Thursday, June 11, 2015


The current thinking about the automation of the workplace is that the jobs that require the most creativity will be those that are safest from the robot overlords when they come for our jobs. That might be true, but the erudite university professor with the rumpled corduroy jacket and scholarly spectacles might soon be headed for extinction as well.


  1. "while robots take over the teaching and training of students in community colleges or vocational schools, where most of the emphasis is on learning certain very specific skills that can be used over and over again in the workplace."

    Umm.. why would robots teach skills that would be used over and over in the workplace. Wouldn't those jobs already be done by... robots?

    1. For the same reason people are "educated" for so many years nowadays. It keeps them busy while giving them the impression that they are doing the right thing to secure a job even though that may not be true.

  2. The example of MOOCs is silly.

    MOOCs are an updated version of the public library, the way autodidacts have always taught themselves. The (very good) MOOC I am working through right now is aimed at the lowest common denominator, and even so the completion rate is abysmal.

    Students who are not Type A, highly-disciplined people are going to continue to need live instructors.

