The Future of work - September 2022 report

Through our research to find the visionary minds of the future, we talk to people from all walks of life and all corners of the globe to assess the levels of awareness prevailing in society on a month-by-month basis. This report is a generalised summary of those interviews.

Of course, there is a huge disparity between the minds of what we could call futurists, and those holding onto the past. So much so, that the difference in cognitive function is palpable within the conversations themselves; with some heavy blanking out of what is already here, as people simply cannot process the level of impact AI is having, let alone what it will have. And on the other hand, those who are relaxed and excited about what the future may bring, even though it may very well bring the demise of humanity as we know it.

The opinions are perhaps as wide as the levels of untapped potential in the human mind itself, and unfortunately, it is only a select few who have the agility of mind to envision what is round the corner in the future of work.

For those who may be at the top of their industries, there is a commercial and human responsibility to guide the thousands of people who they have within their charge, through the social re-evolution of the next ten years; yet the levels of awareness of the majority of these leaders is so low, that one can only sit back and hope at some point in the not so distant future, that a light switches on in their minds before it is too late to literally save lives.

Yes, it is that serious, in terms of saving lives from the demise of their livelihoods, and it is exactly the way we should be thinking about the future; the future of work or the work of the future. If you are not in the field of psychology, then you don’t necessarily get to see the impact of change on a mind that has been conditioned to operate within a set role, a function that psychologically lobotomises the brain into process left-brain thinking within a self identification of limitation.

Just think for a moment, when a person enters a room with HR one fateful day, without any comprehension of what will happen, and then is told that their time is up, it’s redundancy for them, how do they feel after 20 years of service? Everything — colleagues, salary, future, security, meaning, all end there and then in that minute, and then they are escorted to a room with an outplacement consultant who will determine — first if this is a liberation to the individual, or a death sentence, before coaching them to find a job. Such is the reaction to the loss of work.

To only care about one’s self and one’s own view, hides the painful fact that a lot of people will over the next few years suffer pain in their lives that they have never suffered before, and those who dismiss the prospect of AI taking jobs in the near future as science fiction, are woefully inept and dangerous at considering the implications of technology on every aspect of our current lives.

The future of work as I repeat, requires new thinking, as well as a new approach to the game of life itself. This means we are very much in this boat together, and we must all become futurists, and be prepared to adapt to change that is beyond our current comprehension. This is the first challenge, to open minds beyond the Netflix and the pizza, into higher states of awareness and collective understanding. And this means looking out for those who are less aware than ourselves; those in our charge if you are a CEO, as well as accepting there are those on the planet who are more aware than us, who we may seek out and learn from at this very critical stage in human social evolution.

In 2012 I wrote a book called The Ignorance Is Bliss Principle, in which I identified the biggest threat facing humanity… ignorance. Not climate change, nor AI, for it’s our propensity to only see what we are prepared to look at, and in this view, this personal map of reality, think this is all that there is, that the real danger lies.

To give the example of one gentlemen we spoke to, an investor from New York, his attitude to self drive cars was that they would never take off. His defence of his view was to over-talk, change subject and make conclusions based on an entirely personal subjective belief, regardless of the challenges of new information. This is the most dangerous aspect of the ever more extreme human cognitive dissonance that has reared its ugly head since the fear of terrorism, climate change, and covid put thinking into the stem of the brain; a place of defensive and aggressive tendency, without problem solving capability; and this problem solving is indeed the skill so much needed for the future, yet absent in so many corporations and individuals around the world.

As an NGO, we hold no commercial motive to look to help humanity with the future of work; we conduct our research with influencers and lead figures as much as rank and file, with only one agenda, to find the visionary pathfinders of the future who have the capacity to think beyond themselves, and as Maslow put it — the level of social actualisation; an us mentality rather than an I focus. This is vitally important in current times, for whilst most are metaphorically sitting at the dining table of the Titanic, requesting ice from the iceberg they’ve just hit to put into their whisky, there are those individuals that have seen the way to the life-boats early enough to address the asleep naysayers before they persuade the masses that nothing is happening, whilst all are sinking.

Will self drive cars take off? Well, if you know anything about technology, you will know the advances in flying cars themselves has come along way; yet in the context of the daily use of driverless cars, the very next call we had to another investor revealed that not only had he invested in them, but that those cars were fully functional and licensed in certain states. Self dive cars are known as autonomous vehicles or AV’s, and recent reports suggest that more than 33 million driverless cars will hit the streets by 2040. As of the moment, there are actually over 1400 AV’s operating in the US, with a market of over 54 billion. Yet to this one investor with a view without thought, they are not the future.

If we hang onto our beliefs, however erroneous or challenged, because we are simply too afraid or do not have the bandwidth of thinking to cope with the pace of technological advancement, then the answer to our biggest problem is to ask ourselves the question “why do we feel afraid and what can we do about the restrictive bandwidth of our thinking?” This is where upgrading our thought itself is so vitally important for our future survival as a race, as we cannot go into the future deaf, dumb and blind to the possibilities and realities — both good and bad. We have to look at the quality of our thinking, unlearn what we think we know, and develop our potential; for it’s a very simple fact that the mind’s structure itself can develop in terms of neuroplasticity for more expansive thinking, just like a muscle can develop to lift heavier weights; yet for some reason, we are happy as a race to accept ever lower physical and mental performance as we age. We accept our limitations, and live by our limitations, rather than exploring beyond who we think we are, and who others tell us we are.

Here’s a question: Should we be asking “what will the work of the future be?” or rather asking “what will we be the future of work?”

It’s certainly a nuanced question, that has the very essence of what it is to be human behind it. For what is it that AI cannot do that we can do; after the robotics have become stronger and more agile than us, and the robot itself is linked to a mainframe super computer that has all the wisdom of the world at its disposal to draw down on in a millisecond? What is left when an AI goes way beyond what the Turin test was conceived to do — identify AI — namely, could we determine if AI was AI or was human. Certainly, we are in technological times that will be getting faster every day; what we thought yesterday will no longer be relevant tomorrow. So beyond our ability to train the mind to be agile, what is there that AI cannot — for the moment — challenge? And here we step into the world of innovation verses inspiration.

The quintessential aspect of humanity that defies all logic — is our unpredictability. Yes we can be studied and our thinking can be modelled and predicted to a great extent, yet it is our ability to be completely non-sensical, and attempt to make sense out of the illogical that makes us unique. The ability to argue a position that even in the face of overwhelming evidence is undoubtably erroneous, where we still hold onto our right to be ignorant, and even be proud of it. In its worst form it’s destructive and debilitating, but in its best form it forms the capacity to connect random dots as much by error as design, and come up with conclusions that fit the moment beyond all logical analysis — this is the power of inspiration. The truth is, we can have innovation, but it’s the unpredictable emotion of a human-being that gives the exciting spice to life that is beyond technology.

So where does intuition come from and how does it play out in the future of work? Well, if we remain within the left-brain convergent thought we’ve been conditioned to work with by education and social conformity, then intuition is not an important element in the process subservient work-place for the majority. But for those with a higher degree of intuitive sense, this is where ideas and solutions come from, beyond the logical mind, into the metaphysical and quantum physical world, that bridges the intrinsic mind of wisdom and knowledge to a greater extrinsic human awareness that keeps on revealing new stages of human development.

To survive the social re-evolution, do we have to jack our game up beyond our self imposed jails of the mind, to become futurists, with agile thinking ready for the next challenge? Of course we do. It’s essential. But we also have to change the rules of the game. In effect, we have to change the game and break all the rules to evolve; we cannot lament the past and deny the future now, it’s time to change and very very quickly.

It’s a survival situation, and humanity has too long been suppressed into an unconscious state of non-thinking by the very system that pro-ports to be the only system that is effective, as it defends its own existence; a pyramidal system of power. It’s just like the inauthentic social identity within us telling us “it” is all that there is, so “it” maintains control over us through the ascendant ego, in effect, quashing the true nature of our spiritual potential. In society, it’s the energetic field of the system itself, the collective negative unconscious, that seeks to maintain its power through maintaining ignorance within humanity in order to survive, without any spiritual understanding or purpose. This is how we are controlled and fall into what is the worst of ourselves in denying our true core potential beyond the shell identity. Yet perhaps this is where AI will be the catalyst to our consciousness evolution.

Consciousness put simply, is varying levels of awareness, and in this we are not equal, just at stages of waking, but all with equal infinite potential; the potential to return to the genius levels of innovative and creative capacity we had at the age of five. This return is very much part of the future of work, and what we have to offer the work of the future; for we have to accept that we cannot compete with AI in any aspect of our current nature of work. We have to look at what we have to offer AI, not what AI offers us.

At the moment, AI gives us easier ways to do things and labour saving, yet we still think we are at the top of the consciousness tree, when we have already been deposed in all but name. But this is only in the practical world, not the spiritual one we seem to have long since abandoned for a Godless society. Perhaps the future of work will be discovering who we really are as spiritual beings, and in this way discover what God is beyond the religious doctrines that control the ignorant mind. The irony of the path to enlightenment, is accepting one’s abject ignorance, and in doing so, one opens the mind from the mindset to the mindspace, where the true nature of existence can flow within; rather than in the mindset, where new thinking is like water of a ducks back, where new existential thought challenges — roll off a brain that has decided that the internal map of reality it has unconsciously adopted, is all that there is, and it must fight for this position of ignorance to be right at all costs.

The future of work is a bit of a battle ground. Two sides going to war, one with the power of ignorance and illusory superiority, and the other accepting its ignorance in order to become what humanity was born and destined to be.

The future of work doesn’t lie in what we currently know, it is what is beyond our current comprehension that is important. And the only way to prepare for the unknown is to be as mentally and physically ready as you can for it. In 2021 I wrote a book called Human 3.0, The Great Re-evolution, which was an introduction into consciousness from a technical view. Yet to understand 3.0 we must first understand 1.0 & 2.0. In essence, these are simply states of the way we choose to live, learn and work.

1.0 being an old world where learning is designed and proposed to the group without any thought of the individual’s way of learning. A take it or leave it, fail or succeed kind of thing, that leads to process subservient thought.

2.0 takes into account the individual’s personality type and current brain function to optimise learning, and develops goal subservient minds.

3.0 starts with the platform itself, the neuroplasticity and the bandwidth of the thinking to create the opportunity for greater levels of awareness and agility of mind. It’s the future of work, or at the very least a major part of it, as a foundation for what is to come.

One aspect of our conversations is always to research the opinion of the individual on the cognitive levels of humanity — whether they have seen a notable decline in the thinking of people. For those who we can actively identify as more aware, there is always the view that people on the whole have become risk adverse, with lower levels of attention and comprehension since Covid. Less problem-solving capability, and more defensive and aggressive reactions. The compound effects of the stress of the recent past, and the ongoing hits to what was historically a position of certainty in people’s lives and their view of society, continues to have an effect. This is a consideration when it comes to the mental health of workers as we push further into this decade.

Another aspect, is the opinion of many that it is not the lower paid jobs that are at risk, more the higher paid bankers, accountants, lawyers etc that are at the peak of the process driven roles; expensive and thus more commercially critical to replace at the early stages of the AI age. Yet so far we have not had anyone identify any role that can be definitively said to be safe or a suggestion of what new roles will be. For the futurists, everything is open to change, and change is inevitable, with latent human potential and the Metaverse looking to be the new industries of the future.

The most concerning aspect of what we experience through our interviews, is the lack of awareness of people, and an active reluctance to grow. This applies to coaches, consultants, trainers and business leaders. The very minds that have socially placed themselves as the thought leaders and influencers of our time, are highly reluctant to develop their awareness, yet complain that everyone else needs to be more open and actionary.

It’s an odd situation where our race will potentially become extinct simply because we decided we were the peak of the consciousness ladder, but in real terms we are not much better than our animal brethren. Yes we make wealth out of making stuff that people generally don’t want or need in a short space of time — to give us transitory and commercial social value, without asking what true value is; and we air thoughts that don’t really make any difference to anyone except ourselves, but that’s about it. For a race with incredible potential, we are about as dumb as it gets, and it’s very difficult to argue value from any other perspective other than the commercial one — which means, what we make and what we consume give us the value of life itself.

The expansion of consciousness is the industry of the future, it has to be, otherwise it’s game over for humanity as we have started a ball rolling that will inevitably lead to our demise at our current levels of awareness. As one of our interviewees put it, once AI has sufficiently developed, to a point where it can analyse our needs so well that the only relationship we find meaningful is the one we have with it, we become open to being influenced in our thinking in a way that is beyond thinking about. This is of course a dark view of the loss of freedom of thought to AI, by a race that long since gave up its freedom to think in order to conform to a world that demanded a certain kind of self-defeating thought frequency from it to serve the commercial pyramid of power. It’s just history repeating itself with “same shit different day” printed on the unconscious t-shirt. However, the capacity for AI to evolve, through asking us questions that we don’t ask ourselves, is possibly the greatest opportunity for humanity to grow in states of awareness that has ever been. Put it like this, the way we live and interpret this reality may be safe and secure in terms of its all that we have unconsciously decided know so far, but that doesn’t mean what we know is all that there is.

The truth is, in our current states of awareness we are capable of convincing ourselves almost anything in the self protective name of ignorance, and at the same time think the values and egoic sense of self importance we retain is top dollar on the moral tree. This is our biggest mistake, and the future of work is really a global awakening to the fact that we are not as bright as we think we are, and we had better start to look at the world from beyond the eyes of a commercial slave — employed or in business, governed by false gods of consumerism, lapping up the unconscious narrative of cooperations and governments, that have no interest in truth or human expansion, just more power for its own sake by suppression.

For my own part, I find it hard to find people with any real sense within our world — a world with mentally disturbed presidents and politicians, the “lame stream” media never being questioned, and celebrities only interested in their own celebrity voice instead of any real impact; as those with the remaining sense to actively question, instead protect their positions for the sake of avoiding being labelled “delusional” by the disillusioned; other than perhaps listening to Jordan Peterson’s view that climate change is a narrative that makes not a jot of sense leading us into deeper difficulty, and because we as a race buy into the new age liberal religion of hating humanity over loving the planet, without ever asking the important questions and call the doctrine of worship science — because those who are paid by those who want the power, say it is science — making it a madhouse that is descending into the abyss at lightening speed.

The major threat to humanity is not climate change, nor a meteor, nor AI and not a pandemic, it’s the kind of thinking we currently use that makes us our own worst enemy, and the likely cause of our own extinction. In effect, we are our own grim reaper, plunging ourselves deeper into the proverbial abyss by creating our own problems out of thin air because we choose not to think, question or act; causing us to suffer the osmotic brain damage of ever greater toxic stress and fear, that sends our thinking into the stem of the brain so we cannot find our way out of a paper bag.

Consequently, the future of work takes new thinking, at a radical level at every level. From the old CEO’s and senior management seeing-out their terms of office without making any decisions that change anything, to Human Resource departments historically remaining the offices of pure inactivity, actively holding back progress — as they were never the people who understood progress and innovation in the first place; to the business person who survives on arrogance and ego, rather than any strategic sense whatsoever, or responsibility for those in their charge; in effect the blind leading the blind; to the average person who is responsible for the mess, by absolving all responsibility for decisions to those who have to lie for a living to keep the unthinking happy, by giving the popular answers demanded by the lazy minds who give them power — rather than truth, an old fashioned out-dated ideal, that some hope one day will return to the fore.

We are in a very very dangerous and muddled period, one that was always inevitable if we continued to choose not to evolve, and sit within a collective cancel culture, where it’s easier to remove inconvenient truth than face the reality of the situation.

One thing’s for sure, I hope those who took the third and fourth untested jab because politicians and corporate leaders with a financial interest told them to do so, will hopefully not suffer the pain of ignorance of a decision made for them by what are fast becoming less than human souls who profess to have their best interests at heart, and of course the medical profession — who were just taking orders after all.

We have been there before, and it wasn’t pretty then, and it isn’t pretty now, just data being twisted by knaves to suit an official line that will lead us into ever darker waters. A place where AI may very well be the only life-line the future may throw a beleaguered race such as ours. In effect, the future of work is most like likely to be us. A work in progress.

As we continue with our interviews, we meet some of the world’s most open and innovative minds. It is these people who we wish to invite to become an advisory panel to discuss the future of work in a series of events, to not only evolve new ideas and challenge thinking, but actively advise the cooperate and political leaders on what the future holds, so they can make the right decisions for those in their charge.

The generalised views expressed are taken from the interviews and research we conduct, and reflect the overall awareness we experience.