What the Future Looks Like

Recently, I attended the AGM of a Not-For-Profit for which I sit on the governing body.  We had the pleasure of Dr Paul Browning (Headmaster of St Paul’s School at Bald Hills) as our guest speaker.  Paul talked about the education of our children and what the world for students finishing in 2028 would look like.

A couple of the main things coming out of the talk was that many of the jobs that these students will be entering do not exist today and many of today’s jobs will cease to exist in the future.

Paul’s research indicated that technology will be a driving force in relation to this change.  Technology will take the place of current jobs done by people and future work will centre around technology and its capabilities and development.

Listening to Paul’s, at times quite confronting and bit scary words, it raised for me (and others in the room) the question “what is the capability of the legislators and people to keep up with the pace of progression to ensure that society remains ethical in its dealing?”

We have already seen Uber and AirBnb by-pass laws to effect change and while those industries may have needed change, who judges what is acceptable:

  • those providing the service and therefore directly benefiting from the change,
  • clients who are receiving the benefit;
  • Governments and legislators operating under as low an error tolerance that is humanly possible;
  • Governments or legislators operating from a social base rather than an economic base; or
  • workers who under both the old system or new system are not necessarily better off in the long term.

Just because elements of health care can be automated with “robots”, does this pass the pub test as the best benchmark of health treatment and care?

Whatever your business or industry you cannot ignore change that is happening.  But, as a society, how do we answer the most challenging of questions to ensure a sustainable a long-term future – “just because we can – should we?”

David Balwin Tax Accounting CFO Business Advice