Building the Future Our Kids Deserve
Imagination and creativity matter far more than industrial nostalgia. It's time to take The Sniff Test.
Industry has declined in the West for decades. There is now talk of rebuilding it. But why rebuilding? The future is built, not rebuilt. We are not going back to industrial smokestacks and dangerous 12-hour shifts, six days a week.
Historian Niall Ferguson argues that Trump’s policies look like those of the Labour government after World War II. Britain threw up tariff barriers to protect industries that had lost the captive markets of empire. The result was expensive products that no one wanted. Competition means choice and tariffs restrict it.
I cannot tell you the industries that are going to matter most in 20 years’ time. I cannot advise my children what career to pursue, other than to recommend doing something they love. I was a financial analyst for 20 years and left when I fell out of love with the job.
A government with a five-year time horizon cannot tell us what industries will matter in the future. Maybe solar will satisfy our energy needs, but nuclear power may also be important. What matters is having options, which is another word for choices.
Any political party that stands for vested interests, be they business or workers, is small ‘c’ conservative when it comes to thinking about the future. Change is a tax on emotions and people prefer to live in their comfort zones.
This is particularly true as we age. Studies of retired people show they struggle to make new friends even as they lose old ones. The primary reason is their impression of time. They do not believe there is time to build the bonds of friendship and they slip into isolation.
Young brains are tuned to explore. The young don’t know what industries will matter in two decades time, but they are the ones who will figure it out. Not the political ones, who are already set in their ways, but the curious ones. These are the people we must encourage.
Figuring it out means creating knowledge. The ability to do this is what sets humans apart. Creativity in all forms starts with an idea, which in science can take decades to come to fruition. Often, we lack the means to test the theory at the time it is devised. Artificial intelligence and quantum computing both come under that category.
Imagination and creativity are the most important things to encourage in children. We need science experiments as much as art classes. This can be misinterpreted as letting children do what they want. That doesn’t work, because comfort zones are just as appealing to the young as the old. Education must be designed to encourage discovery, rather than making it a memory test. I can tell you from personal experience that a good memory is helpful, but it’s not how you solve business problems.
I am talking with an entrepreneur who wants to sell concert tickets to owners of virtual reality headsets. Imagine if this was how we consumed all music. Spotify already plays videos on top of audio and this could become an immersive experience. I might flip back to listen-only while walking the dog, but who knows what options augmented reality will bring.
Another new business has recorded the experience of visiting Stratford-upon-Avon. Those unable to travel can wander around the sites, go into local stores and make purchases. I immediately thought of Sainsbury’s. Online grocery sales have flatlined around 12% of the total in recent years, as the experience stagnated. Yet I could be in the shop from the comfort of my home, picking up packets, reading the ingredients, and on the lookout for yellow-label bargains.
What it takes to build a business is changing. Only 8% of us work in manufacturing and even if the industrial base were to double, it would be robots doing the work. Society has always escaped the drudgery of the assembly line through education, and developing robots is one proof of this.
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My philosophy tutor said he’d only accept the excuse of not having time to write a shorter essay. I don’t remember any teacher ever setting me a word count. Now kids stress about having 1,500 words due for tomorrow, and I keep being told how long dissertations and theses must be. It’s anecdotal, but it seems the emphasis has shifted from quality to quantity.
83% of children blame school for their stress. Girls are more likely to be anxious and self-harm, while boys misbehave. As a result, boys are twice as likely to be permanently excluded from school. One fifth of children aged 8 to 16 are identified as having a probable mental disorder. With a shortage of therapists, they are given drugs to manage a condition rather than to cure it. The costs to the NHS spiral, while the damage to society is as yet unknown.
The UK Parliamentary Education Committee is preparing a report on why boys perform poorly at school. The problem is acute among those on free school meals, where only a third of White and Caribbean boys achieve GCSE grade 4 (out of 9) in both English and Maths. We are churning out an underclass of illiterate and innumerate young men, with no jobs for them to do.
Technology may have taken the jobs away, but it also offers a solution. A lack of attention is most often caused by a lack of interest. While boys do better than girls in STEM subjects, it is less what you are taught and more how you are taught it. AI teachers will provide personalised tuition to reduce the risk of students falling behind.
A third of parents report that their children lack regular access to a device to do online assignments. They do not complete homework, get into trouble and fall further behind. Yet 91% of children aged 11 have a phone. A conversational chatbot talking kids through difficult subjects, could transform academic performance. I work with a company that can build these, but demand is only from private schools at present.
The digital economy is only 10% of the total. It is not hard to imagine a future with a lot more software in it. Whether this is built by engineers, use of no code tools, or by machines, there will be jobs associated with it. Artificial intelligence reduces the number of developers doing what they do today, but not the number of developers tomorrow. We all may have the opportunity to create.
New software does not have to replace what we are familiar with. Many people will continue to enjoy Spotify in audio mode, just as others prefer vinyl, or listen to the radio. Our lives are enriched by more choices and a variety of options that meet different tastes.
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Governments are good on treatment and poor on prevention. This applies to more than healthcare. Preferential access to university and the workplace for those considered disadvantaged, does not prevent poor education. It excuses it. There’s a political advantage to be seen addressing a problem, whereas stopping it happening does not make headlines. Too often, the answer is punitive taxes and bans.
The governments that restrict choice, restrict creativity and growth. Tariffs restrict choice, and represent a scarcity rather than abundance mindset. Subsidising favoured industries distorts the flow of capital to new ideas and also restricts choice. The role of government is to provide services that the private sector does not, without preferencing particular businesses.
There is a lot written about how the UK is falling behind in critical industries. Where are our new data centres, semiconductor plants and solar panel factories? The US has just been through a boom in industrial building, with vast subsidies and tax breaks for AI and green energy infrastructure. These are grand gestures to tackle China and halt climate change.
In recent years, the UK experienced a modest uptick in industrial investment. While there were targeted public initiatives in strategic industries, the UK government most often supports research into critical technologies. The big five are AI, engineering biology, future telecommunications, semiconductors and quantum technologies. This supports rather than distorts the private sector.
Government spending is a giant magnet that attracts investment towards it. Opportunities in other industries are overlooked. It is better to lay the foundations for growth, by supporting research that would otherwise not be done, than to pick winners.
Yet governments must be seen to act. Rescuing steel plants looks decisive and strategic, but only if they are returned to profit. Propping up failing industry with government money limits the choices available elsewhere. Amid the demands to nationalise British Steel, remember it is the government’s insistence on a definition of sustainability that tipped it over the edge. Funding research into how to go green might be a better strategy.
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Improving the lives of our children means increasing the choices they have and will have. The way to do this while the world of work evolves, is through education. This is a time honoured way of advancing societies everywhere.
Artificial intelligence provides a path to reimagine education in a way that reduces pupils’ stress, builds their confidence and unleashes creativity. If the curriculum needs redesigning to accommodate AI, then so be it. We cannot predict what the future will bring 20 years from now, but we can prepare for it.