Avoiding Dystopia
In a segment on NPR's To the Best of Our Knowledge, MIT Professor Erik Brynjolfsson points to three tensions pulling at those seeking to make a living in our world. Two of the three tensions are old and have been at play in one form or another for hundreds of years. The first is between the educated/skilled and those without, as underscored by the ever-worsening prospects for anyone with only a high school education. This particular tension has been with us a long time, though as Brynjolfsson points out, its effects are accelerating as the minimum education bar keeps shifting higher.The second tension is between capital and labor, one that has been with us since well before Marx elevated it to a global power struggle. Historically, capital has needed labor, even if the relationship became antagonistic. Now, however, those with capital—and especially technology-intensive capital equipment—can operate with far less labor than ever before, and stand to gain an even larger share of the economic pie.
Finally, and most saliently for educators, Brynjolfsson sees a newer tension emerging between the few who succeed and the rest of us—perhaps 95% or more—who languish in the middle and bottom of the economic pack. The winners will be the few who find ways to innovate enough to stay ahead of technology, while the rest of us will struggle and eventually lose the race against machines.Taken together, these tensions portend a rather dystopian world. As an antidote, Brynjolfsson argues that our education system should focus on creating the combination of creativity, emotional intelligence, business savvy and entrepreneurial drive that builds success amid these tensions. That’s a very different mission that the industrial model that inspired development of our existing educational model.