to secure their digital future by developing a Digital ID, and I guess there are other countries or governments with the same intent.

Sweden provides a solution called Bank-ID that can be saved on the computer or their smart phone that is a trusted digital ID provided by the banks.

Any there are probably many more solutions.

The challenge is that we need to have a world-wide solution to allow this to be ingrates and trusted around the world.

An ability to have a TRUST model where governments, businesses and standards committees can work together to allow YOUR DIGITAL ID be valid across many counties, exactly the same way as credit cards are trusted.

I strongly believe within the next five years, we will all have some form of Citizens Digital ID, a digital passport, that is you one and only trusted ID account. The Digital ID will be valid for the country you live in and I expect it will take another 5 year before it can be used freely outside the country you live in.

Who do you think will take the lead and drive this?

Facebook / Google / Twitter / Our Governments / Non-Governmental Organisation / Institutions / The Banks ?

george e muir

Will my daughter need a driving licence?

This weekend my youngest daughter will turn 7 years old and over the last year whilst I have be travelling around the world on business and giving speeches on the future., I have received the question about the need to take a driving licence.

My point of view is that in 10 years time, I think that she will not need to take a driving test as most of the transport that we will use is automated by robots (just like in the minority report).

This will not be true throughout the world, especially in places like India the infrastructure is not in place, just it will happen before we know it.

The main challenge just now is that the majority of this research is trying to make today’s transport devices (i.e. cars) into automated cars, instead I believe that the will be a quantum leap is to devices such as hover drones