so it seems like almost every day
someone shares an article with me that
says will robots steal our jobs but what
sets me about such features it’s not
just how limited they are in our
understanding of the problem but also in
their imagination of the potential
outcomes you see where they get stuck is
they only see the future through the
lens of today and what I mean it is like
in these stories the ideal of full
employment economics remains the same
but in a healthy society and at a
healthy economy everyone should have the
chance and perhaps even the duty to get
a job they therefore present a question
to us in such a way as to mobilize our
fear fear of being stuck in a dead-end
career or fear of being unemployed but
what they don’t do is acknowledge the
greater fear the fear that the future
might look very different to today and
you see here’s the bit that’s really
scary in the future full employment
might not be likely or even possible you
see that robotics automation software
and artificial intelligence together are
driving the robot revolution and the
idea of revolutions is scary but this is
our chance to design the future that we
want to have and I believe it’s not just
those of us who work in the tech
industry who should have a say in
designing this future this is a
conversation we all should have the
chance to play a part in and in order to
have a meaningful conversation we need
to be aware of the issues we need to be
aware of the full facts and that’s what
I’ve made my mission to try and do I
spent the past few years working for one
of the largest organizations in the
world and helping them evaluate and
implement this technology and now I’m
going to share with you everything I’ve
learned you see in the past we built
machines that could do superhuman things
machines that could move more than a
person like a bulldozer or machines that
could recall information faster like a
database or search engine or machines
that could follow rules millions of
times without getting distracted like
those annoying telephone menu systems
but what’s different about the
technology we’re building today is we’re
building machines with our very skills
and abilities robots are being given
dexterity things that you and I take for
granted
like the ability to turn the handle of a
door open and walk through it will soon
be something that a machine can also
achieve artificial intelligence
techniques can succeed in tasks that
require a high level of pattern
recognition skill such as seeing who or
what is in a picture and are based in
very narrow instances that can even
reach levels of accuracy much greater
than human experts and whereas in the
past rule based systems grew so complex
that progress ground to a halt
the latest automation software can
literally see cursor movements mouse
clicks and keyboard entries and not just
predict what it is that the user is
going to do but do it for them so
remember three branches of tech research
and the breakthroughs that are happening
in each robotics automation and a and AI
is the replication of human abilities in
machines now some cynics will argue that
in the past we’ve always created new
jobs for those displaced through
automation and that has been true until
now but remember what we’ve largely been
doing with technology is inventing
machines with superhuman skills and then
allocating labor to those jobs which
require human talents or human touch and
given that now we are building machines
that have human abilities
in the future we will only be left with
those jobs that specifically require
human touch and this isn’t Star Trek
this is happening silently all around us
you remember those voice recognition
systems just a few years ago I remember
testing transcription software it was so
laughably bad it was quicker for me to
type and the story was the same for a
friend of mine she’s a radio producer
and she would give her interns the
interviews to transcribe until recently
because now it can be done cheaper
faster and just about as accurately by
Machine you see the world is changing
around us faster than we care to believe
but the day this becomes a problem is
not the day where half the population
are unemployed through automation and
not 10% or 1% it’s the day the first
child comes through high school and sits
where their career counselor who says
I’m sorry there is just nothing that you
can do of economic value that a machine
can’t do just as well what I’m talking
about here it’s not unemployment in the
19th or 20th century sense
this is unemployability and I believe
there are three steps to surviving this
robot revolution and the first one is to
acknowledge the extent and speed of
change and that it is likely to create
unemployability so what do we do next
well we need to reimagine the economics
how do we support those who are left
unemployed through automation well one
solution that is often been put forward
is that of universal basic income or ubi
and this is essentially a pension for
all with the intention that by paying in
amounts to everyone sufficient to ensure
they
can survive the need for getting a job
is taken away people are then free to
choose the features that they want based
on their skills and ambitions and that
cliche of great artists wasting their
talent by waiting tables will be no more
so you BL a is a potential solution it
has one great strengths it helps people
make the distinction between jobs and
work you see work is anything that you
do with intention whereas a job is the
work that you do with the intention of
being paid and many of us we’ve lost
sight of the fact that there are so many
people who make incredible contributions
to society but not to their jobs any one
who has cared for a relative raised a
child or supported a charity will know
that these things are hard work and they
are not jobs if we could only remove the
stigma of joblessness how many more
people would be free to work on things
which would also make great
contributions to the world now these
might seem like noble ideals but UB is
only successful in eliminating the
bureaucracy from the benefit system and
will only ever function under full
employment economics
you see when unemployability strikes you
bi runs the risk of creating permanent
Landlord and Tenant classes it’ll be the
rich compensating the poor for remaining
poor a form of techno feudalism where
those who have and who have not will
simply be a game of musical chairs and
who will own the machines when the music
stops
to be sure distribution of ownership is
a challenge which we are going to need
to address but for now I just want to
imagine how our economy might look if we
were to make just one small change in
our thinking
so rather than worrying about robots
stealing our jobs what if we were to
proactively automate labor out of those
industries that were essential for our
survival if you eliminated human labor
from the equation of any particular
product or service it would become free
in the past we were faced with scarcity
but imagine an abundance economy what
little cost that remains would be
eliminated by the market and by
competition if we could make those
industries that were essential for our
survival ones with a minimum of human
labour we would not need a universal
basic income but we would achieve the
same goal the products and services that
we all need to survive could be provided
through automation and we would all be
free now I’d like to take this one step
further and by way of example consider
the production and distribution of food
which as you know it’s already been
hugely mechanised and so much so but a
very small number of people can today
create enough food to feed us all and
that’s a fact we can grow enough food to
feed the entire world’s population but
we don’t because of money
well the proportion of income we spend
on feeding our families has shrunk to
its lowest level across the entire
population there was still those who
were so poorly nourished they are no
better off than their ancestors were
centuries ago and I’m not just talking
here about people who live in developing
countries I’m talking about people who
live amongst us
a recent study found that one in six
American households suffer from low food
security and here in the UK it was
estimated that half a million people
found cause the resort’s of food banks
just to survive it doesn’t have to be
this way we can grow enough food the
problem is and always will be cost with
automation we could all have enough to
be fed and healthy you see the problem
is that modern farming methods require a
high degree of homogeny fields they
rectangular and large a single field
contains a single crop because that is
easier to manage
they are sown on the same day and they
are harvested on the same day because
that is easier to manage and such high
concentrations of single crops they skew
the ecosystem and attract unnatural
levels of pests and these are dealt with
by a natural levels of pesticides we
then leave our fields fallow one year
and seven to recover and then the
onslaught resumes the result is
efficient but unnatural and the story
for the animals who provide our food is
yet bleaker than for our crops but it
was not always like this if we step back
in history we see the American the net
the Native Americans they believed in
this concept called the three sisters
which were corn beans and squash you see
they planted them together because they
supported each other’s developments and
there was also recognition in that
culture for finding a balance between
nourishing the population and the
ecosystem that they relied on and back
further we hunted what we could and
gathered the rest nature dictated watts
or how much could be grown species were
left to diversify but no inch of the
soil was not green we learned to farm
not because there wasn’t enough food but
to suit our tastes and to give better
predictability to our existence farming
then became necessary for the elite to
be free and while the masses burdened
we then mechanized it to free many more
of the masses but if we would have fully
automate it we could all be free I’d
like you to just close your eyes for one
moment and I like it to picture a world
full of small autonomous drones which
could hunt and gather for us using
technology we already have today using
machine vision they could see when it’s
time to sow or when to reap using robot
dexterity to plow or to harvest
interconnected with an array of sensors
and other devices that together would
balance the needs of people with the
needs of our planets you see the plants
and animals that have been separated for
millennia could once again be
reintroduced together machines would
simply take what the markets predicts we
want and when we need it
just-in-time delivery like Toyotas
assembly line but for food instead could
you see them what’s amazing is when you
leave humans in the loop we’re stuck
with the old way that we’ve been doing
things but as soon as you take people
out of the production process new
possibilities suddenly emerge and what I
find fascinating is how technology could
help us get back to living how the
ancients lived but it’s scale
agriculture and it’s agriculture has
driven technology throughout human
history and the next step down that road
will soon be taken with autonomous
trucks driving the labor out of the
supply chain and other jobs will soon
follow
but if we encourage and not resist the
pace of change particularly in essential
industries the very goods and services
that we all need to survive could be
provided for free and so that takes me
to the third step and this is the hard
one well I don’t believe that ubi is the
answer because it creates the risk of
locking in a permanent state of
inequality I did say that I felt it had
one great strengths it helps people make
the distinction between jobs and work
and so in a world where so many of us
define who we are by the jobs that we
hold it is hard to accept a future where
there is a threats of that which gives
us purpose but jobs don’t give us
purpose they give us income meaning
comes from the authenticity of human
touch connection and experience so we
may deny the robots will steal our jobs
because somehow our chosen profession is
different well we may be scared of the
robots and fight against a change but
underneath what we’re not acknowledging
is that which is really scary but to
create lives of meaning and purpose in
spheres outside of our jobs is hard and
so remember there are three steps to
surviving the robot revolution the first
is to acknowledge the likelihood of
unemployability and next we can
reimagine the economics and we must if
we’re going to survive this shift and
the third a wise friends once helped me
see that what I needed was to weave our
threads through the passions of my spare
time and also into my career and if I
could do this it would help me hold the
balance between the various jobs in my
life and the gaps between
and so the third step is to find that
thread and weave it through your life in
a world where you did not need a job to
survive what might you dream of doing
and what might your purpose become mine
is to help people face their fear in
technology and to start conversations
about the opportunities for us if we
could just get it right I can imagine
the future where none of us need go
hungry again might be just around the
corner
what can you imagine thank you
[Music]
you
someone shares an article with me that
says will robots steal our jobs but what
sets me about such features it’s not
just how limited they are in our
understanding of the problem but also in
their imagination of the potential
outcomes you see where they get stuck is
they only see the future through the
lens of today and what I mean it is like
in these stories the ideal of full
employment economics remains the same
but in a healthy society and at a
healthy economy everyone should have the
chance and perhaps even the duty to get
a job they therefore present a question
to us in such a way as to mobilize our
fear fear of being stuck in a dead-end
career or fear of being unemployed but
what they don’t do is acknowledge the
greater fear the fear that the future
might look very different to today and
you see here’s the bit that’s really
scary in the future full employment
might not be likely or even possible you
see that robotics automation software
and artificial intelligence together are
driving the robot revolution and the
idea of revolutions is scary but this is
our chance to design the future that we
want to have and I believe it’s not just
those of us who work in the tech
industry who should have a say in
designing this future this is a
conversation we all should have the
chance to play a part in and in order to
have a meaningful conversation we need
to be aware of the issues we need to be
aware of the full facts and that’s what
I’ve made my mission to try and do I
spent the past few years working for one
of the largest organizations in the
world and helping them evaluate and
implement this technology and now I’m
going to share with you everything I’ve
learned you see in the past we built
machines that could do superhuman things
machines that could move more than a
person like a bulldozer or machines that
could recall information faster like a
database or search engine or machines
that could follow rules millions of
times without getting distracted like
those annoying telephone menu systems
but what’s different about the
technology we’re building today is we’re
building machines with our very skills
and abilities robots are being given
dexterity things that you and I take for
granted
like the ability to turn the handle of a
door open and walk through it will soon
be something that a machine can also
achieve artificial intelligence
techniques can succeed in tasks that
require a high level of pattern
recognition skill such as seeing who or
what is in a picture and are based in
very narrow instances that can even
reach levels of accuracy much greater
than human experts and whereas in the
past rule based systems grew so complex
that progress ground to a halt
the latest automation software can
literally see cursor movements mouse
clicks and keyboard entries and not just
predict what it is that the user is
going to do but do it for them so
remember three branches of tech research
and the breakthroughs that are happening
in each robotics automation and a and AI
is the replication of human abilities in
machines now some cynics will argue that
in the past we’ve always created new
jobs for those displaced through
automation and that has been true until
now but remember what we’ve largely been
doing with technology is inventing
machines with superhuman skills and then
allocating labor to those jobs which
require human talents or human touch and
given that now we are building machines
that have human abilities
in the future we will only be left with
those jobs that specifically require
human touch and this isn’t Star Trek
this is happening silently all around us
you remember those voice recognition
systems just a few years ago I remember
testing transcription software it was so
laughably bad it was quicker for me to
type and the story was the same for a
friend of mine she’s a radio producer
and she would give her interns the
interviews to transcribe until recently
because now it can be done cheaper
faster and just about as accurately by
Machine you see the world is changing
around us faster than we care to believe
but the day this becomes a problem is
not the day where half the population
are unemployed through automation and
not 10% or 1% it’s the day the first
child comes through high school and sits
where their career counselor who says
I’m sorry there is just nothing that you
can do of economic value that a machine
can’t do just as well what I’m talking
about here it’s not unemployment in the
19th or 20th century sense
this is unemployability and I believe
there are three steps to surviving this
robot revolution and the first one is to
acknowledge the extent and speed of
change and that it is likely to create
unemployability so what do we do next
well we need to reimagine the economics
how do we support those who are left
unemployed through automation well one
solution that is often been put forward
is that of universal basic income or ubi
and this is essentially a pension for
all with the intention that by paying in
amounts to everyone sufficient to ensure
they
can survive the need for getting a job
is taken away people are then free to
choose the features that they want based
on their skills and ambitions and that
cliche of great artists wasting their
talent by waiting tables will be no more
so you BL a is a potential solution it
has one great strengths it helps people
make the distinction between jobs and
work you see work is anything that you
do with intention whereas a job is the
work that you do with the intention of
being paid and many of us we’ve lost
sight of the fact that there are so many
people who make incredible contributions
to society but not to their jobs any one
who has cared for a relative raised a
child or supported a charity will know
that these things are hard work and they
are not jobs if we could only remove the
stigma of joblessness how many more
people would be free to work on things
which would also make great
contributions to the world now these
might seem like noble ideals but UB is
only successful in eliminating the
bureaucracy from the benefit system and
will only ever function under full
employment economics
you see when unemployability strikes you
bi runs the risk of creating permanent
Landlord and Tenant classes it’ll be the
rich compensating the poor for remaining
poor a form of techno feudalism where
those who have and who have not will
simply be a game of musical chairs and
who will own the machines when the music
stops
to be sure distribution of ownership is
a challenge which we are going to need
to address but for now I just want to
imagine how our economy might look if we
were to make just one small change in
our thinking
so rather than worrying about robots
stealing our jobs what if we were to
proactively automate labor out of those
industries that were essential for our
survival if you eliminated human labor
from the equation of any particular
product or service it would become free
in the past we were faced with scarcity
but imagine an abundance economy what
little cost that remains would be
eliminated by the market and by
competition if we could make those
industries that were essential for our
survival ones with a minimum of human
labour we would not need a universal
basic income but we would achieve the
same goal the products and services that
we all need to survive could be provided
through automation and we would all be
free now I’d like to take this one step
further and by way of example consider
the production and distribution of food
which as you know it’s already been
hugely mechanised and so much so but a
very small number of people can today
create enough food to feed us all and
that’s a fact we can grow enough food to
feed the entire world’s population but
we don’t because of money
well the proportion of income we spend
on feeding our families has shrunk to
its lowest level across the entire
population there was still those who
were so poorly nourished they are no
better off than their ancestors were
centuries ago and I’m not just talking
here about people who live in developing
countries I’m talking about people who
live amongst us
a recent study found that one in six
American households suffer from low food
security and here in the UK it was
estimated that half a million people
found cause the resort’s of food banks
just to survive it doesn’t have to be
this way we can grow enough food the
problem is and always will be cost with
automation we could all have enough to
be fed and healthy you see the problem
is that modern farming methods require a
high degree of homogeny fields they
rectangular and large a single field
contains a single crop because that is
easier to manage
they are sown on the same day and they
are harvested on the same day because
that is easier to manage and such high
concentrations of single crops they skew
the ecosystem and attract unnatural
levels of pests and these are dealt with
by a natural levels of pesticides we
then leave our fields fallow one year
and seven to recover and then the
onslaught resumes the result is
efficient but unnatural and the story
for the animals who provide our food is
yet bleaker than for our crops but it
was not always like this if we step back
in history we see the American the net
the Native Americans they believed in
this concept called the three sisters
which were corn beans and squash you see
they planted them together because they
supported each other’s developments and
there was also recognition in that
culture for finding a balance between
nourishing the population and the
ecosystem that they relied on and back
further we hunted what we could and
gathered the rest nature dictated watts
or how much could be grown species were
left to diversify but no inch of the
soil was not green we learned to farm
not because there wasn’t enough food but
to suit our tastes and to give better
predictability to our existence farming
then became necessary for the elite to
be free and while the masses burdened
we then mechanized it to free many more
of the masses but if we would have fully
automate it we could all be free I’d
like you to just close your eyes for one
moment and I like it to picture a world
full of small autonomous drones which
could hunt and gather for us using
technology we already have today using
machine vision they could see when it’s
time to sow or when to reap using robot
dexterity to plow or to harvest
interconnected with an array of sensors
and other devices that together would
balance the needs of people with the
needs of our planets you see the plants
and animals that have been separated for
millennia could once again be
reintroduced together machines would
simply take what the markets predicts we
want and when we need it
just-in-time delivery like Toyotas
assembly line but for food instead could
you see them what’s amazing is when you
leave humans in the loop we’re stuck
with the old way that we’ve been doing
things but as soon as you take people
out of the production process new
possibilities suddenly emerge and what I
find fascinating is how technology could
help us get back to living how the
ancients lived but it’s scale
agriculture and it’s agriculture has
driven technology throughout human
history and the next step down that road
will soon be taken with autonomous
trucks driving the labor out of the
supply chain and other jobs will soon
follow
but if we encourage and not resist the
pace of change particularly in essential
industries the very goods and services
that we all need to survive could be
provided for free and so that takes me
to the third step and this is the hard
one well I don’t believe that ubi is the
answer because it creates the risk of
locking in a permanent state of
inequality I did say that I felt it had
one great strengths it helps people make
the distinction between jobs and work
and so in a world where so many of us
define who we are by the jobs that we
hold it is hard to accept a future where
there is a threats of that which gives
us purpose but jobs don’t give us
purpose they give us income meaning
comes from the authenticity of human
touch connection and experience so we
may deny the robots will steal our jobs
because somehow our chosen profession is
different well we may be scared of the
robots and fight against a change but
underneath what we’re not acknowledging
is that which is really scary but to
create lives of meaning and purpose in
spheres outside of our jobs is hard and
so remember there are three steps to
surviving the robot revolution the first
is to acknowledge the likelihood of
unemployability and next we can
reimagine the economics and we must if
we’re going to survive this shift and
the third a wise friends once helped me
see that what I needed was to weave our
threads through the passions of my spare
time and also into my career and if I
could do this it would help me hold the
balance between the various jobs in my
life and the gaps between
and so the third step is to find that
thread and weave it through your life in
a world where you did not need a job to
survive what might you dream of doing
and what might your purpose become mine
is to help people face their fear in
technology and to start conversations
about the opportunities for us if we
could just get it right I can imagine
the future where none of us need go
hungry again might be just around the
corner
what can you imagine thank you
[Music]
you
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