Technology and the Generalist

@kyriacos had a post this morning about how thinking critically is more important than citing references and it got me to thinking about the nature of the world that lies ahead of us.

Technology is slowly reducing the advantages of specialists. In the last 100 years we have seen mechanical devices slowly displace specialists in all sorts of fields -- driving a car can be learned in a much shorter time than the years it took to learn how to ride horses well. Firing a machine gun effectively can be learned in a few minutes versus the years it took to become an accomplished swordsman. A novice with a chain saw can smoke a lumberjack with an ax and crosscut saw when it comes to felling and limbing and sectioning timber despite the decades the lumberjack has spent building up hand eye coordination and toning the necessary muscles.

Over the last few decades, we have seen computer technology repeat this same process, but at a faster pace. Computer phone switches eliminated long distance operators. Word processing programs made personal secretaries much less necessary, and combined with voicemail software made them nearly irrelevant. Printers and printer software reduced office staff requirements.

Car diagnostic software reduced the learning curve to figure out what was wrong with cars. CT scans and MRIs greatly reduced the clinical skills necessary to diagnose medical problems for doctors. Electric welders made welding something every hobbyist can do, and fairly cheap CNC machines took metal fabrication that used to require a large shop to something that can be done in a room the size of a bedroom.

And the list goes on and on. Technology is slowly taking the role of experts, whose role was to be a repository of knowledge and skill, and implanting that into a machine. The technology is now becoming the expert, and we the people are starting to take on a new role.

The Rise of the Generalist

The new role of the productive individual will be that of director -- we will not be the people doing the expert work, but the people telling the machine experts what to do. The new necessary skill set will be the ability to have an accurate big picture concept, the ability to learn new paradigms quickly, and the ability to quickly adapt and thrive in new environments. You tube videos can make all of us gardeners or appliance repairmen -- but only if we have the ability to understand the instructions regarding equipment that we are unfamiliar with and to use tools that we are unfamiliar with to replace parts that we are also unfamiliar with. People skilled at being Generalists, who can handle a wide variety of duties, will replace Specialists, who are skilled at doing a few things. It is no longer enough to be able to handle a specific process. The new requirement is the ability to know when to use that process.

Which brings me to the post by kyriacos. Just like the physical world has been overrun by expert machines whose innumerable functions require a skilled generalist to navigate, the world of ideas has been overrun by the ability to create and disseminate ideas. It is possible to find "scientific" and "expert" published results that will support nearly any viewpoint you wish and this information is present in amounts too numerous to ever read or count or summarize. In the old days, information was hard won and carefully saved by experts, who handed this information off to acolytes who would in turn pass it on to the next generation. Just having the information itself qualified you as an expert. Now, we are awash in information. Too much information. Overwhelmed with information.

To survive in this new world, it is not enough to just trust the experts. What is required is the ability to think critically, to pick and choose which experts are describing a piece of the real world and to weave those data points together into a larger paradigm that is useful. In the world of ideas, the person who can think critically, who can tell if an expert opinion makes sense or not, is the person whose skill set will be in demand. It is not enough to be able to cite references -- any idiot with a computer can find the same thing. The ability to understand what those references are saying and relate them to a larger paradigm, to be able to dive into a new subject and emerge with an independent assessment of it -- to be a critical thinking information generalist -- that is the new world.