by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate
It’s a hard number to comprehend: 800 million jobs could be lost to automation in the next decade. While some doubt that the number will be quite so high, even if it is off by a factor of ten, it will have an enormous impact on society. Wise educators and other stakeholders need to ask: How best do we prepare students for the coming age of automation? It is hard to determine all of the contours of the answer, but one seems clear: the age of automation demands that students learn soft skills. While there is no one universally accepted definition of “soft skills,” the basic idea is simple: soft skills include everything an employee needs to be successful in her or his position other than academic skills. It should be apparent that, while we may be able to automate cars in the next decade or two, we are nowhere close to automating the work of social workers, therapists, educators, and others whose jobs focus around soft-skills—or on the softer aspects of other jobs, such as the need for surgeons to communicate with the patient’s family.
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