I’m a technology buff so what happens to
me often times is that I use taxis in
Bucharest and I think Wow would be much
better off having Google driverless cars
taking us from point A to point B
because what happens with driverless
cars is that they’re a complex system of
cameras GPS laser radar software that’s
good to doing two things better than
humans which is one keeping us safe so
no collisions and two using Waze or a
compatible sort of technology to move us
faster from point A to point B which you
probably know doesn’t really happen with
taxis all the time so I generally think
about this often when I’m when I’m in a
taxi and running late I was in such a
situation a few months ago so I hop on a
cab I needed to get to the University
really really fast and because I was
late and I was getting Moody
I was thinking about oh I’d be much
better off for the driverless car but
somehow I start talking to the guy to
the driver and it turns out that he’s
the sweetest guy in the world he tells
me about his two daughters he tells me
that he wants to send them to the
University where I was giving a talk he
tells me that that’s why he’s working 12
hours a day because he wants to give
them a better life than the life that he
had otherwise he’d be just at home
playing the guitar or writing he wanted
to be a writer now when I heard that and
I started empathizing I stopped thinking
about the driverless car and started
thinking that if my dreams come true
if taxis indeed start being driverless
cars this guy is gonna be left without a
job if it’s not just him
it’s millions of people like that look
technology is amazing just look about
the think about think about the small
device that probably most of you have in
your pockets it’s the smartphone the
smartphone puts together all these
different kinds of gadgets and thingies
that are very useful to our lives it’s
it’s the telephone that you used to have
in your bedroom
it’s the agenda when you jot it down
your meetings it’s every book that
you’ve ever read or you will probably
ever read it’s an alarm clock it’s a
laptop it’s many many other things like
that all put together in a device that
nowadays you can buy for less than ten
dollars less than ten dollars now
technology truly revolutionizes the way
society works and it does so because it
itself is part of the revolution
we call it a revolution because it
actually is so historically we’ve had a
bunch of them the first Industrial
Revolution was about using the steam
engine in the 18th century the Second
Industrial Revolution in 19th century
was about using electricity and the car
and later on the airplane the third
Industrial Revolution was started in the
1960s with digital technology computers
and then the internet now what we’re
living is the fourth Industrial
Revolution this revolution that’s
bringing us Google or driverless cars in
general it’s bringing us artificial
intelligence virtual reality 3d printing
and many many other things that you’re
going to be hearing about today but
there’s also a catch to it it makes our
lives better as a society but for some
of us it makes our lives a bit weirder
think about the driverless car is going
to leave drivers like my taxi driver
without a job just like cars in general
left train engineers without a job just
like train engineers left horse carriage
drive
is without a job and it’s cyclical it
happens you can’t do anything about it
it’s actually good that it happens but
what does boo what happens to the people
who get left behind let me offer you
some scale on that in the Western world
which is North America and the European
Union there is about 10 million people
who drive for a living they drive cars
they drive lorries they drive trucks
they drive for a living their jobs are
going to be vulnerable to automation and
let’s think of some other jobs like
retail salesperson like office clerk
cashier server in a restaurant there’s
35 million people working in those jobs
at this point
a recent Oxford University study says
that about 50% of the jobs in the
Western world are vulnerable to
automation that’s about 200 million jobs
200 million jobs and they’re not going
to go away just like that what’s going
to happen is that employers are going to
realize that a machine can do the same
job in the same way or maybe even better
for less money so these people these 200
million jobs are going to be start to be
paid less and less and if you think that
today’s world has social tension think
about what would happen if we’d get
there think about all the Occupy Wall
Street’s
protests think about all the populism
the vulnerability the populism that we
might have I should know that because my
name is Danny fondue I’m a development
sociologist my job is to look at how
economic development changes the way we
live our lives changes the way everybody
lives their lives and it’s easy
is to follow this with the people who
are marginalized because these 200
million people are going to feel
marginalized they’re going to feel left
behind hopeless to participate in an
economy in a new economy fourth
Industrial Revolution that will create
jobs but these jobs are going to be
highly technical they’re going to
require years and years of university
schooling or on-the-job training they’re
not going to be able to get they’re not
going to be able to get as soon as they
need to now I’ve been studying
marginalization further for a long time
what I can tell you is that it’s a
growing thing and the funniest thing is
that all of this happens because we’re
living in the best moment of our history
right now it’s estimated that about 10%
of the world’s population has a college
degree it’s probably the first time in
history when we have more college
graduates than people living in extreme
poverty think about that there’s 200
million people who have a master’s
degree 20 million people who have a PhD
hopefully not all of them are
plagiarized but think about that think
about these 20 million people these 200
million people this is more than the
population 20 million is twice the size
of the population of Great Britain
during the first Industrial Revolution
which changed the way we live altogether
because there’s so many of them it’s
obvious that their creations and their
research is going to revolutionize
everything and it’s this revolution
would be broader and more significant
than anything we’ve ever seen before now
I know what you must be asking
yourselves ask myself the same thing is
my job at risk what am I going to do am
I going to need to look for something
else
and there are many ways to answer this
but there’s a rule of thumb that I use
which is what does your job entail what
do you do at work do you figure out an
algorithm a pattern of actions that you
have to apply to various sorts of
situations in various sorts of moments
maybe in various sorts of places if
that’s your job
I’m sorry but a computer who probably is
probably going to do it better than you
I apologize and history shows us that
there’s no more elevator operators
there’s still more telephone operators
but if instead your job is about problem
solving about taking an idea and
twisting it around and looking for ways
to solve that thing maybe not always
finding a solution but using creativity
and inventiveness to get at what your
ultimate goal is maybe your job will
endure think about creativity if you
work in advertising you prop your job
it’s probably not going to be able to
all be automated that soon if you if you
deal with complex social interactions if
you’re a politician I apologize if
you’re a lawyer or a judge then your job
is going to be around if you’re a
plumber your job is probably going to be
around and that’s one of the few
examples of jobs that are going to be
around even without the higher level of
education let me get to why I’m telling
you this because if you listen to this
you might think that I’m whining and I’m
saying boo technology I hate it it’s
gonna make our lives a hell that’s not
true I love it told you I was a tech not
jima the thing is that even though my
presentation up until now might have
said the technology is a threat it’s not
technology is an opportunity and the
fourth Industrial Revolution is an
opportunity to change the way that we
work as a society change it completely
and change it even for the people who
haven’t gone through the third
Industrial Revolution who don’t have
electricity the people who’ve never seen
a car we can change the world for them
also and one of the ideas that I’d like
to focus on and it’s an idea that you’re
going to start hearing maybe again today
and maybe in the future also it’s the
universal or unconditional basic income
its main idea is to harness the
prosperity that we’ve gotten from this
automation from this technological
innovation the techno technology
upheaval and use that prosperity to give
everyone a living wage just for being
just for being a citizen and I know
you’ve probably heard about this before
because the idea is not new a lot of
economists have been talking about it
for a long time both on the left and the
right both neoliberals
and can herb socialists everybody’s been
talking about what the critics say is
that if you give everyone money for
nothing then they will probably do
nothing but here’s the catch the
universal basic income has been tested
in many places in the world and
everywhere where it’s been tested it
shows a starkly different reality once
they stopped competing for resources
once they stopped competing for a
livelihood people start to fall
on doing the activities that they like
doing the things that they enjoy and
they enjoy them so they work harder at
them they become better at them and in
time they figure out ways to monetize
these activities they figure out ways to
participate in the economy by doing
exactly what they love and they can
create alternate labor like in the
situation of my taxi driver who just
wanted to write if he can write a book
and sell it then everything he gets on
top of that Universal basic income is
his if he can’t he’d at least be
satisfied with what he’s doing and
there’s other ideas around it it’s the
idea of reducing the workload working
less than 40 hours a week so we can
dedicate more time to ourselves and what
we want to do dedicating more time to
our families now I look around and I
imagine that most of you work more than
40 hours a week this automation that I
was talking about is probably going to
make you work even more than 40 hours a
week because you’re going to be the
people who are so specialized that you
can’t be replaced another thing that
could happen is educational incentives
so not only giving people a free
university education but also giving
them incentives to go to school to go to
university so they become more adaptable
to the economy of tomorrow another idea
is to use public works and not just in
terms of infrastructure as in highways
like it was used in the 50s but cultural
infrastructure investment in culture
money to be given out for people to try
to become artists writers poets actors
Italy has actually pledged 1 billion
euros for investment in cultural
infrastructure and that doesn’t only
make sense from a
pride a national pride perspective it
makes sense from an economic perspective
also because when we go to Italy
we definitely know that we’re gonna see
at least one Museum so I’d like to leave
you on this thought economists say that
there’s three reasons why we work three
large reasons and the first one is to
produce goods for the economy as we’ve
seen before automation can take care of
that the second reason is to create a
personal income by which we live off of
to create a livelihood
hopefully the universal basic income
would cover that also now the third
reason we work is to find the personal
purpose and I’d like to let that sink in
for a second what would it be like if
the only reason why we work is to find a
purpose is to do something meaningful is
to do something that makes us feel
fulfilled so it’s not about survival
it’s about doing what you love the best
advice that I ever got the best guiding
question that somebody ever asked is
what I would do if money was not
important and it’s it’s a it’s a luxury
that I can afford I can afford to ask
myself that question but a lot of people
around us can’t afford to do that so
they go into jobs that they hate to get
money that they use to live a life that
they don’t like this is a chance to
really change the way the society works
and not just for us but for the millions
of people who do stuff just because they
need an income thank you very much
[Applause]
[Music] [Applause]