Today, the Council on Foreign Relations–sponsored Independent Task Force released The Work Ahead, a report on the American workforce in the 21st century. It does not make for comforting reading. The Work Ahead portrays a country where automation and other technological advances have rendered the economy unrecognizable—employment is no longer linked to economic security, the labor market is brutally divided between a prosperous tech-savvy elite and the struggling tech-illiterate, and the educational system is ill-equipped to prepare workers to succeed. And yet The Work Ahead does not blame technology per se, but rather a government and society that have consistently failed to adjust to economic reality—leaving workers to navigate a rapidly changing world without sufficient support or guidance.

It doesn’t have to be this way. As the report points out, the US has traditionally led the world in its efforts to educate and employ its citizens—whether that’s universal public education, broader access to college, defining the manufacturing economy, or launching the modern tech industry. Now it will take a similar effort to adapt to age of automation—among other efforts, the task force recommends reforming postsecondary education to promote lifelong learning and job training, reducing barriers to mobility (like needless licensing requirements), and strengthening the safety net to support workers as they transition between careers. WIRED site director Jason Tanz caught up with Penny Pritzker, former Commerce secretary and cochair of the council’s nonpartisan task force, to discuss the findings.

Jason Tanz: We write a lot about the future of work at WIRED, where we tend to think of it as a technology issue or an economic issue. We don’t think of it as much as a national security issue. Why does the Council of Foreign Relations consider this part of its purview?

Penny Pritzker: Because without a strong economic base you can’t have a strong national security base. You hear that all the time, not just from someone [like me] who is a former secretary of commerce but from our military and national security leaders. And this is an issue that requires generational change and a change in our culture—to embrace the fact that automation and artificial intelligence and globalization and pervasive use of robots are affecting the very nature of work. We’ve got to help more Americans be able to adapt and adjust and thrive given this massive change that we’re facing.

JT: You talk about the broken link between work, opportunity, and economic security. How did that happen and what role did technology play in it?

PP: This is a challenge facing our government at the federal, state and local levels, business leaders, and educational institutions. We need to come together and change our approach and relink education, work and opportunity. And we also need to acknowledge that we no longer have a system where you go to school and go to work for a career. That’s not going to be the norm any more. You’re going to have to be a lifelong learner because we have such great evolution occurring in technology and we’re all going to have to keep up-skilling ourselves.

JT: Does that imply that in the future everyone will be a technology worker?

PP: In some form or fashion. Look, every one of us is a tech user if you have a mobile phone. And our country needs to remain a global leader in technology. We need to continue to invest in R&D. We’re not walking away from the reality of the rise of automation or AI. We need to prepare the American worker and American youth and mid-career person to be more able to adjust and adapt as this technology changes.