🔮 Automation, jobs & skills; the electrification of everything; privacy; Chinese podcasts, octopuses & Fortnite++#184

The podcast

🎧 The Exponential View podcast is back! Visit the new season teaser on iTunes or here, if you aren't on iOS.

Dept of the near future

🔮 A substantial international, cross-industry study by Saadia Zahidi of the World Economic Forum suggests that automation could be a substantial net jobs creator, with the big if, employees can be reskilled for new jobs at the emerging ‘human-machine’ frontier. Full report. (See Dept of automation below.)

🤹 On reskilling, a crunchy analysis from Accenture finds that over the next ten years work would be augmented by technology rather than automated away to a jobless future. But this shift will require a new blend of skills: “Creativity, socio-emotional intelligence and complex reasoning are the skills that are rising in importance across every work role.” Summary here.

💨 Michael Liebreich: The coming electrification of planes, trains, ships and trucks gives us “the right to remain hopeful about our chances of limiting the impact of climate cha…