ABSTRACT
The chapter discusses how work has evolved in past technological revolutions, including both how workers were displaced and how life improved and new work roles arose eventually. The pace of growth in artificial intelligence is discussed, along with the reality that in a complex environment like our country, there is an extended period in which parts of our world live in the old model of people paid for expertise in a specific role that they hold for life and parts shift quickly and sometimes unexpectedly to a world in which readiness to fill an emergent and partly unpredictable role is what is valued and what supports a good life in a period of rapid change. The case is made that while we cannot predict the exact nature of work life in the future, we can understand what kind of education will position people to be ready for the inevitable disruptions and for the lag between destruction of current jobs and evolution of new ones.
