Axios kicked off 2019 with a headline proclaiming: “AI expert warns automation could take 40% of jobs by 2035.” This is the baseline consensus according to Axios future editor Steve LeVine. But is it accurate? And if it is, how can workers and students today prepare? To answer these questions, and many more, we interviewed Brent Orrell.

Brent Orrell is a resident fellow at AEI, where he works on retraining programs for individuals without college degrees and reentry programs for former prisoners. He has more than 20 years of experience working in the legislative and executive branches of the US government.

Related reading:

STEM without fruit: How noncognitive skills improve workforce development

The Atlantic’s coverage of “Range” by David Epstein

Gretzky’s puck: A human capital strategy for the 21st century 

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  1. The Cynthonian Inactive
    The Cynthonian
    @TheCynthonian
    10:14 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 13, 2019

    Two comments:

    1.  It’s not “government-funded.”   It’s TAXPAYER-funded.   I’m surprised that representatives of a “conservative” think tank would take such an idea seriously (taxpayer funding of post-secondary education).   For starters, our national debt is already staggering.   Secondly, human nature only appreciates that which it must expend real effort to obtain.  Where is the student’s skin in the game?   I could keep going, but the conservative arguments against such an idea are easy to find.
    2.  Your guest’s advocacy of mass college education looks at historical trends, but fails to consider the exceedingly poor quality of education (really, mass indoctrination) that is practiced by so many colleges and universities these days.  Instead of turning out critical thinkers, they’re turning out thousands of toxic narcissists with a collection of grievances.   If it weren’t for rampant credentialism, they’d be largely unemployable.   Education reform should be a higher priority.
    • #1
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