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Technology is Changing the Future of Work. Mapping Future Jobs: From Nanomedicine Surgeons and Exobiologists to E-Sports Virtual Referees

October 12, 2022

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The pandemic has accelerated the process of digitization. Recent studies show that one in five companies is looking to automate jobs and replace employees with robots. The good news, however, is that for all the jobs that are being eliminated, new ones are being created. Are we being replaced by robots? For some jobs, the answer is certainly yes. Especially for the repetitive ones. But technological and social progress will create new jobs. 

TikTok manager, Instagram filter developer, e-sports virtual competition administrator/referee, urban farmer, greenhouse builder, wave energy engineer, 3D organ printing engineer, nanomedicine surgeon, ethical algorithm programmer, AI geneticist, biohacker, climate geoengineer, data privacy administrator – these are just a few of the future jobs that are in high demand now and in the immediate future. In this article, we will take a look at how technology is slowly changing the future of work.

The Future of Medicine

As the population grows and the aging process continues, the professions of nurse, nurse practitioner, and occupational therapist will be in high demand and will be assisted by medical robots. Since cytogeneticists will interfere with DNA, there will be genetic counselors. Biomedical engineers will reproduce organs from stem cells. Dietitians, nutritionists, and food scientists will also be very important in the near future. Since technological advances can cause both addiction and anxiety, we will need specialists in technological detoxification, who are knowledgeable about both psychology and new technologies. Freelance biohackers will be involved in finding treatments for depression, schizophrenia, autism, and Alzheimer’s disease, pioneering tomorrow’s bioscience, and playing a key role in major projects, from finding the next generation of antibiotics to creating genetically modified organisms.

Space Exploration and Tourism

Space tourism, with all the associated professions, will emerge as a brand-new field. There will be space mining and exobiologists, who will grow plants and animals in outer space, and doctors who will specialize in the problems caused by extended stays outside the protection of Earth. There will also be a need for space tour guides. 

Entertainment

As the Internet replaces television, bloggers and video bloggers will replace entertainment editors. Online editors or multi-format journalists, even robots, will slowly replace journalists. The need for physiotherapists will increase, with a much greater focus on sports and outdoor activities. The number of professional computer gamers or arena boosters (those who take a paying client’s avatar to higher levels) will increase. Also, being an e-sports virtual referee will be an absolutely normal job.

IT Industry 

Employment in the IT sector has steadily increased in the US over the past decade. As the IT industry will increase its workforce demands, the need for cybersecurity and digital identity protection will also increase. Data and information production will grow hyper-exponentially towards big data, so there will be a need for specialists who can understand and represent data. Cloud computing specialists will be in high demand, as will IT security consultants or digital marketing specialists.

3D design, architecture, design, smart city management specialists, computational linguistics, and neural computer connectivity are already generating revenue and have even greater prospects in the immediate future. In the slightly more distant future, the goal is to digitize and scan the human brain and even reach the level of artificial intelligence consciousness.

Social Networks and Advertising

Online personal image generators will emerge, acting as social media managers who will create and maintain personal brands on demand. Virtual personal assistants will help people with their virtual existence on the Internet. In the future, brands will use digital cultural commentators to cut through the cacophony of online white noise in order to effectively engage tomorrow’s audiences.

Robotics

Drone pilots or those who to program, monitor, and maintain robots will become commonplace occupations. Any kind of repetitive and physically demanding action will be done by robots controlled by human interfaces, created by engineers and researchers, who will constantly improve the performance of robots.

Energy and Environment

The number of workers in unconventional energy plants will increase: solar/wind/algae farms, and microbes replacing miners or hydropower workers. Waste recycling companies will also operate in the oceans, where deep sea miners will actively search for rare minerals in the ocean and on meteorites. Biodiversity and species-preserving genetic research will coexist with research to create new forms of life or food.

Business and Law

Numerical and quantitative analysis using artificial intelligence will enable a new speed of response in the financial, notarial, or legal markets. Lawyers specializing in robot law, or the ethics of genetics will emerge to assist the creation of new organisms or plants.

Training and Education

Virtual learning using virtual teachers will become the norm in many fields. There will be structures for the development of online educational materials, such as Open University, Moodle, Blackboard, Web CT, and MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), that will award internationally recognized degrees.

Conclusion

In 2020, the World Economic Forum predicted that the digital revolution will lead to the creation of 133 million new jobs, while 75 million jobs will be eliminated. In an ever-changing world where the only constant is change itself, the labor market must keep up and move with the times. As the pace of technology adoption is increasing, the future of work is challenging and exciting.