RTDelphi results: education/learning actions to address future work/tech 2050 dynamics

You are welcome to share the results of the Education & Learning Real-Time Delphi that assessed 20 long-range actions distilled from workshops in 20 countries to address future work-technology dynamics. The international panel were asked of each action:

• If implemented, how effective could this be in improving our long-range work-technology prospects by the year 2050?
• How feasible is it to implement this suggestion, (in enough time to have a substantial effect by 2050)?
• Additional comments?

Over the next few weeks, the results of the four other RTDelphi studies (government, business/labor, culture, and S&T) that will be shared here an be part of the forthcoming Future Work/Technology 2050 report.

The Future Work/Technology 2050 study has five phases:

1. Literature and research review to find what questions were not asked or poorly answered as input to an international Real-Time Delphi survey.
2. Over 300 futurists, AI and other technology professionals, economists, and other related experts from over 45 countries shared with should be considered in the construction of alternative future work/tech scenarios.
3. Three Work/Technology 2050 Global Scenarios drafts were written and reviewed by over 450 futurists and others via three Real-Time Delphi questionnaires: It’s Complicated – A Mixed Bag; Political/Economic Turmoil – Future Despair; and If Humans Were Free – the Self-Actualization Economy.
4. These three scenarios (each about ten pages) were used as inputs to workshops in 20 countries to identify long-range strategies to address the issues raised in these detailed scenarios.
5. The suggestions were distilled and grouped for relevance to education & learning; government & governance; business & labor; culture & arts; and science & technology and assessed by separate Real-Time Delphi studies international expert panels

Workshop participants suggested over 250 actions via 30 workshops conducted in 20 countries (full text will be available in the final report’s annex). The 20 actions suggested below were distilled from the workshops and scenarios for their relevance to education and learning. They were then assessed by an international panel of over 150 participants from 40 countries using a Real-Time Delphi (an online expert judgment assessment tool).

A distillation of the panel’s comments on each action gives a rich insight into what we should do and factors to consider in their implementation. Enclosed at the end is a distillation of an additional 26 actions suggested by the international of panel.

The top five most effective actions related to education and learning to address the long-range issues in Work/Technology 2050 Global Scenarios

1. Increase focus on developing creativity, critical thinking, human relations, philosophy, entrepreneurship (individual and teams), art, self-employment, social harmony, ethics, and values, to know thyself to build and lead a meaningful working life with self-assessment of progress on one’s own goals and objectives (as Finland is implementing).
2. Include futures as we include history in the curriculum. Teach alternative visions of the future, foresight, and the ability to assess potential futures.
3. Make Tele-education free everywhere; ubiquitous, life-long learning systems.
4. Shift education/learning systems more toward mastering skills than mastering a profession.
5. In parallel to STEM (and/or STEAM – science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) create a hybrid system of self-paced inquiry-based learning for self-actualization; retrain teachers as coaches using new AI tools with students.

The complete list of 20 actions with the averages of the international panel’s ratings as to their effectiveness and feasibility is below following be commentary on each by the panel.

The following distillation of the panels comments are listed in order that they were give to the international panel:

Suggest Action 1: Make increasing individual intelligence a national objective of education (by whatever definition of intelligence a nation selects, increasing “it” would be a national objective).

1.1 If implemented, how effective could this be in improving our long-range work-technology prospects by the year 2050?

Include social and emotional intelligence; rapidly changing skill requirements make increasing intelligence more necessary; move individual thinking ability to a higher level; better to target a broader spectrum of abilities and skills; intelligence is a prerequisite for personal empowerment; include compassion and mental health with intelligence so more psychopathic criminals are not created; understand why male IQ is falling in Norway reversing Flynn effect; increasing intelligence is the way to change the current situation; teach mind sets like loving challenges; increasing intelligence can come from technological augmentation rather than the educational system.

Question 1.2 How feasible is it to implement this suggestion, (in enough time to have a substantial effect by 2050)?

Use technology and neuro-bio science to overcome individual genetic limitations; having the Minister of Education declaring increasing intelligence as a national objective is easy, but carrying it out would be difficult but certainly very feasible; couple this when implementing other changes in education; disagreements over definition and measurement could make implementation difficult; education in most underdeveloped countries will finally have to imitate the educational standards of the most advanced (Scandinavian) countries; will require overhauling massive institutions that measure education on standardization rather than individuation – difficult but doable; inclusiveness, democratization and team work needed for implementation.

Question 1.3 Distillation of general comments

Great idea! Need to change culture norms to value intelligence; cautiously optimistic; add thinking skills, civics, ethics and the appreciation of complexity and nuance; add wisdom; use collective intelligence, brainstorming, and project-focus; each educational jurisdiction can have a different definition but however defined or if called brain functioning or thinking skills, we want it to go up not down; should be a priority; would commit governments to make education a top priority; intelligence as an instrument for coordination and cooperation; teaching to intelligence rather than teaching to a test maybe too tall an order; some governments might use this to further racist or ethnic heritage myths; greater emphasis on STEM education, computer skills including one or two programming languages beginning in primary schools; one of the best ways to counter “dumbing down” phenomena is increasing intelligence.

Suggested Action 2: Shift education/learning systems more toward mastering skills than mastering a profession.

2.1 How effective?

Initiate formation of complex skills in elementary education from technical to social skills as well as intuition; it is learning the principles behind the computer languages that prepares the learner for the next changes; but these “skills” should also include basic education on culture, history, democracy, and human rights; mastering skills through out one’s life will help flexibility and mobility; creates larger variety of job opportunities; there will still be some doctors and lawyers by 2050, but fewer per capita, while some professions will disappear, the needs for skills will not disappear.

2.2 How feasible?

This is happening now especially in the high-tech industries and some educational systems; universities would have to change entrenched culture and systems of curricula, degree criteria, and proficiency measurements; professional associations will resist; start at early childhood; and employers should forecast skills needed.

2.3 General comments:

It is beginning now with the national qualifications framework in some Europe countries; How to make sure learning complex skills of sufficient value can be mastered before  automation/AI technology make them obsolescent; who pays for the transition educational institutions or businesses; formulate a framework for mastering ‘evolving professions’ that can co-evolve with an approach of mastering skills; skills are context specific, while capabilities transcend context, what is also required is the ability to operate in several contexts; adaptability across multiple contexts may be a better mode than trying to specialize in any one profession; remove impediments to innovation; who decides the skill? And how? Shift education away from the concept of ‘filling an empty glass’ to developing innate abilities; include intuited learning; and if you teach children philosophy at age of 4 they will be more entrepreneurial and have greater critical thinking skills in later life.

Suggested Action 3: In parallel to STEM (and or STEAM – science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) create a hybrid system of self-paced inquiry-based learning for self-actualization; retrain teachers as coaches using new AI tools with students.

3.1 How Effective?

The future will demand many more Leonardo da Vinci types of people; self-paced inquiry-based learning avoids many of the problems of teacher-driven and testing focused education; learners would be more motivated to find careers that would be a good fit; helps educators to understand individual learning styles and abilities and to guide students into fields of natural ability and interest; education will become more global, no borders, people should study where every they want or need to learn; and teaches will have to be re-trained and school systems persuaded to buy AI assisted  inquiry teaching to move from rote learning to more intellectual inquiry.

3.2 How feasible?

Not easy now, but by 2030 should be very feasible which would give 20 years of impact to make a difference; AI interface would have to be very easy to get teachers to use it to coach students to explore self-paced inquires; this addressed the earner boredom problem; feasible if soon-to-be-teachers are taught.

3.3: General comments:

This needs to be implemented, but more gradually; retrain teachers as coaches; inquiry-based learning works well with emerging AI capacities and lets us ask “what else can we know?” (especially if we get to AGI)’; prefer “iSTEAM” education (innovation, science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics – Dr. Eli Eisenberg); This may become a method for retraining displaced workers who may not fit into the traditional learning environments; not sure we need AI to help teachers coach students; schooling is a socialization process as well as for knowledge acquisition; in emerging countries the development of STEM and STEAM will depend on long-term planning to add necessary infrastructure; interactive knowledge tree systems that can also learn from the students;  this is good for early education and future entrepreneurs but documented skills in larger education is more important for employers; imagine “smart” labs where roles become more liquid; the concept of a single teacher for a single grade with children the same age all moving together has to change, making changes in parallel to this model is already going on, but slowly. AI assisted learning is vulnerable to Internet corruption.

Suggested Action 4: Increase focus on developing creativity, critical thinking, human relations, philosophy, entrepreneurship (individual and teams), art, self-employment, social harmony, ethics, and values, to know thyself to build and lead a meaningful working life with self-assessment of progress on one’s own goals and objectives (as Finland is implementing).

4.1 How effective?

This is the kind of intellectual curiosity required for future work and learning; this is what being human is all about; ability to entertain all of these motivations simultaneously and to compare outcomes across areas of human needs and wants is critical to success and sustainability; this is the kind of world I want to live in; almost irrelevant since we should learn how to adapt to the environment and not how to adapt environment to us; focus on skills not replaceable by robots or AI. Some in Finland worried that the new approach would lower their international test scores, but it didn’t. They are on par with South Korea that has a far more rigid system.

Question 4.2 How feasible?

Study how Finland did this; more countries are starting to implement this; socials ills may be happening because people never learned how to channel their frustration to improve their lives and communities instead they were given all the tools for a good life except those that matter most; how to maintain such classic enlightened education without becoming elitist and outmoded? Any nation that gets this right will achieve competitive advantage within a generation.

4.3 General comments:

This will increase success of other actions needed to improve our work-technology prospects by 2050; if combined with ethics and knowledge of self, it could lead to self-actualization; it is good if human capital is an end in itself, but maybe less so if human capacity is a means to economic ends; this a critical keystone for a new education system but would require a radical restructuring and reconceiving of the purpose and methods of educational systems; measuring effectiveness of this approach is difficult; it is not for everyone; STEM should still be the mail focus; add parental education, time management, career studies and GRIT education (Dr. Eli Eisenberg); massive implementation will be difficult because creative training is still a luxury product; bio/neuro-chemo technology methods can be developed to upgrade the average human capacity for learning and mastering emotional impulses; entrepreneurial capacity is a success factor in the future – not necessarily starting a business but being entrepreneurial in one’s approach to life; Questions 1-3 are complementary and should integrated into “standard” curriculum; balance emphasis on pursuit of self-interests with the pursuit of collective interests or even pan-species interests; AI for education is the solution to improving the relationship with your lifelong learners; It is difficult to change a whole education system from a collective focus to an individual focus, but maybe it’s the most effective issue for improving our long-range work-technology prospects;

Suggested Action 5: Continually update the way we teach and how we learn from on-going new insights in neuroscience

5.1 How effective?

Add insights from cognitive science and AI developers; neuroscience can be a way to explore unexpressed feelings and decisions, hence it may help in managing individuals working in teams or networks; we know from neuroscience that ethical decisions are made with the emotions first, and then the rational brain creates an explanation for why that decision was reached – this should change how we teach ethics and responsibility; I don’t think this suggestion demonstrates a substantial understanding of the state of neuroscience and our ability to derive straightforward pragmatic lessons from it; few insights have been used so far, but there is a very good potential to provide feedback to the individual and to teachers as to what a learner is truly experience at a given moment and why can be useful.

5.2 How feasible?

It could be feasible given advances in measuring devices (more portable and with longer battery life) and noise filtering algorithms; the research is publicly available and just needs to be applied; while neuroscience can contribute, it will contribute much more if it can get beyond the assumption that all learning is in the brain; will likely take many more decades to achieve, it appears every individual has a specific set of neurological patterns, especially for mental and emotional processing (perhaps less so for motor nerve processing), which will make creating a useful customized system very difficult; integrating new insights into working curriculum has a multi-year time lag in most nations.

5.3 General comments:

This methods shifts us away from ‘believed effectiveness’ toward one based on scientific understanding and proven results; neuroscience, causes students to overcome their individual difficulties of achievement; its importance is paramount but needs passionate and excellent teachers to make it work; the only way to speed the process would be to integrate this into the required testing; may be restricted by budget and/or standardization of curricula through more fiscally appropriate means (e.g., MOOCs); continually updating the way we teach is essential; there is a risk of running after every fad; theories come and go and constantly changing the curriculum to fit the latest experimental findings is not likely to be helpful; depends on the implementation of multispectral policies; the fields of education and neuroscience would need to work equally and thoughtfully together to produce these insights; in the near future, neuroscience is unlikely to provide any major breakthroughs in learning but better methods in biochemistry/psychological science/studies may.

Suggested Action 6: Make Tele-education free everywhere; ubiquitous, life-long learning systems

6.1 How effective?

This seems a “surprise free” projection; very helpful especially for marginalized groups,  ultra-peripheral regions, and developing countries; we need social as well as electric connections for learning; effective for a limited number but not sufficient to have a major impact on work availability; governments will support quality contents production and some private companies will make profit to create a new type of learning.

6.2 How feasible is this?

Already happing as MOOCs with mobile phone access are increasing everywhere; the issue is quality control and questioning information; mobile phones spread throughout Africa much faster than most expected, I expect same with this development.

6.3 General Comments:

It is inevitable; helps bridge or minimize socio-economic gaps; this needs to be combined the ability to ‘know’ that the information is truly representative of reality; free tuition model of the early MOOCs was not sustainable and those who benefitted the most were not the underserved but those who already had a university educations; what comes free of charge is often not taken seriously; if future “smart phone” were to be a birth-right for each and every citizen of the entire world, slavery would disappear and literacy would rise; should be developed in coordination with employers and government incentives; lifelong learning will be a key requirement for any economic system; market pricing may prove useful in driving resources to those learning spaces where the value is greatest.

 Suggested Action 7: Unify universities and vocational training centers and increase cooperation between schools and outside public good projects.

7.1 How effective?

This would break down artificial and costly knowledge fortresses and bring old institutions into the knowledge economy or ecosystem; allows people to flow in and out of various educational and training resources; integrating systems will reduce diversity of educational options; there should be an interaction but not a unification – roles are different; works better with the private sector not universities; eco-systems, holistic approaches and sharing attitudes make systems’ operations much more efficient and effective (Dr. Eli Eisenberg); will eliminate differences in terms of academic background; the aim should be towards an integrated learning eco-system; this should help improve the standards of education and prepare professionals and technicians to the new challenges of working conditions; theory and practice should go together then they enhance each other.

7.2 How feasible?

Incentives would be needed; mind shift needed as the result of a national emergency demonstrating collective failure; limited examples would be possible; collaboration but not unification; universities would see this as diluting their impact, but could multiply it; competition between these systems will be healthy and wise.

7.3 General comments:

Universities must remain centers of excellence; two paths should be separated more than they are at present and each should be assigned greater value and respect; re-ignite apprenticeship model of teaching; for-profit private education would be difficult to integrate with free public education; maybe online via MOOCs; academic education and technology and vocational education must move towards each other (Dr. Eli Eisenberg); I see no sense in this and I think it would actually be counter-productive.

Suggested Action 8: Utilize robots and AI in education

8.1 How effective?

Depends on how it used; not to replace human teachers with AI but to help teachers better understand student needs and develop curricula; robots good with repetitive tasks and monitoring student emotions; creates a new relationship to learning especially for children and teenagers who did not like classical school with a face to face not always harmoniously interactive; one way to address teacher shortages.

8.2 How feasible?

AI more than robots, but AI will really help people learn and find/improve expertise and skills in the 2020s, and new educational technologies will add to human performance in the 2030s; depends on field and usage; the tech already exists – we just have to use it responsibly; it is inevitable; feasible for curriculum, not feasible for live teaching; mobile phones opens some opportunities for this; falling costs of AI is making this more accessible and feasible.

 Suggested Action 9: Focus on exponential technologies and team entrepreneurship.

Question 9.1 How effective?

Yes, but not at expense of the humanities and self-actualization; how to reliably forecast the relevant technologies twenty years ahead; technologies with the highest social and environmental benefits should be chosen; technologies should be selected through a rigorously competitive process; use in collaborative ways with social causes that improve society; should be part of education but not the focus; most proponents of exponential technologies are elitists without knowledge of geopolitical problems of the world; extend to social justice themes; exponential technologies will be the major driver for the years to come; team entrepreneurship requires upskilling in terms of team-working.

9.2 How feasible?

This is feasible and could be used to solve real problems in real time, which has been proven to highly engage learners; I fear we are already heading in this direction of over-emphasizing these kinds of courses; “Exponential technologies” is too broad a category to be useful. Team entrepreneurship may not fit all economic systems.

9.3 General comments:

This is a high leverage idea; blurs the lines between the real world and the class room; probably will require innovation in terms of standards and assessment of learning; it is an area of focus not the focus; not for everyone, the most successful can be role models, but the vast majority will continue to be workers; sometimes the biggest discoveries are on the margins, so, to try to pick the winners in advance may be counterproductive; exponential technologies is founded on a false sense of how technologies evolve, popularized by bad data and popular science fiction about the past; team entrepreneurship may be important in some situations, but it often negates the brilliance of individual genius; who are the owners, transnational corporations, national firms, small entrepreneurs or governments? In which areas: civilian, military;

no substitute for one inspiring mentor and a student who WANTS to learn; Mondragon Team Academy and the new degree of Mondragon University on Leadership and Entrepreneurship to create new cooperative business initiatives is a clear example of it.

Suggested Action 10: Change curriculum at all levels to normalize self-employment.

10.1 How effective?

Continue to work for someone else and do your business on the side until your business brings in profits that exceed what you can make in a “day job.” Also, working on the job for someone else provides skills and experiences that are transferable to running your own company; just make it an option for the highly engaged and committed entrepreneur but not for all; could reduce direct social interaction and undermine a sense of community (belonging to and working with larger groups); self-employment is already the driven force of economy, hence curriculum adaptation would be very relevant; dubious proposition to sustain the majority of the populace ;self-employment is a long-term trend.

10.2 How feasible?

Self-employment is different than autonomy, focusing curriculum on autonomy through advanced technologies: yes; self-employment is ideal or suitable for a small to midsized segment of humanity and remains a good goal, but not a panacea; this would require minimal changes, but is self-employment really needed, it may not be a priority direction society needs to head for by 2050; make it an elective, not a requirement; universities and other institutions focused on this will appear.

10.3 General comments:

Its implementation is not just feasible but inevitable; show people how to look for markets instead of jobs; while learning simple math in elementary school, apply it to learning how to use a cash book, ledger, cash-flow projection, simple math skills the self-employed should know; good idea but many implications; as the shift toward self-employment accelerates, we also see more individuals forced back into working at ‘bit-rate’ income levels; this cannot work without a sustainable living wage or universal basic income; more effective to learn to collaborate inside an organization than to put all the eggs inside the bag of “self-employment”;  foster collaboration and the pleasure to work with others; self-employment for all could degenerate in a rat race; there was a time when your patron exploited you, now you exploit yourself and call it freedom; the purpose of education is not just for employment; feasibility of self-employment differs in agriculture, services, manufacturing, etc.; let’s try to normalize pride in being what you are; we need good followers and consumers as well as bosses and artists; the small boutique or service based low skill entrepreneur with less education may easily replaceable by AI, so how to keep ahead of rapidly changing technology; corporations will like it as it removes many legacy costs…gig economy sounds liberating, but it’s hiding some real issues; incorporate ways to bring people together so that people do not become overly isolated.

Suggested Action 11: Train guidance counselors to be more future-oriented in schools.

11.1 How effective?

This should be an absolute requirement; they should have easy access to research on trends and possible futures; be trained in foresight; very necessary to look at the future.

11.2 How feasible?

Get it in guidance counselor training curriculum and require them to some futures studies to prepare them for conversations with the students about the future; awareness of future possibilities should be question in the interview of counselors; no one is going to pay for this kind of training across the field of guidance counselors; replace them with “Field Mentors” who have real-world experience in the career the student is seeking

11.3 General comments:

In parallel, online guidance systems can be very effective; seems this is the lowest hanging fruit on the tree. What are they being trained to be now; the last week of every class taught at every level should be about the future of that subject; teach history AND future; this might be ripe for some kind of AI-automated suggestion system to augment teachers and to eliminate the role of formal guidance counselors; training guidance counsellors must be one among several initiatives to make substantial differences in the 2050 outcomes; how to keep counselor keep up on the trends; MP could help achieve this aim; inspiring a positive way of thinking about the future is essential to effective education; perhaps a bit less of the history of each subject and a bit more of its potential futures.

Suggested Action 12: Share the responsibility of parenting as an educational community.

12.1 How effective?

An involved community is ideal to enforce social norms at a time when technology is poised to cause big social disruption; it should not be the responsibility of the schools to fill the role of “parent;” there needs to be training on parenting, education should be a community effort; Sunday School teachers and girl/boy scouts troops are effective; “It takes a village to raise a child” philosophy holds some truth and schools are the largest stakeholder of that philosophy outside the home; however, asking teachers to fix societal problems AND teach students to be the best performers in their subject in the world is ultimately not very effective; gifted kids are a national resource that is all but ignored as we focus on getting all up the average; a young person needs a ‘parent’ or other person outside the educational system to take an interest in their success; shared parental responsibility sounds nice, but can reduce the impact of unquestioned love and caring that parent(s) bring; many parents, particularly the poor and those in developing world who have to concentrate on day to day existence, do not have the resources or time to provide an intellectual or creative skills environment at home to support or reinforce what is taught at school.

12.2 How feasible?

Too many teachers are already overwhelmed with too many responsibilities, but life-long learning process should be by the community as a whole; this would be a powerful movement in the right direction; parent-teacher associations could help, as would the number of students per teacher, but it seems economically unfeasible; only feasible with a flexible training model with collective stakeholder commitment; urban migration have wiped out most programs for initiating teens into adult; this may be feasible in an autocratic society but unlikely to work for lack of agreed upon criteria in a pluralistic society.

12.3 General comments:

Since the family may be getting weaker, new institutions may have to be created in which the educational community too would have to share responsibilities; parents need to accept more responsibility; an obstacle is divergent philosophies not trusting each other with offspring; as a teacher I already do that; don’t think society want to decrease the role of the parent.

Suggested Action 13: Promote “communities of practice” that continually seek improvement of learning systems.

13.1 How effective is this?

Bringing knowledge communities into the learning system would be really insightful and dynamic process; should be a collaboration between schools, universities, students, business, and science and technology; most of the innovations sre initiated by a single teacher, a community of interest that connects the most innovative teachers in difference schools and systems to communicate with each other could speed up the validation and acceptance of productive innovations across the educational community.

13.2 How feasible?

These should be learning about learning systems; government curriculum is not able to quickly adapt to a changing world and new research on learning; some experts may not share being jealous of their practices.

13.3 General comments:

This could help lead to new institutional structures; it is happening in the maker movement and the bio-punks; but it’s more a matter of school systems willing to accept and implement results; also create communities of learners and communities of graduates; may help in some areas, but it reeks of “committee” solutions; solely the responsibility of the Ministry of Education.

Suggested Action 14: Integrate Simulation-Based Learning using multiplayer environments.

14.1 How effective?

Augmented and virtual realities integrated into simulations have proven very effective in language instruction and military training, but we should not lose the value of direct social interactions in multi-player situations; simulations integrate acceptance of failure which is important for learning; move beyond “gaming” to accomplish real outcomes; simulate environments that a traditional classroom cannot; requires extensive training; gamification of everything, give the tools to unlock the unknown genius; mixed reality is the way to go!

14.2 How feasible?

Assume global online in the cloud will make the price come way down per user by 2030 in plenty of time to have an effect by 2050; this is the goal and business model for many education startups, many will fail, but it seems likely at least some will succeed in the given time frame; this is a good sector to invest in startups; need to ensure that the simulations are as real as possible; building simulated environment is more like art, approaching it with machine learning process from 19-20th century will not work; real-time group problem solving saves time and money so this should be easy to get agreement on.

14.3 General comments:

Computational science can be made available to education systems that also interact with citizen scientists increasing everyone’s understanding of chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering; gamification – very powerful and likely to become more so; cost is a barrier; live feedback from multiple human ‘competitors’ or ‘players’ is much more useful than from a programmed, robotic response; some educational gaming startups are beginning to figure out the right balance and will likely prove successful in the given time frame; flight simulations for training have done a good job for years; but be leery of simulations that are more games than training; limited relevance; difficult to support long term given costs of writing/programming effective simulations; prototyping as a learning practice is increasing around the world.

Suggested Action 15: Include learning the security concerns with respect to teaching (and learning) technology.

15.1 How effective?

It is a must, but not for achieving better employment prospects; if we don’t forecast potential future negative impacts of synthetic biology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, etc., and adjust our systems and policies to manage their dangers, we will have mega-disasters; security is new competence to learn.

15.2 How feasible?

Will happen out of necessity given the increasing vulnerability of our systems to hacking; we need to be more proactive in addressing security gaps and the use of technology; cybersecurity is a growing career field; you can include it in the learning process but it is irrelevant; must be implemented in the strategies of the institutions and in the policies of the nations; imagine if we did not have the International Atomic Energy Agency with forecasts, standards, and governance systems – how many nuclear disasters, if not wars could have occurred by now.

15.3: General comments:

Security concerns will be built into every system in the future; it will be an important part of critical thinking to understand the difference between real security and feeling secure; paramount to understand cyber security, how to recognize attacks when it is happening and know what to do to minimize its adverse impacts; should be part of the structural design at the management/organizational levels; leaning the potential down sides of the steam engine years ago, might have led to better industrial systems that avoid creating much of our environmental damage today; the technological security depends on the evolution in autonomy of the AI, the regulations and interference of human in AI, tend to be late (untimely).

Suggested Action 16: Incorporate job market intelligence systems into education and employment systems.

16.1 How effective?

It is a great idea, from my experience only 10-20% of my classmates stayed in the profession; important that students know why they are getting an education and what it will mean for their future; advances in big data collection and analysis may provide accurate demand forecasts, job fit and curriculum success; I have never encountered an accurate job market prediction; it will be key in making individual empowerment effective; effective for the short-term but the question is aimed at the long-term where job intelligence would seem very limited in forecasting ability in a rapidly changing environment; it should be a major part of educational and employment systems (already exists in some countries).

16.2 How feasible?

Modern integrated systems based on big-data, real-time monitoring of demographic, professional and skills trends and analytics are already available; implementation requires leadership and central planning; requires both commitment and talent in any of its application fields.

16.3 General comments:

The more that can be done to build linkages between what employers need and how talent is being developed – the better; integration of the job market intelligence systems into education and employment are essential to improve 2050; critical in a fast changing employment landscape to remain competitive in global markets; learning analytics could be very useful to achieve the goal of a more personalized educational system; job market information should be part of training not education; essential in trade schools and apprenticeships but misleading and disruptive to university studies; job market intelligence is generally backward looking ,typically introduces hysteresis at worst and large error gaps at best; make the debt one incurs through post-secondary education more productive; some universities still do not have market intelligence; this is an obvious one that should be fairly simple to implement.

Suggested Action 17: The government, employers across all industry sectors, and the labor unions should cooperate in creating adequate models of lifelong learning

17.1 How effective?

It has already been a fact in many countries – what is needed is also a common and consensus-based strategic long-term orientation; add to “communities” in the equation; a social convergence will be very effective; all parties would have to be ethically aware and ready to collaborate; it just complicates the system; bureaucracy, limited funding.

17.2 How feasible?

Without universities and communities actively involved in supporting life-long learning, this won’t have nearly the impact that it could; many major employers are already seeing that offering learning as employee benefit increases employee retention and increases the likelihood that employees will grow into management positions; industry has no interest in bearing the costs of keeping workers skills up difficult to get alignment on the agenda with these groups, they may only protect their self-interest; too general for meaningful implementation; depends on political pressure, will, and funding which are elusive in many countries.

17.3 General comments:

Perhaps ideal but highly unlikely since these three institutions often operate at cross purposes; this seems too narrowly focused given the kinds of learning that is needed as significant numbers of people are not needed to “work in a job” besides societal support activities or self-actualization; get government out of the content side, except to offer incentives and to facilitate collaboration between learning systems and employers; so education should be driven purely by capitalist incentives? Labor unions in many developing countries are seen (and see themselves) in adversarial roles, but this may change toward more cooperation by mid-century; short term it does not look like this kind of cooperation can be achieved; cooperative business development could be an alternative to it.

Suggested Action 18: Create systems of learning from birth to three years old; this is the key stage for developing creativity, personality.

18.1 How effective?

Waldorf School system and Sesame Street are amazingly effective; all researches agree that this age is very important for learning purposes; children need multiple opportunities to discover the world on their own; importantly is to ensure proper nutrition for brain growth at this age; this early period would help maximize the creative abilities and minimize the negative aspects of inherited dispositions of individuals; make sure the systems do not destroy their natural creativity as this age; they need nurture at this time, not teaching; whom and what criteria will these learnings be developed; quality free child care should be part of any equitable society’s system.

18.2 How feasible?

Ubiquitous mobile media internet access worldwide makes this very feasible within this timeframe; the research is overwhelming that this age if is really important for development and this insight will spread throughout the world; include play and affection as well as intellectual content; increasing work demands is reducing time between infant and parents.

18.3 General Comments:

At this age, most children are learning consciousness of their environment and their existence within physical space; a ‘system of learning’ would be a bit presumptuous, unless we mean a ‘system’ for free exploration; explore some proven alternatives like the Waldorf School model, which focuses initially on encouraging creativity through exposure to the arts and intuitive learning versus focusing on reading, math and book learning, etc.; with changes in biotechnology and related disciplines, one expects that it may be possible to design/program a child’s creative capabilities even before birth; dangerous, it should help development, but not brain implants; I’m suspicious of this since learning is more imprinting than instruction at this young age; this could be badly misapplied for political aims or social eugenics; focus on “Game Making;” spontaneity should be preserved as well; don’t standardise children, creativity declines rapidly when children hit primary school, doing this at the 0-3 level would be an absolute disaster; this has a much better chance of success if it focuses on the poverty angle; there are initiatives in the private sector.

Suggested Action 19: Create mass public awareness campaigns with celebrities about actions to address the issues in the great transitions coming up around the world.

19.1 How effective?

Efforts of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and others over the past several years have gotten the world’s attention to potential downsides of artificial super intelligence, and that was not even coordinated as a mass campaign; celebrities hold high appeal for young people which people are the biggest up-takers of education the commitment of celebrities must be at least 5 years with consistent messages to be effective; prefer: “How do we effectively utilize media to promote and educate the public?” Celebrities are just one element of that. And who is feeding the celebrities with the ideas they are promoting? That issue needs to be addressed before this can be implemented.

19.2 How feasible?

No problem to implement, just finding funds may be cumbersome but visibility is always a good opportunity for investors; no one paid Elon and Bill to take on public education about the potential downsides of AI; very feasible once partnerships are made in which case celebrities publicity campaigns be used to reach education targets especially the young people just like celebs helped drive awareness of public health issues (e.g., HIV); tap into the desire of ethically-aware celebrities to find a way to give back to society; celebrities are already doing this, mostly in most advanced countries, but overall in the world this will not have special effects.

19.3 General comments:

Making learning cool could be a game changer; celebrities, whether real or imagined, are effective in marketing campaigns, especially when the receivers of such marketing messages are able to identify with and see themselves as the celebrity or ‘hero;’ happens now but more needed; absolutely, but remember the celebrities are a two edged sword; watch out for hype and ideology; the campaign should be more about empowering people to think about futures, not present “the future” as an inevitable thing; celebrities alone cannot and will not carry the message at anything more than a superficial level; a short and medium-term measure since momentous changes would have taken place by 2050 making these look somewhat obsolete, but, effect in the nearer and the medium term.

Suggested Action 20: Include futures as we include history in the curriculum. Teach alternative visions of the future, foresight, and the ability to assess potential futures.

20.1 How effective?

A civilization with a future-oriented consciousness would be at least as important to building a better future as a civilization with an historically-oriented consciousness; it would be refreshing for students to look forward instead of back; in an era of rapid change not including future aspect is tantamount to hiding you head in the sand; alternative futures brings critical thinking into the curriculum; this is a smart idea, really. I wholeheartedly hope it will work; depends on how this will be implemented; will take a huge evolution in our education system; it’ll be an extracurricular subject; don’t see it as some big issue regarding employment prospects by the year 2050; it has a motivational dimension not to be disregarded, fosters interest in learning; making predictions is one of the primary advantages of the human brain, seems only natural to be conscious of this capability and to practice it at a very early age; during a future-oriented high class some students realized their future profession might not be there in the future.

20.2 How feasible?

Futurists have worked on this around the world for years, some progress, but not what it should be, so not as easy or feasible as it should be; incorporate something about the future into every subject the students take; use futures methods as teach techniques to future-orient instruction; make it more personal as a preferred set of futures for individual students; history could take on new relevance when discussed in the context of possible futures; I don’t think this would move enough people in this direction; requires more research and experimentation; some aspects of the future are enchanting…exploit this hunger to enable future studies take root; easy show Cosmos series as an example; change mindset of head hunters; give students skills to feel in control after they have been given the disturbing knowledge of radical changes coming during the 4th industrial revolution.

20.3 General comments:

Make part of every subject; futures literacy is important – just as history is; if people cannot imagine diverse possible and impossible futures, they will remain stuck in someone else’s version of reality; associate this with teaching innovation through hands-on practices; the last week of every class should be about the future of that subject; incorporate into curriculum standards causing textbook writers to incorporate it in their books, and will cause the GRE and SAT to be modified to include it in their questions; condition the general public to think of realistic positive futures with their plausible place in it; the Millennium Project could help achieve this strategy; the struggle of Teach the Future makes clear, folks aren’t so interested in what they can’t touch.

Suggested Action 21: What other long-range education/learning strategies would better improve work/technology dynamics by 2050?

• Future of Education Institutions to retrain people to switch professions

• Assess impact of changes in cultural practices/identities in the light of fast-paced technological changes

• Don’t teach the same thing at the same time to everyone.

• Strengthening moral education

• Develop more effective processes to control abuses of power; and encourage a greater sense of responsibility, based on a greater emphasis on values and wisdom in our learning/educational processes.

• We must achieve an educational singularity with exponential creativity methods that will accelerate by a factor of ten people’s learning ability, i.e. a 5 year course could be made in 5 months preparing multiple skills graduates that will have the knowhow to get results utilizing the current universal body of knowledge (internet, wiki, etc.). We will reach the educational singularity moment when a 15 year old will be more skilled than a 55 year old CEO. These super-educated people entering the workforce will make the difference in an unexpected way.

• Promote sustainable and equal business models such as cooperatives.

• Emphasize global citizenship education

• Decouple education from money and power politics.
• Balance the needs of the society in professional skills with the individual needs to build a strong personality able of taking the critical distance with the society.

• Try not to collapse “parenting” and “educating.”

• Social literacy and social conscious should become an essential component of all education

• More technology driven education, apple’s iThink project, tDCS and Brain Computer Interface, telepathy technology, Panasonics’s Digital Data Transfer technology, and 2049 Singularity are all coming. We may just download and upload intelligence, knowledge, and information.

• Develop the thought leaders for all of the proposed education tracks

• Answer: Establish socially respected prizes (like Oscars or Tonys) for fine work by tradespeople and mechanics, whose work is usually taken for granted or at best paid for with money. Let bricklayers sign the wall they built, etc.

• Developing attitude to change and adaptation in individuals.

• Education to find your true interests as a human being, the importance of knowledge in achieving your goals.

• We need good teachers, good salaries, respect, and credit for teachers paramount role.

• Better research with real-time data into why/when students (particularly boys) drop out of school.

• Use AI, neuroscience, and advanced cognitive and psychological techniques into psychometrics for education and counselling: must first help people better align their education with their passions (inner-self) then create adequate and personalized plans, technologies and resources to significantly increase the share of the population that believes and succeeds with both, “academia” and “life-long learning.

• Learning strategies will be necessary to: a) provide financial guidance on how to manage much more limited resources and educate them to the fact that an “American” solution is often “the most expensive solution,” and to look globally for better deals, b) teach young people how to take advantage of globalization in service-type industries, and c) imbue students with a sense of political empowerment along with the skills to shape public discussion and policy decisions.

• Lower income countries that have not “succeeded” in mass education could leap frog straight to the new approaches!

• International educational exchanges and twinning of educational programs of different countries would improve disadvantage countries to benefit from the progress of more advance ones.

• Give greater autonomy to educators in setting goals, selecting methods and experimenting with various tools.

• Reduce testing and other standardized demands from students, especially early on.

• Focus on teaching people how to learn on their own, how to collaborate, how to be entrepreneurial, how to dare, how to fail and regain confidence to try again and again, and values such as grit, integrity, resourcefulness, respect, family.