TECHNOLOGY IS OUTPACING EDUCATION
Mid 2018, Singularity University’s Exponential Medicine department estimated that medical knowledge was doubling every 75 days, thanks to new technologies and tools, including sensors, data mining and artificial intelligence. This will get faster with time.
So, let us look ten or 15 years ahead and imagine a computer armed with Artificial Intelligence software, which is as smart as the average Princeton or Harvard graduate. The big difference is that it will do what the average graduate does, but a billion times faster. If we now put 1 000 such computers side by side, we will have the equivalent of one trillion bright minds that are adding to our knowledge base daily. This will explode our knowledge in every discipline and sphere of life at warp speed.
Clearly there is no way that we can assimilate this amount of knowledge. This suggests that we will increasingly have to rely on technology to give us the exact information we need, whenever and wherever we want it. For example, doctors would still have to learn how the body works, but thereafter a significant portion of their course could be about learning how to access the latest knowledge “Just in time”.
Accordingly, our education system needs to teach a far broader skill set. The list of new skills is virtually endless and changing continually. Amongst others, it will have to change from one which focusses mostly on teaching knowledge to one that teaches people how to access knowledge, ask the right questions, think and discriminate. Such rapid change also requires a mind shift from one where we resist change to one where we embrace change, where we love being perpetually out of our depth.
As technologies and knowledge explode, it will become increasingly important to stay abreast. This suggests that we will never be done with education. Therefore, we have to embrace education to the point where it becomes our constant companion and a way of life.
Furthermore, if our knowledge is changing so rapidly, it will have to be continually updated and accessed online. If knowledge is doubling every few months, weeks or days, even teachers could struggle keep up, let alone stay ahead of their pupils.
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My book Technology Tsunami Alert will be launched mid-2020.
Please also read the Gold/Silver and Investment chapters on my EelcoGold website.
