“The challenges posed in the twenty-first century by the merger of infotech and biotech are arguably bigger than those thrown up by steam engines, railways, electricity and fossil fuels.”
This quote comes from a comment provided by Yuval Noah Harari, historian and best-selling author of Sapiens and Homo Deus, in Nature magazine.
Nature normally has articles with titles like Photons pair up like superconducting electrons.
But their most recent issue focuses on the future of work.
The cover story tagline explains why. It is "How the Next Industrial Revolution Will Reshape the World".
The lead article - The shape of work to come - focuses on the familiar themes of automation and AI replacing human workers and the rise of the gig economy. Like all Nature articles, the topics are covered in-depth and are well researched.
Their article Flexible working: Science in the gig economy covers the growing number of gig workers in scientific fields. key quote:
People with scientific training are adopting these <gig economy> practices as well, either by offering services on sites such as Upwork or finding projects through their previous academic networks. About 3,200 freelancers, most with backgrounds in the life or physical sciences, sell services such as statistical review and literature searches through the online platform Kolabtree.com, which is based in London and started in 2015.
The issues around the future of work are impacting all fields, and in some way all people. The fact that publications as diverse as Nature, Car&Driver and Vanity Fair are all covering the future of work makes this clear.
Anyone interested in this topic will find the articles in Nature well worth reading.
Comments