The Grand Disruption by Technology and Why We Can Be Optimistic About our Future

Ever watch Star Wars? Especially the “newer” of the three – Episodes I, II, & III – and have you ever thought what are all the “people” (Wookies, Humans, whatever those Trade Federation beings were) actually doing? Droids are playing doctor, bringing Luke and Leah into the world, a Droid waitress offers Obi-Wan a cup of Jawa Juice at Dex’s Diner, we even see Droids building other Droids! So, besides selling Death Sticks at the local Coruscant club, and playing politics inside the Galactic Senate, what were all the people doing? What was their labor force doing in this world where Droids did a great deal of the actual work!? Now, have you ever thought about our future’s? What will we do as droids and algorithms take on a greater and greater percentage of traditional work?

Thankfully, there are some really smart people out there already thinking about the challenges facing us humans as we “Race Against the Machine” and the great part? – there is legitimate reason to be incredibly optimistic with regards to what this world has in store for all of us. One of those smart people is Andrew McAfee – a Principal Research Scientist at MIT’s Center for Digital Business and co-author of the previously linked book – and he recently delivered this inspiring TEDx Talk on the subject at hand.

We’d like to personally thank Andrew for not only delivering a well crafted message, but for including the TopCoder Community in his presentation.

Change is most certainly upon us, and we recognize that change of course brings new challenges. But as Andrew showcased in the above video, it’s that very change that causes shifts and may cause some to worry, that also shepherds amazing leaps in mankind that are felt the world over.

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