In the intelligent future, positions, roles, entire fields will disappear from the jobs market. In many cases, the tasks themselves will still exist but increasingly they’ll be done by evermore intelligent technologies instead of by humans. As in the past, these changes will be motivated by market forces and the ongoing incentive to improve efficiency and productivity. And like the Digital Revolution and the Industrial Revolution before it, the Intelligence Revolution will transform the jobs landscape for still another reason. Because it will lead to increasingly rapid innovation and product creation.

In the past, machines have eliminated jobs because they could be designed to be faster, stronger and more tireless than their flesh and blood counterparts. During the Industrial Revolution, this meant lower skilled, often highly-repetitive labor was displaced. Spinning, weaving and sewing machines transformed the work environment. Vast numbers of trades people saw their work taken away by what would eventually become a worldwide clothing industry. Which would itself one day create millions of jobs. Likewise, unskilled manual labor. Before the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, roads and railways were built on the backs of thousands of workers. Today with the aid of machines, dozens can do the work previously performed by hundreds, if not thousands. These technologies (along with many others that came after them) built the cities, highways and factories that led to still more jobs.

The Digital Revolution had similar impacts. Office functions have seen such increases in efficiency that a single person can perform the work once performed by many. At the same time, that worker has seen a huge increase in available skills and technologies. These changes also took away a lot of jobs but led to the creation of many new ones as well. Desktop publishing, digital photography and digital video production utterly transformed their fields. At the same time these new technologies eliminated jobs, they put the ability to create mass media into the hands of an unprecedented number of people.

But I suspect these examples will pale beside the changes that will be brought about by the Intelligence Revolution. Two fields that are poised to transform entire industries are those of automated invention and rapid prototyping. Using techniques such as genetic programming (algorithms that utilize fitness selection), computers are increasingly able to invent devices that are far more efficient than anything that could be created by a person. For instance, Evolutionary Antenna Synthesis is leading to better, more cost-effectively designed antennas. In another field, evolvable hardware has improved microprocessor design, creating circuits that are far denser, increasingly complex and fault-tolerant than anything that could be created by a team of unaided humans.

As they develop, 3-D printer rapid-prototyping technologies will allow us to implement these inventions and designs far faster than we ever could before. The creation of open source rapid-prototypers, such as the RepRap and MakerBot projects, will make these technologies widely available, leading to a democratization of this process as well. 3-D designs for these machines are already widely shared and distributed via the internet and the concept will likely lead to downward price pressure as these technologies become increasingly sophisticated.

All of this is leading to a sea change for job markets and how we approach our careers and education. As always, such change will have consequences both good and bad. I’ll elaborate on this further in Part 2 of this series.

Xerox announced this week they’ve developed several breakthroughs in the printing of low-cost electronic circuits. Most notably, this includes their development of a silver-based conductor ink and significant improvements to their previously-developed semi-conductor ink. These advances will make circuits possible on a wide range of materials, including plastics, film and textiles. The process is scalable so it could be used to create everything from low-cost miniature circuits to large video displays. Because the new silver ink can be delivered at sufficiently low temperatures (140°C), it won’t melt plastics, which was a previous obstacle. Finally, the process uses ink-jet technology and doesn’t require clean room facilities such as those needed for silicon chip manufacturing.

Xerox has already begun aggressively marketing the new technology which I believe will make a significant impact, both in established industries and in entirely new uses. The ability to print on fabrics should make wearable electronics really start to take off. Custom large-scale, flexible video screens and signage will become feasible. Sensors capable of detecting all manner of airborne pathogens and toxins will eventually become widespread.

Given the relatively inexpensive setup costs this will bring about in time, I’d expect a significant open source movement to build around printable electronics. Not only will this yield all sorts of innovations, but it will eventually make many consumer devices more affordable. Think RepRap for electronics.

But to me, by far and away the most exciting aspect of this breakthrough is the promise of low-cost RFID tags and sensors. Once these are in widespread use, every item in a warehouse, every book in a store, every piece of furniture in a home will be able to convey information about its location and state. Your refrigerator will be able to poll its contents, generating a shopping list or identifying items past their use-by-date. The possessions in your house could be easily inventoried and recorded for insurance purposes, in case of theft or fire. Misplaced items could be located in an instant.

In a word, everything in our environment would become more intelligent. And that’s only the beginning. Wireless communication to a central server or internet services could allow a failing device to arrange it’s own repair. (Obviously, with over-ride options by the owner.) Sensors along roads and buildings could assist in everything from collision avoidance to giving directions to tourists. Gradually, additional features and processing would be added to each device, creating an ecosystem of interacting, inter-communicating electronics.

Of course, there will no doubt be considerable privacy and security issues to contend with, not to mention all kinds of new scams involving counterfeit RFID tags, false information, misdirection and so forth. But to be honest, I don’t see us foregoing the functional and marketable benefits because of such concerns. We’ll just have to build methods and measures and legislation to deal with the possible downsides of the technology. Because in the end, smarter really is better.