From building big machines to producing replaceable parts. From hand craftsmanship at the beginning of the twentieth century to mega-factory production in the end.
The previous century gradually shifted from slow handmade production to getting things done fast, productively, and cheaply.
The value of work done by human hands has almost died.
In the current century, with robotics, repetitive work done by humans will die. With AI, most semi-intelligent human work will die too.
What jobs remain in the future will be those of leadership—visionaries and inventors—and the work of human hands will return.
Is it difficult to imagine a world with several billion leaders, visionaries, and inventors? Imagine one hundred years ago: Were robotics and AI even thought of?
Interchangeable parts to interchangeable people—that’s the story of the twentieth century. And the story of the twenty-first century has just begun. Looking back on the past hundred years, we can make some clear guesses about where we are going.