New technologies tend to shift jobs and skills. New technologies bring new products, which shift jobs across occupations. With the arrival of cars, the economy needed more assembly line workers and fewer blacksmiths. New technologies also bring new work processes, which shift skills in jobs. With the arrival of copiers, office workers needed to replace ink cartridges but not use carbon paper.

New technologies bring new products, which shift jobs across occupations: with the arrival of cars, the economy needed more assembly line workers and fewer blacksmiths. New technologies also bring new work processes, which shift skills in jobs: with the arrival of copiers, office workers needed to replace ink cartridges but not use carbon paper. Economic history is full of examples of new technologies causing such shifts. Workers often worry that new technologies will destroy old jobs without creating new ones. However, economic history suggests that job destruction and creation have always gone together, with a shift in jobs and skills that leaves most people still employed. Will artificial intelligence (AI) differ from past technologies in the way it shifts jobs and skills?

It is impossible to accurately predict the jobs of the future, says Mark Scott, the secretary of the NSW Department of Education, but schools will need to prepare the next generations of students for a world that will be dominated by intelligent machines. "Children are now facing a more uncertain future than any child has faced since the Industrial Revolution," Mr Scott said. Mr Scott this week gave a speech to the Trans-Tasman Business Circle where he outlined publicly for the first time his vision for education of the future. It was the springboard for the launch of work being done within the department to prepare students for a fast-changing world. The department is commissioning research and papers from the world's leading experts and educators in the areas of artificial intelligence and education systems of the future.

Fast forward to 2030 and the children who started school in 2017 will need to be just as skilled in critical thinking, creativity and empathy as they are in literacy and numeracy and technology. It is impossible to accurately predict the jobs of the future, says Mark Scott, the secretary of the NSW Department of Education, but schools will need to prepare the next generations of students for a world that will be dominated by intelligent machines. Malcolm Turnbull announces a new 10-year schools funding plan, and a new review by David Gonski. Labor brands the funding plan "an act of political bastardry". It's not as harsh as 2014, but the government is still looking to save billions of dollars in higher education costs in the budget.