It’s not enough to build learning around a single societal shift. Students should be trained to handle a rapidly changing world
“From one day to the next, our profession was wiped out. We woke up and discovered our skills were redundant.” This is what two successful graphic designers told me about the impact of AI. The old promise – creative workers would be better protected than others from mechanisation – imploded overnight. If visual artists can be replaced by machines, who is safe?
There’s no talk of a “just transition” for graphic designers, or the other professions about to be destroyed. And while there’s plenty of talk about how education might change, little has been done to equip students for a world whose conditions shift so fast. It’s not just at work that young people will confront sudden changes of state. They are also likely to witness cascading environmental breakdown and the collapse of certain human-made systems.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
