Educational Research and Innovation Computers and the Future of Skill Demand Stuart W. Elliott Computers and the Future of Skill Demand Computers and the Future Educational Research and Innovation Computers and the Future of Skill Demand By Stuart W. Elliott This work is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of OECD member countries. This document, as well as any data and map included herein, are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. Please cite this publication as: Elliott, S.W. (2017), Computers and the Future of Skill Demand, OECD Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264284395-en ISBN 978-92-64-28438-8 (print) ISBN 978-92-64-28439-5 (PDF) Series: Educational Research and Innovation ISSN 2076-9660 (print) ISSN 2076-9679 (online) The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities. The use of such data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank under the terms of international law. 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Foreword Foreword Digitalisation is connecting people, cities, countries and continents, bringing together a majority of the world’s population in ways that vastly increase our individual and collective potential. But the same forces have also made the world more volatile, more complex and more uncertain. The rolling processes of automation and hollowing out of jobs, particularly for routine tasks, have radically altered the nature of work and life. For those with the right knowledge, skills and character qualities this can be liberating and exciting. But for those who are insufficiently prepared, it can mean the scourge of vulnerable and insecure work, and life without prospects. We are living in this digital bazaar where anything that is not built for the network age is going to crack under its pressure. Future jobs are likely to pair computer intelligence with the creative, social and emotional skills of human beings. It will then be our capacity for innovation, our awareness and our sense of responsibility that will equip us to harness machines to shape the world. All this is driving amazing changes in the demand for skills and the dilemma for educators is that the kind of things that are easiest to teach and easiest to test are precisely the kind of things that are easiest to digitize, automate and outsource. But what exactly are computers up to? This has been the subject of much speculation. This report provides first-of-its-kind evidence-based insights into current computer capabilities with respect to certain human skills. The project uses OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills to understand recent changes in skill demand and then assesses the computer capabilities that drive skill demand further in the near future. The findings of the report are worrying, in the sense that, using what was measured by the Survey of Adult Skills, two-thirds of workers in OECD countries are using the literacy, numeracy and digital problem-solving skills with a proficiency at a level on a par with that of computers. Only 13% of workers use these skills on a daily basis with higher proficiency than computers. It is hard to assess the immediate implications of these findings for the world of work, because not every job task that computers can take on will be taken on by computers right away, just think of driverless cars as an example. But what these results COMPUTERS AND THE FUTURE OF SKILL DEMAND © OECD 2017 3 Foreword show is that we need much better and more systematic intelligence on the capabilities of computers, currently and prospectively, if we want to educate tomorrow’s workers for their future, rather than our past. Andreas Schleicher Director for Education and Skills Special Advisor on Educational Policy to the Secretary-General 4 COMPUTERS AND THE FUTURE OF SKILL DEMAND © OECD 2017 ACKnowLEDGEMENTS Acknowledgements As an exploratory research project spanning a number of different disciplines, this project benefited from the advice and assistance of a large number of colleagues. First and foremost, the project could not have been carried out without the enthusiastic participation of the computer scientists and social scientists who reviewed the PIAAC test questions in the context of current computer capabilities: Jill Burstein, Ernie Davis, Charles Fadel, Ken Forbus, Art Graesser, Michael Handel, Jerry Hobbs, Frank Levy, Alistair Nolan, Becky Passonneau, Vasile Rus, Vijay Saraswat, Jim Spohrer, Mark Steedman, and Moshe Vardi. At the OECD, the project received thoughtful advice from Francesco Avvisati, Andrew Bell, Francesca Borgonovi, Tracey Burns, Ji Eun Chung, Chiara Criscuolo, Sonia Guerriero, Stéphanie Jamet, Margarita Kalamova, François Keslair, Malgorzata Kuczera, Guillermo Montt, Alistair Nolan, Marco Paccagnella, Christian Reimsbach- Kounatze, Deborah Roseveare, Glenda Quintini, Andreas Schleicher, Vincenzo Spiezia, Mariagrazia Squicciarini, Dirk Van Damme, Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin, and Andy Wyckoff. Vanessa Davis and François Keslair provided invaluable assistance in working with the PIAAC and IALS data, while William Thorn and Sabrina Leonarduzzi generously made the PIAAC test questions available for review. The members of the Governing Board of the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) provided helpful comments and support throughout the course of the project. Many other colleagues outside the OECD staff and CERI Governing Board provided comments on the project plan and assistance in identifying the experts who participated: David Autor, Uschi Backes-Gellner, Eva Baker, Steve Barley, Regina Barzilay, Adam Beatty, Jonathan Berant, Federico Biagi, Henry Braun, Chris Burges, Yejin Choi, Henrik Christensen, Peter Clark, Vera Demberg, Jacob Eisenstein, David Finegold, Martin Fleming, Frank Goldhammer, Robin Hanson, Sara Harper, John Horrigan, Eduard Hovy, Arne Kalleberg, Irwin Kirsch, Deirdre Knapp, Pat Kyllonen, Filip Lievens, Gary Marcus, Luke Muehlhauser, Harry O’Neil, Fred Oswald, Praveen Paritosh, Anselmo Peñas, Cyril Rimbaud, Stuart Russell, Ann Marie Ryan, Paul Sackett, Hanne Shapiro, Mustafa Suleyman, Matt Trippe, Martin Ulbrich, Gordon Waugh, David Wessel, Simon Wiederhold, Jeannette Wing, Luke Zettlemoyer, and John Zysman. COMPUTERS AND THE FUTURE OF SKILL DEMAND © OECD 2017 5 ACKnowLEDGEMENTS The draft report was reviewed by Michael Handel, Frank Levy, John McLaughlin, Alistair Nolan, Harry O’Neil, Marco Paccagnella, Glenda Quintini, Ted Reininga, Stefano Scarpetta, Andreas Schleicher, William Thorn, Dirk Van Damme, and Simon Wiederhold. In addition, the participating experts reviewed the discussion in Chapters 3 and 4 about their evaluation of computer capabilities. Marina Bradbury provided a careful and thoughtful edit of the draft report. These reviews immensely improved the draft, but of course none of the reviewers is responsible for the errors that remain. This work was supported in part by award #85-16-01 from the Russell Sage Foundation, which graciously hosted the expert meeting to review the PIAAC test questions. Any opinions expressed are those of the author or participating experts alone and should not be construed as representing the opinions of the Foundation. Cindy Luggery-Babic provided administrative support for the project, Sylvie de Witt provided administrative support for the publication, and Rachel Linden co-ordinated the production of the report. 6 COMPUTERS AND THE FUTURE OF SKILL DEMAND © OECD 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of contents Executive summary . 13 Chapter 1. The challenge computers pose to work and education. 17 Past employment trends in skill demand . 19 Projected future trends in skill demand . 21 Plan for the study and report . 23 Notes. 24 References . 24 Chapter 2. Changes in skills and skill use in the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) . 27 Overview of the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) . 28 Using PIAAC to measure changes in skill demand . 29 Results for literacy proficiency in PIAAC and the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) . 31 Basic results on skill use for PIAAC and IALS . 33 Utilised literacy proficiency – combining results on literacy proficiency and use . 35 Understanding the different approaches to measuring skill use . 39 Notes. 40 References . 40 Chapter 3. Methodology for assessing computer capabilities using the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) . 43 Objective for the exploratory assessment of computer capabilities.