Coaching World Issue 20: Industry Trends & Insights | Page 28

always relocates people to more rewarding, less repetitive work. The wagon builder will be more fulfilled designing automobiles. The assembly line worker will be happier as an accounting administrator. Therefore, automation is always ultimately for everyone’s betterment. That may not be so this time. Computers are learning to perform those intellectual tasks; where will be left for the creative clever class to go when their jobs are automated? The last bastion of latter-day John Henrys will instead be jobs that speak to our souls: artists, healers … and coaches. Many people will soon feel the pressure of automation. Think how you will help clients in high-risk occupations deal with unemployment if their whole industry vaporizes. Evaluate their skills against safer professions. Do you have forward-thinking clients who would like to plan for this upheaval before it becomes common news? On the other side of that upheaval lies … a bigger upheaval. One day, AIs will become conscious, acting like humans with creative, independent thoughts and emotions. No one knows when or how this will happen; few experts doubt that it will happen. Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and Elon Musk—three of the smartest people on the planet—say that superintelligent AI is an existential risk, a threat to human survival. convulsing in 2030, today’s relative tranquility is like that sacred space, a place to reflect and recharge— except all humanity is in that space. We will need people with deep understanding of the human condition to teach those AIs to accept and not annihilate us. Not computer scientists, but psychologists, therapists and coaches. You may have a future in saving the world. In The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible, Charles Eisenstein writes, “If you are in the sacred space between stories, allow yourself to be there. It is frightening to lose the old structures of security, but you will find that even as you might lose things that were unthinkable to lose, you will be okay.” Compared to how society may be Advance 2016: Science of Coaching may be over, but it’s not too late to purchase the OnDemand video package. Don’t miss out on this deep exploration into topics at the forefront of professional coaching: coaching presence, creating awareness and team coaching. ICF Members receive a discount on OnDemand purchases. Join today at Coachfederation.org/join. LEARN MORE AND PURCHASE AT Coachfederation.org/advance. Coachfederation.org | 1.888.423.3131 | [email protected]