the oscar-nominated movie hidden figures
follows the incredible true stories of
three women and their contributions to
Project Mercury the first attempts at
human spaceflight by NASA they worked as
human computers a job that is now
obsolete
they worked to do the complex math to
help create flight plans for spacecraft
including the John Glenn mercury 7
mission but partway through their work
they’re faced with the installation of
the IBM 7090 electronic computer this
computer threatens their jobs as well as
their livelihood and in response Dorothy
Vaughn teachers herself the programming
language Fortran and learns how to
operate the computer why am I telling
you this
well as a junior in high school I think
it’s fair to say that the question of
the year is College where I’m going to
school what what I’m going to study and
perhaps more importantly what career all
eventually pursue and as most of you
being high schoolers I also think it’s
fair to assume that you expect to be
employed one day but what if I were to
tell you that the security of your jobs
isn’t as certain as it might seem well
older economists love to talk in
abstractions about how the future
workforce the workforce our generation
will have to enter is going to be a
place without employment where all the
jobs are going to be displaced by
machines but at the end of the day this
complicated and changing workforce won’t
be their problem but ultimately ours so
today I hope to provide you with a more
realistic reality of what I think this
future will be so first off I want to
talk about what exactly machine learning
is as this is the technology that’s
driving the general intelligence that
threatens our jobs in a broad sense
machine learning is the idea of
programming computers to use the
information they’re given to make
decisions all of this without being
explicitly told what to do the
technology that’s coming from this is
incredibly sophisticated it includes
everything from self-driving cars to the
speech recognition devices on our smart
phones and Google search recommendations
so the first area that is usually
assessed when talking about economic
displacement is factory work and other
forms of what’s regarded to be
monotonous and unskilled labor and it’s
no surprise to anybody here that
machines can offer a more cost-effective
and efficient alternative to work of a
person the average factory worker can
expect to bring in about $25,000 per
year the price to do have a machine do
the same work a one-time cost of 32
dollars and this machine doesn’t take
sick days observe holidays we need
health insurance but factory work isn’t
the only type of jobs that are being
threatened by technology in fact today’s
economy has no place for jobs that only
a few decades ago would have seemed
impossible to displace with machines
these include switchboard operators film
projectionist and telemarketers and this
doesn’t even include the jobs that are
in the process of being displaced such
as truck drivers accountants toll booth
workers and tellers so unless you’re
gonna be an accountant or factory worker
there’s no threat of displacement right
unfortunately no how many of you guys
know someone who wants to be a judge or
a lawyer or any have any job in the
judicial system
well in 2010 Nikolas all I trust of
University College London developed a
machine that was able to accurately
predict the outcome of nearly 80% of the
600 human rights cases presented to it
and while he believes that artificial
intelligence will never be able to
replace human judgment it opens the door
to an entirely different conversation
regarding the necessity of our justice
system why would we employ judges when a
machine will already be able to predict
the verdict and perhaps more importantly
can our complex rational and emotional
thinking be replicated by machines it
seems as if the answer to this question
is yes and even jobs like musicians are
being threatened the American Federation
of musicians is working to impose
stricter orchestra minimums on musicals
this would require productions to hire a
certain amount musicians per show this
comes after an alarming increase in
computer generated music in the
background of our favorite musicals
across the nation so it seems is that
the future I just pictured seems really
bleak but unfortunately here to tell you
that it’s not total displacement from
machines isn’t as realistic as it might
seem nobody would be employed and if
that would be the case it would limit
the necessity of transactions between
businesses and individuals and it
wouldn’t be helpful for anybody for this
idea of consumer capitalism to collapse
furthermore most economists can agree on
one thing that for the time being these
machines are most cost efficient and
effective when used alongside their
human counterparts even in factories
where machines are doing most of the
work it’s still a human who overlooks
them but back to my original question
what does this mean for our generation
what does this mean for the jobs we’ll
take
well it’s not looking bleak as it might
seem first off there might just be an
advantage to being
first generation to go up so completely
surrounded by such a rich culture of
technology will have the skills and most
importantly the knowledge and the
experience to be able to work alongside
these machines in our jobs think about
all the times you’ve helped an adult
with a computer or a smartphone whether
we realize it or not these are the
skills we will need and we will have to
use to be able to integrate this
technology into our lives without
displacing our jobs our generation of
endless potential and creativity and I
feel as if this is often overlooked when
talking about economic displacement when
surveyed nearly three and four people of
my generation say that they want to
start their own business and more than
one in three say that they want to
invest in ideas that will change the
world
we’re activists and creators we’re
educators for mathematicians but more
importantly we’re thinkers we’ll have
the skills we’ll have the knowledge and
we will be able to keep up thank you [Applause]
follows the incredible true stories of
three women and their contributions to
Project Mercury the first attempts at
human spaceflight by NASA they worked as
human computers a job that is now
obsolete
they worked to do the complex math to
help create flight plans for spacecraft
including the John Glenn mercury 7
mission but partway through their work
they’re faced with the installation of
the IBM 7090 electronic computer this
computer threatens their jobs as well as
their livelihood and in response Dorothy
Vaughn teachers herself the programming
language Fortran and learns how to
operate the computer why am I telling
you this
well as a junior in high school I think
it’s fair to say that the question of
the year is College where I’m going to
school what what I’m going to study and
perhaps more importantly what career all
eventually pursue and as most of you
being high schoolers I also think it’s
fair to assume that you expect to be
employed one day but what if I were to
tell you that the security of your jobs
isn’t as certain as it might seem well
older economists love to talk in
abstractions about how the future
workforce the workforce our generation
will have to enter is going to be a
place without employment where all the
jobs are going to be displaced by
machines but at the end of the day this
complicated and changing workforce won’t
be their problem but ultimately ours so
today I hope to provide you with a more
realistic reality of what I think this
future will be so first off I want to
talk about what exactly machine learning
is as this is the technology that’s
driving the general intelligence that
threatens our jobs in a broad sense
machine learning is the idea of
programming computers to use the
information they’re given to make
decisions all of this without being
explicitly told what to do the
technology that’s coming from this is
incredibly sophisticated it includes
everything from self-driving cars to the
speech recognition devices on our smart
phones and Google search recommendations
so the first area that is usually
assessed when talking about economic
displacement is factory work and other
forms of what’s regarded to be
monotonous and unskilled labor and it’s
no surprise to anybody here that
machines can offer a more cost-effective
and efficient alternative to work of a
person the average factory worker can
expect to bring in about $25,000 per
year the price to do have a machine do
the same work a one-time cost of 32
dollars and this machine doesn’t take
sick days observe holidays we need
health insurance but factory work isn’t
the only type of jobs that are being
threatened by technology in fact today’s
economy has no place for jobs that only
a few decades ago would have seemed
impossible to displace with machines
these include switchboard operators film
projectionist and telemarketers and this
doesn’t even include the jobs that are
in the process of being displaced such
as truck drivers accountants toll booth
workers and tellers so unless you’re
gonna be an accountant or factory worker
there’s no threat of displacement right
unfortunately no how many of you guys
know someone who wants to be a judge or
a lawyer or any have any job in the
judicial system
well in 2010 Nikolas all I trust of
University College London developed a
machine that was able to accurately
predict the outcome of nearly 80% of the
600 human rights cases presented to it
and while he believes that artificial
intelligence will never be able to
replace human judgment it opens the door
to an entirely different conversation
regarding the necessity of our justice
system why would we employ judges when a
machine will already be able to predict
the verdict and perhaps more importantly
can our complex rational and emotional
thinking be replicated by machines it
seems as if the answer to this question
is yes and even jobs like musicians are
being threatened the American Federation
of musicians is working to impose
stricter orchestra minimums on musicals
this would require productions to hire a
certain amount musicians per show this
comes after an alarming increase in
computer generated music in the
background of our favorite musicals
across the nation so it seems is that
the future I just pictured seems really
bleak but unfortunately here to tell you
that it’s not total displacement from
machines isn’t as realistic as it might
seem nobody would be employed and if
that would be the case it would limit
the necessity of transactions between
businesses and individuals and it
wouldn’t be helpful for anybody for this
idea of consumer capitalism to collapse
furthermore most economists can agree on
one thing that for the time being these
machines are most cost efficient and
effective when used alongside their
human counterparts even in factories
where machines are doing most of the
work it’s still a human who overlooks
them but back to my original question
what does this mean for our generation
what does this mean for the jobs we’ll
take
well it’s not looking bleak as it might
seem first off there might just be an
advantage to being
first generation to go up so completely
surrounded by such a rich culture of
technology will have the skills and most
importantly the knowledge and the
experience to be able to work alongside
these machines in our jobs think about
all the times you’ve helped an adult
with a computer or a smartphone whether
we realize it or not these are the
skills we will need and we will have to
use to be able to integrate this
technology into our lives without
displacing our jobs our generation of
endless potential and creativity and I
feel as if this is often overlooked when
talking about economic displacement when
surveyed nearly three and four people of
my generation say that they want to
start their own business and more than
one in three say that they want to
invest in ideas that will change the
world
we’re activists and creators we’re
educators for mathematicians but more
importantly we’re thinkers we’ll have
the skills we’ll have the knowledge and
we will be able to keep up thank you [Applause]
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