When I heard that Ben Bernanke was giving a commencement speech at Simon’s Rock this Saturday, I had a hard time imagining exactly how an inspirational, youth-friendly Federal Reserve speech would go down. “Forget this ‘follow your dreams, future is yours’ stuff,” I imagined him declaring before a sea of glazed-over grads. “Let’s talk about quantitative easing.”
But rather than lecture teens and early twenty-somethings on the intricacies of monetary policy, Bernanke tackled an economic subject that’s near and dear to many young-adult hearts. “What,” he asked, “does the future hold for the working lives of today’s graduates?”
If you’re thinking the answer is “Gloom, doom, and a late-in-life addiction to energy shots, ’cause they’re never retiring,” you’re not alone. Bernanke acknowledged that some informed observers believe that economic growth, and the associated improvement in living standards, has slowed considerably over the past 50 years and will continue dropping off for decades to come. The information age may have brought us more Grumpy Cats than ever before, pessimists argue, but it’s no industrial revolution.
But Bernanke—not exactly known as a starry-eyed optimist—think college grads may have a decent future ahead of them yet. His reasons are as follows:
- Some smart person may come up with an amazing idea that no one else has had yet. That means we can’t predict what kinds of technological changes the future may bring. Just as your average 19th-century horse and buggy driver never saw the Model T Ford coming, most of us are completely in the dark about transformative inventions to come. For that reason, Bernanke pointed out, economic forecasts are often wildly wrong–not that that stops anyone from channeling their inner Magic 8-Balls.
- The long-term consequences of technological changes are hard to predict. It may feel like we’ve been asking our dinner companions to stop checking their smartphones every two minutes since the dawn of time, but Bernanke said that we’re actually still in the early days of the information age. Advances in biotechnology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and lasers may yet revolutionize health care by making it more effective and less expensive. New technologies have the potential to radically improve clean energy, leading to a greener future. “I’m sure that I can’t imagine all of the possibilities,” Bernanke said, “but historians of science have commented on our collective tendency to overestimate the short-term effects of new technologies while underestimating their longer-term potential.”
- Our underlying social and economic forces are stronger than we think. Globally, we’re richer, more educated, and more interconnected than we’ve ever been. That means there’s more opportunity for engineers, scientists, and other innovators to collaborate and exchange ideas–and more incentive for them to compete with one another, accelerating the pace of innovation.
In short, the fact that we can’t predict the future is one of the most comforting thoughts Bernanke has to offer. On this point, he reminded me of another grizzled intellectual: Doc Brown in Back to the Future Part III. “Your future hasn’t been written yet,” he tells Marty as a flying train hovers in the background. “No one’s has. Your future is whatever you make it.”
But while the future is unknowable, Bernanke did have a few key predictions for graduates. “During your working lives, you will have to reinvent yourself many times,” Bernanke said. “Engaging with and applying new technologies will be a crucial part of that adaptation.”
What do you think of Bernanke’s speech? Do you agree with his techno-optimism? And what challenges do you think today’s young people will face ten or twenty years down the line?
