Reflection Report

While reading the Brain Labor 2030 article, I was familiar with most of the elements

mentioned in it. However, what stood out the most was the part about “The five ages and stages

of life”. The report talks about two new stages of life, and the first is Second Adolescence which

is “a transition phase between childhood and adulthood (ages 18–29)”. It causes delays to key

life events such as work, marriage, having children and buying a home. I agree with this

statement because especially my generation, we are more focused on getting our education and

finding a career than getting married and starting a family. Most of us want independence and

financial security first before we settle down and start a family. The other is Preretirement and it

is a transition of people ages 55-74 that are working longer because they are keeping a healthier

life span. People are working longer because it is hard to just survive on your pension nowadays

and with the rise of technology, people are finding convenient ways to work.

The element I am concerned with is the part that says, “rising wages in China will

stimulate investment in automation”. It talks about how wages as increasing rapidly so,

companies are now looking into investing in Robots because they are improving labor

productivity. In the next decade, the cost of Robots will be declining which will encourage

employers to get them in the substitution of humans. Robots are starting to basically do anything

humans can do in a work setting and with the cost reduction, it will be cheaper to have them that

hiring humans. This concerns me because how will people earn a living if Robots to take over

their jobs and does it change our education system. If most jobs are taking by Robots, then there

will be fewer majors that people can study.

The part I struggled to understand is about if “Life span growth is higher for those with

higher levels of education”. I don’t believe that your chances of living longer are if you earn a
college degree or higher. I just think they're a lot of factors that go into people living longer, so

just looking at the educational level is unrealistic.

Apart from the life span element, I think the report is accurate in its research of

automation and it’s interesting to see the statistics that are predicted about automation taking

over the workforce. This report has made me think about my career path because I want to make

sure that I am able to get a job with or without automation. My major is management and I feel

like even with automation, companies will still need managers to make sure everything is

running smoothly.