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up to be lifelong learners. The critical thinking and
methodology taught in science classes builds skills
in children to adapt to new learning environments.
Mathematics skills are relevant across many jobs.
We also need to stop overprescribing college. Only
30 percent of people will get a degree, and that degree
isn’t the path to a secure future it once was. A recent
study found that nearly 43 percent of recent college
graduates are underemployed, not working in a job
that requires that degree. You have to create paths
for students other than college through vocational,
technical and apprenticeship programs. Nearly three-
fifths of German students are in these programs; that
number is under 10 percent in the U.S. It’s a lot harder
to automate a plumber than a call center employee.
STEM and the arts are
important to Yang.
Standardized tests? Not
so much. Clockwise, from
top left: A test taker in
New York; learning the
practical art of home
building in California;
a delivery robot in
England; newly-minted
college graduates
walking into the future.
WHETHER OTHER
DEMOCRATIC
CANDIDATES ARE WRONG
TO SUGGEST
“ROBOT TAXES”
systems to ensure that everyone gets to benefit
from the gains we see from them. Sadly, we’re not
doing that right now, which is why there’s so much
fear around automation.
To ensure that everyone shares in the gains from
these technologies, we need to couple a Value-Added
Tax [VAT] with a mechanism to return that money to
the American people. This way, the American people
can share in the benefits of every Amazon transaction,
Google search and Facebook ad. When these compa-
nies pay their fair share, we can ensure that everyone
is better off. VATs are also harder for corporations to
avoid. The U.S. is one of the few countries that doesn’t
implement a VAT. The countries that already have a
VAT are much better equipped to capture this value.
i understand the desire to implement robot
taxes [a levy on companies that benefit the most from
automation] and increase regulation in an attempt
to slow down the transformation. But it’s simply not
going to work. Automating trucking alone is worth
$168 billion a year—there’s no way you’re going to be
able to fight against companies that are competing
for that pot of gold. Nor should you want to. There’s
a moral argument for self-driving trucks, in that they
can be made to be safer than human drivers.
Technology and progress are good things that
improve our quality of life, as long as we set up
ized tests are a very poor measurement of f HUMAN WORTHanand potential.”d potential.