The Disruptive Technologies MGI paper is very bullish on the automation of knowledge work. Some of the areas mentioned appear quite optimistic. However, the emphasis on the introduction of technology in education seems spot on. From page 45, "The economic impact of such tools in education would come from improving instructional quality and enabling teachers to provide more one-on-one attention and coaching. New self-teaching tools could also enable fundamental changes in scheduling: courses could be tied to subject mastery, rather than semesters or quarters, allowing students to progress at their own pace."
The primary elements of a basic education consist of
- Information: The knowledge must be first obtained held by the person or machine that is considered the source.
- Presentation: The information is effectively communicated to the recipient. In previous posts it has been mentioned that this is a large weakness in many developing countries.
- Motivation: The structure, instructor, or self motivates the pupil to learn the information.
- Retention: The pupil retains the information for later use.
- Accreditation: The pupil has signalling power to demonstrate the initiative taken and knowledge received.
Tyler Cowen argues in his book Average is Over that Information, Presentation, and Retention have developed significantly with technology. Accreditation is likely not far off. However, Motivation will be the primary distinguishing characteristic of future workers. There will be workers that have unfaltering motivation and will tirelessly work through seemingly dull or repetitive tasks to perfection. There will also be workers with varying motivation that tend to advance in short spurts of time. Finally, some workers will not be motivated, and will focus on obtaining just sufficient information to achieve near-term goals. In effect, those that are motivated, especially those in the developing world, will have access to become the new knowledge employees of the future. This is only possible because of the incredible recent advancements and advancements to come in the automation of education. The potential worldwide disruptive effects will be significant, as the world becomes more flat because of more equalized educational opportunities, with the caveat that this would be most true for basic and technical education, while leaving the most advanced and theoretical fields mostly intact.
The primary elements of a basic education consist of
- Information: The knowledge must be first obtained held by the person or machine that is considered the source.
- Presentation: The information is effectively communicated to the recipient. In previous posts it has been mentioned that this is a large weakness in many developing countries.
- Motivation: The structure, instructor, or self motivates the pupil to learn the information.
- Retention: The pupil retains the information for later use.
- Accreditation: The pupil has signalling power to demonstrate the initiative taken and knowledge received.
Tyler Cowen argues in his book Average is Over that Information, Presentation, and Retention have developed significantly with technology. Accreditation is likely not far off. However, Motivation will be the primary distinguishing characteristic of future workers. There will be workers that have unfaltering motivation and will tirelessly work through seemingly dull or repetitive tasks to perfection. There will also be workers with varying motivation that tend to advance in short spurts of time. Finally, some workers will not be motivated, and will focus on obtaining just sufficient information to achieve near-term goals. In effect, those that are motivated, especially those in the developing world, will have access to become the new knowledge employees of the future. This is only possible because of the incredible recent advancements and advancements to come in the automation of education. The potential worldwide disruptive effects will be significant, as the world becomes more flat because of more equalized educational opportunities, with the caveat that this would be most true for basic and technical education, while leaving the most advanced and theoretical fields mostly intact.
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