As technology is advancing at an alarming rate, what are the drawbacks that future students will face?

Obviously there are many, many advantages of technology. I think the term coined was something like "seven league boots for the mind". With the advent of Internet of Things, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, and particularly the internet's leveraging of these things, students have an incredible amount of resources available. The downside I've found that I'm most concerned about is the loss of ability to survive without these things. I have found some -- not all by any means -- kids that simply do not know or care how many things work, and worse, don't exercise a skeptical, evaluative mindset. They accept conclusions without examination. They don't analyze how things actually work, particularly logical arguments, economics and psychology. This worries me. The constant onslaught of sloganism and sound bites sometimes causes kids to easily accept others' ideas. This makes them very vulnerable to being manipulated. I personally spent the years raising my daughter to be inquisitive, to see the patterns in the world and how they repeat, and to be very, very skeptical of "easy answers". There will come a time when the singularity is here -- much sooner than most of us realize, I think. That is the time when machines will be doing things that we can't understand. They are already building machines that no single human being can make. Loss of the desire to understand is a very sad thing. We need to keep that in mind.

As we are heading into a world of more automation and artificial intelligence the drawbacks that future students might face is finding a career in this automated world where some jobs will be scaled back such as manufacturing. I referenced a article about artificial intelligence and it point number 4 reference this topic. I hope this will help to give better insight about the drawbacks but also the positive outlook as well.

"More jobs will be created by AI than will be lost to it.

As I mentioned in my introduction to this post, in the long-term its uncertain if the rise of the machines will lead to human unemployment and social strife, a utopian workless future, or (probably more realistically) something in between.

For the next year, at least, though, it seems it isn’t going to be immediately problematic in this regard. Gartner predicts that by the end of 2019, AI will be creating more jobs than it is taking.

While 1.8 million jobs will be lost to automation – with manufacturing in particular singled out as likely to take a hit – 2.3 million will be created. In particular, Gartner's report finds, these could be focused on education, healthcare, and the public sector.

A likely driver for this disparity is the emphasis placed on rolling out AI in an "augmenting" capacity when it comes to deploying it in non-manual jobs. Warehouse workers and retail cashiers have often been replaced wholesale by automated technology. But when it comes to doctors and lawyers, AI service providers have made concerted effort to present their technology as something which can work alongside human professionals, assisting them with repetitive tasks while leaving the "final say" to them.

This means those industries benefit from the growth in human jobs on the technical side – those needed to deploy the technology and train the workforce on using it – while retaining the professionals who carry out the actual work.

For the financial services, the outlook is perhaps slightly grimmer. Some estimates, such as those made by former Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit in 2017, predict that the sector's human workforce could be 30% smaller within five years. With back-office functions increasingly being managed by machines, we could be well on our way to seeing that come true by the end of next year."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/12/03/5-important-artificial-intelligence-predictions-for-2019-everyone-should-read/717b697c319f

Technology is changing and moving at a very fast pace. We have to learn and adapt. I agree there will be some things students may not be good at (examples: hand writing, reading books). But they may be better at lot of new things like use of technology, voice-activated machines, virtual reality.

As humans, as long as we use technology to improve processes, help people/environment and limit the abuse/overuse of it we should be fine (in my opinion)

The biggest drawback is staying on top of your skill set. If you turn that into a postitive, the best way to do well with technology is to stay current on skills. If you are using technology or working directly in the technology field, it's a good idea to read a lot. I don't necessarily mean books, but more along the lines of scanning online tech magazines or the technology section of a online newspaper. If someone uses a term you aren't familar with, google it. And don't be afraid to ask questions. I work in a major software company, but, as you said, things are advancing at an alarming rate. My team is constantly asking each other questions. Everyone has different pieces of information in their heads. Find co-workers you trust that you can share information with on a daily basis.