20230213: blue oceans of tomorrow

First everybody world over were growing food. You rarely got to eat foods that were not from our locales.

But that changed over the centuries. With increasing connectivity routes and transportation options - everyone got access to everything. Which is great.

This however meant very gradually people only started growing stuff in their spaces what was easy (economically less expensive) and profitability.

Soon agriculture focussed jobs reduced. It definitely still exists - we still need food. But the shift made people to go find something else to do.

After a while, manufacturing jobs bloomed everywhere propelled by the industrial revolution - everyone had something to do. Blue collar jobs everywhere.

Soon what could be done in one place, could be done elsewhere as well. Manufacturing moved to more convenient places (inexpensive supply, abundance of labour, etc) - more economically viable and profitable places. Thus blue collar jobs shifted. Within the countries, overseas etc. So we had lots of people who didn't have anything to do. 

Blue collar jobs were attacked again by advances in robotics in manufacturing - to make the inexpensive places even more inexpensive. 

That was the time services jobs came to life and rescued everyone. White collar jobs everywhere for everyone.

The same thing happened again after a few decades. Outsourcing, offshoring, right shoring, whatever. Basically move the service to more economically viable places which are more profitable. 

Don't get me wrong - I don't think any of the shifts was driven by evil intention. It is just a natural consequence of wanting to be more efficient and economical so that the products and services are more available and affordable to more people.

Neither have any of the jobs and industries or domains been extinguished fully. Jobs still exist in all of them. However they are very reduced and specialist kinds. Nowhere close to the abundance that was there once upon a time.

Like robotics did to manufacturing, AI is doing for white collar jobs. Its nowhere close to perfect. Many things are not yet up to the mark, sometimes blatantly wrong. But what has ever been perfect in the beginning. "Good enough" is good enough to move towards perfection.

What will it create as opportunities and jobs in the future? It's a hard guess to make. Everything is in its nascent stage. 

However, each revolution has been faster than the previous one took and bigger impact than the previous one -thus resulting in a bigger disruption to society in general.

I feel the revolutions have taken a trend. Things moved from physically intensive work to intellectual work progressively. 

 I think this revolution will shift the intellectual work to the emotional.

Whether it is creativity intensive or empathy intensive.

I am not a creative person in general - so I don't know what that holds.

However, I think as we are faced with this revolution which we have to accept (no amount of kicking and screaming will work), there will be a very huge disruption leading to a need for folks who can provide care a support. It could be physical care , mental care, emotional care and a combination of them.

As I said sometime earlier, I don't understand the economics of this world and who will pay for all this care. However, I think that is where the need/ demand will be.

The care spaces will be the next blue oceans...