More on Machines that Think, and What We Need to Do About Them

Hi, everyone,

Well, as you’ll recall, I’m doing one of my infamous series, this one on machines like Watson (the famous IBM computer that was on Jeopardy a while back) and the effect they’re going to have on the world of work. I’ve been arguing that such systems and software are going to put a lot of white-collar workers out of work. The professions, which have so long defined success in America, are going to become ever more sparse in terms of jobs.

I’ve also argued that the only thing we can do about it is to stress what we humans do well, and what machines do badly. We need, I suggest, to stress our capacity for creativity and invention.

However, I’m going to conclude my little series by saying that we’ve got a serious problem on our hands. To wit, we’ve got to learn to be creative. (And when I say “we” I mean our children. They are the ones who will rise or fail in the world that Watson made.) Ah, but there’s the rub. Right now our educational system is not geared up to produce creative people.

If anything, it is meant to stamp out creativity.

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I’m quite serious about that. If you have children, think about the number of worksheets…all basically identical…that your son or daughter brings home in their bulging backpack every evening. Think of the endless exercises they are required to perform—again, all basically identical, all requiring the mastery of one or two basic rules (when this do that…divide by two…pick a verb). Think about the underlying assumption about work that is to be found in those exercises. And, consider, too, that the real lesson being taught here. It has nothing to do with numbers or words. It is rather that success comes from servility and passivity.

And we train them that way because that’s the skill you need to perform most white-collar jobs—i.e., you need to be able to sit down and perform certain prescribed tasks according to a limited number of fixed rules on an enormous number of data points.

But, as I’ve already said, Watson does that better than we can. And Watsons are going to be everywhere. So, for us to train our children to be Watson-esque is like training them in the arts of buffalo hunting and buggy whip manufacture.


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What all this means is that our educational system has to change. And soon.

We need to teach our children to be creators. We need them to be innovators. We need them to be pioneering scientists, engineers, and technologists who don’t just apply the rules and turn the crank, but rather defamiliarize the obvious, and discover the obscure. We need them to be artists, musicians, actors and playwrights, filmmakers, and writers who ask uncomfortable questions, and perceive unexpected realities. We need them to be business entrepreneurs. Yes, entrepreneurship, too, is one of the creative arts. Perhaps, indeed, it is the most demanding of them all…the most requiring of invention and wisdom.

And, happily for us, we know how to do this. We know how to train children to be creators. There are no mysteries here. Maria Montessori and John Dewey explained it all a century ago. John Henry Newman, in his _ The Idea of a University _, did the same earlier still. You give children science, mathematics, literature, art, and philosophy as their toys.

You let them play.


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Mind you, I’m not being “liberal” or idealistic, or utopian. This is not the chaotic classroom that some people blame for the decline of American education. It is a form of discipline…an unstructured discipline, perhaps, but discipline all the same. It is a system in which the teacher has authority, but an authority that leads rather than forces the way into learning. And it is ancient. It is the ultimate “back to basics.” It is the way of Socrates, Aristotle, Plato…and the Prophets, and Christ, and the Buddha. It is the way of the sage.

And, besides, we have no choice.

The reality is that Watson and his successors will reshape the workplace utterly. If we continue as we have in the past, our children will fail. They will be outclassed by the machine’s brute force. And, not just them, but our culture may perish utterly.


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This is my argument. This is what I believe about Watson.

In fact, I’ve written an op-ed piece to this effect. I’m sending it about to magazines and newspapers.

Will it ever be published? I sort of doubt it.

There is a lesser and a greater reason for that. The lesser is that Watson is now old news. In an age of high-speed journalism, and higher speed opinions, he has already been discussed and judged by all the People Who Know Best. They have long ago moved on to other things.

The greater is I’m sending it to people who are editors and journalists — that is, people who have succeeded in the current system, people who are the products of J-schools and professional development seminars

Such individuals will not find my ideas particularly appealing.

But, even so…

Even if my manuscript lingers long upon the shelf until it eventually drops from view… I’m right.

And, in the end, Watson will prove it.

Time… and machines… are on my side.


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Onward and upward.








Copyright © 2011 Michael Jay Tucker