For futurist, ‘intellectual capital’ is key

Govt urged to foster culture that allows for mistakes By Miguel R. Camus Philippine Daily Inquirer

Collecting garbage or making rock tunes for a living?

The good news is, you might have a place in the future, as envisioned by celebrity futurist and theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, who told a packed audience in Manila that the jobs of the future would move away from repetitive skills like several manufacturing functions and into more common sense and intuitive tasks.

Kaku, a guest speaker at a business forum organized by the First Pacific Leadership Academy Thursday, shared his views on the jobs of tomorrow and how a country like the Philippines can leap forward if it embraces digital technology, infrastructure and new attitudes toward entrepreneurship.

Saying several tasks will eventually be replaced by man-made robots, Kaku noted that people should focus on skills that require intuition, creativity and leadership.

We are seeing a gradual shift from commodity capital to a mix of commodity and intellectual capital. And that is going to be the currency of the future, said the regular host at the Science Channel/Discovery Channel, where he tackles topics like Einsteins dream of a theory of everything.

The losers [of the future] will be blue-collar jobs that are totally repetitive: automobile workers that do the same motion over and over again, textile workers that do the same thing over and over again. However, garbage men will have jobs, every garbage is different. Construction workers will have jobs, every construction site is different. The police will have jobs, every crime is different, Kaku said.

Stock brokers, scientists, analysts, rock stars and entrepreneurs are likely to have a place in the future as well, noted the physicist.

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For futurist, ‘intellectual capital’ is key