In twenty years an AI will be on TED explaining how this guy was wrong.

Many people when they talk about automation, as this ted speaker, they just DON'T GET IT. It's not about "automation is taking away blue collar jobs". Automation will, eventually, take ALL the jobs. Having a better education won't help, because we'll build strong AI, and good luck trying to compete with an artificial general intelligence. Also, he talks about "doctors" as if there weren't any attempt to automate their work (for instance: the Watson IBM computer that can diagnose cancer as good as an oncologist). Also, what's happening know is really different from the kind of automation that happened in the 19th. I would recomende the video "Humans Need Not Apply", which is a video made by someone who get it what's happening right now. But, to put in a few words: the only solution, as I see, would be an universal basic income. Let the machines do all the work.

And this is why you don't ask economists about how technology will effect the future. A few counter points. 1. This time its not the same as during the industrial revolution, or when agriculture got automated. The jobs displaced almost all have to move to positions of high education and specialization. And the kicker is that even if all people displaced could fill in those roles(big if), it is not a 1:1 ratio of jobs lost and new ones created. 2. AI is different from a tractor plowing your field. They will cut job positions by around 80% for lawyers due to excess mundane tasks getting automated, as a rough example. Same is going to be true for doctors, engineers, lab assistants and even programmers. The list goes on and on. These are jobs most people imagine are protected due to the requirement of human ingenuity. But there are nuances to that ingenuity that are vulnerable, and can be done much more efficient. 3. Infinite growth is impossible, and we can not rely on "greed" to keep things running. The physical world will step in at some point and pull the breaks on our production unless we go through a technological revolution in terms of material science and energy production(and if we did that, then this whole discussion is moot anyway since human jobs will become almost completely meaningless). 4. All jobs do not need to disappear to cause massive economic collapse. By most estimates healthy economies can only manage an unemployment rate of about 30% before it all falls apart. No one seriously talks about all jobs going away. That's naive. And its equally naive that we can manage a society with more than a third of people having no purchasing power.

It's striking how economists think of growth as a sustainable solution without thinking one step further and realising that infinite growth in a finite world is just simply impossible.

I don't agree. Amazon Go stores and automated transportation (self-driving cars) takes people completely out of the loop. We have never faced a period of automation on this scale before. Even doctors and lawyers will soon be replaceable.

That's weird, in my country bank branches are closing all over, I can't remember the last time a new one was built.

He talks about how the number of branches grew and so the number of tellers grew - but, one needs to also compare that to the growth rate of the population. IF the population rate is growing faster than the growth rate of the population, than actually the percentage of tellers as part of the population actually decreased.

The automation that is referred to in this video is the automation of muscles. But the automation of the future is the automation of the mind. This is something new and something we are not prepared for. In the example of increasing bank tellers, we see that the physical task of counting cash has diminished while the mental task of customer interaction and marketing has increased. But even this mental task will be automated by thinking machines. He also says economy is affected by people, because people can think and take action. But once General AI is invented all bets are off the table. Even if AI are not directly involved, businesses will still employ general AI to take over all paper work and get suggestions from such machines to make decision and that will affect the economy.

So, let's cherry pick some facts. From 1970 to today the number of tellers has about doubled. Of course the population has almost doubled as well, and the number of people with bank accounts has probably more than doubled as the population's average age is much higher now, and a smaller fraction of the population are children. Also, if the economic value of bank tellers has increased like he claims, then why are they paid so much less today (in real dollars) than they were then? Maybe there are more tellers because they are much cheaper, not because they are more valuable. And what will all of those tellers do when a robot on a screen will be nicer and more knowledgeable and faster than they are at every task that they do?

Reality is however: People are loosing jobs and will continue to. ATMs may be an exception. But driving, manufacturing, etc are brutally getting automated and people loosing jobs.

not all jobs, about 90% of them?

I think we all need to move on from the mindset that there will always be plenty of jobs for people. A while back having a job and working used to mean something but now all we have left is a corrupt system that relies heavily on competition. Automation will take away the majority of jobs and one day even surgeons will be replaced because we will have machines to do the task effectively without the risk of human error. It's time to set up a new system that supports people's access to a better quality of life even if some of them don't have jobs because at the end of it all people just want to be able to put food on the table and pursue their true goals in life

So like, the problem isn't if "WE" are willing to invest in "OUR" kids. The problem is if the people who stole all the money are willing to invest in kids that aren't their own.

This guy's whole argument falls apart when you introduce AI. It also falls apart when the onset of the automation in question is too fast for the job market to keep up with. If you replace every truck driver's job overnight with a self-driving truck, those truck drivers (or whoever elses' jobs they end up taking) are going to be unemployed for a long time. The economy needs time to adapt, and the modern automation revolution is too fast to just hand-wave off and say "we'll figure it out". The good point in his argument was when he discussed how to utilize the increases in wealth from automation. We are reaching the point where the proper utilization of that wealth is to invest in keeping people sheltered, healthy, and happy, even if they can't find a job. That makes unemployment itself a non-issue and eliminates the problems of automation.

Sorry I have very educated friends that were the best in university struggling to get a proper job. Blue collar are doing bad. Mercedes made their fully automated construction facility. It practically needs someone to switch it on. You have to understand that labor for the investor is a cost, a problem. it's wet dream is to ha something that requires no workers. they get sick, pregnant, need carrer paths, etc. today it is closer to that dream.

It wasn't the o-ring. It was the management that went ahead with the launch when the engineers were telling them that it was too cold to launch for the o-rings.

I think he misses one important thing: Sure, currently most machines are specialized in doing one specific task. Therefore there are jobs which cannot be replaced at this time. But eventually machines will get better at everything humans CAN do. Keep in mind that the human is basically a complicated machine. When these machines get cheaper than humans, there will be no need for working. That does not mean we won't work in the future, we just won't have the need to do so.

"We are running out of work and making ourselves obsolete" - that is the biggest problem of the whole argument at hand. The fact that people still define themselves by that fear. We should gladly transition into a world post "work" - a more meaningful world, a world of greater equality and opportunity, a world were people are free to pursue their true goals in life. Yet here we are trembling in fear that by losing the system of labour and capitalism we would make ourselves obsolete. Stop defining your selfworth via work. Most universities agree that the automation we face right no cannot be compared to the past. Studies agree that in the next 20-30 years up to 50% of all jobs we know today are gone. Gone as in "gone for good" not shipped to another country ... gone. Stop clinging to this capitalist system were "jobs" define your worth and place in society. and stop humanizing it with talks like this one. Most blue collar jobs will be gone by 2040 and most of the other jobs will follow suit. Its time to accept that and prepare for and work on the post monetary, post jobs society. Accept that work is not what we should strive towards its something that as a concept should fundamentally change.

Guys, don't despair. If we all lose our jobs, the government is screwed because they'll have a huge problem on their hands. Think about it. Removing humans from the economy screws them in many ways.

Quality of job and job satisfaction is as much important as having the job. I feel quality of job has come down as an average employee has to juggle more things than one did 30 years back.

*I am not sure we really need jobs. Money would be sufficient.*

"Automation deniers" we need to start using this term

One of the best talks i have seen. He has addressed some of the common issues these so called 'futurists' write about nowadays about Automation. The truth is, we humans adapt, learn and our survivors to prosper. Thanks David.

Tractors and other vehicles were invented to replace horses.

it used to be that people were inventing new jobs. now many companies are aiming to invent things that destroy jobs by automation. More and more people are working in jobs that remove jobs. End result cannot be more jobs forever. Human basic needs are easily covered.

I find the wisest thing to do is to just give up 👍🏼

Actually this is a major problem which we will face in a short span of time because of the emerging latest technologies that replaces machines for human. Me personally belonging from Nepal believe this as a major issue. Here in nepal people are intented to only one field without thinking that theie job ia not secured. he has put a light on it very well

Thanks for this interesting perspective. I think your argument was one of the most insightful positive arguments. However, I still think the weight of evidence is still on the no-more-jobs side. I do agree that how we react politically and socially will make the difference in the outcome.

that was a really great talk. i think he's probably right. humans will always think of ways to keep themselves busy. there's nothing we hate more than boredom and lack of purpose

Automation took kids out of work force, it took teenagers out of work force, now it is taking young adults out of work force, and yes, automation still cannot beat expertise, but if all beginner level jobs are eliminated, only one who can become an expert is one who can pay for the training, across the world PhD and other higher study funding is drying up relative to no of people needing it for exact same reason. While a robot may not be able to replace a top level scientist, if it can replace a grad student then you have a problem.

It's about time we started discussing this.

The machine must be an ally and not an enemy of the worker! This should be rule #1. (I'm an IT and automation engineer)

In my oppinion - an artificall intelligence and mashine learning will displace majority of professions. It`s very sad. BUT who will buy goods if nobody will not have money? Capitalists will suffer losses..

We are now in 2019, there are less human tellers, and there are more computerized kiosks.

The bank thing he says dosnt stack up - all the bank branches in Denmark are closing, ATMs are being shut down. We are on our way to go cashless and pretty soon bankless as well (except for online banks). Thats a LOT of people who have to be re-schooled.

the reason there is an increase in jobs is because industry is designed with planned obsolescence in mind, if we actually planned and designed automation correctly, there would be less jobs needed, but it should allow more time for people to focus their learning and knowledge in other areas and indeed improving upon the automation. What these people will never tell you is that the monetary system and consumerism is destructive to true prosperity for all people. Automation in a system without a monetary or consumerism driven business/capitalist model would be truly great for mankind. The problem is that it is currently wrongly applied and misused in a system that uses it to continue to exploit people rather than help people.

The problem is that progress in AI will ultimately result in software and robots that can do ALL jobs, better and cheaper than human beings. They will make better inventions, they will be better brain surgeons, they will give better TED talks etc.. At that point, to get a job, you will have to out bid the yearly lease cost of a robot/software. That is not going to happen. Moreover, even if for reasons of aesthetics or whatever, there remain some jobs that are preferred for humans, it is almost certainly going to be the case that they will require vastly greater talent and creativity than is possessed by the great majority of human beings. While it may be possible to refine our educational paradigm sufficient to substantially increase such talent in our young, the rest of us are none the less going to be left in the dust. I agree with the presenter that we need to make changes in society to deal with what is coming, but simply upgrading schools (a woefully deficient paradigm in itself) will not by any stretch be sufficient. Regardless of whether or not the presenters optimism is correct, there is going to be MASSIVE economic dislocation and a HUGE percentage of the work force that is going to be ABSOLUTELY unemployable. This is coming and it is coming fast. Within the lifetimes of most of the people reading this, we will see easily 80% of the work force permanently unemployable. The other 20%, who may in fact also be technically unemployable, will by virtue of accumulated capital own the machines. That minority will be ungodly rich, while the rest wallow in abject poverty. Society needs to implement a basic income guarantee and it needs to do it ASAP! The sooner we have it in place, the sooner it can start to evolve into a stable and reliable bulwark for that 80%. Within just a few years, literally millions of people employed driving vehicles are going to find themselves unemployed. I'm sorry to be politically incorrect, but your typical driver who has been doing that job for decades, is not going to up and get a job doing something other than the jobs most people are already competing for. Unemployment is going to get bad, very bad. A basic income guarantee could be provided with no increase in government spending, by replacing most existing transfer income programs and using the money previously used on them on the BIG instead. A basic income guarantee goes to everyone, rich and poor alike, and is progressively taxed back from anyone above the poverty line, so those wealthy enough don't actually gain anything from it. It is this last that makes it actually affordable. The main benefit is that people do not lose the BIG if they get a job, unlike current welfare benefits which literally pay people to not work. You take all the money currently allocated to welfare, unemployment insurance, social security, etc., all the transfer income programs in the country, including the money that supports their bureaucracies, you pool it. You divide the pool equally among every citizen of the country. You change the tax system to tax it back from those who are making enough to not need it. The taxed back portion goes back into the pool. This last is critically important and what makes the idea actually work. The large majority do not need it, and most of the rest would pay some of it back because the taxed back portion would be progressive. There is no 'net' increase in taxes. Existing money only, no new taxes except for taxing back the benefit from those who earn enough normally to not need it. The numbers work out if done this way that a basic income guarantee in the US would work out to something around $800. a month. (Some calculations put this at closer to $1400. a month. I suggest starting small and seeing what is actually available in practice.) Poorer societies would simply have a poorer basic income, until their economies grow. However it would work equally well for poorer countries, as usually the cost of living is also lower. Meanwhile, a basic income guarantee is a massive stimulus to an economy, not because of new money in the hands of the people (there is NO 'new' money), but simply because there would no longer be a disincentive to either work or be entrepreneurial for those who are currently paid to not work with the existing welfare system.

You still need troubleshooters, technicians, and mechanics to fix the automation when it's down, but those jobs will require extensive education and training... The unfortunate part is that many of the younger generations are more obsessed with instant gratification, and don't want to put in the _time and effort_ to be qualified to perform these occupations!

I don't think that the US Secretary of Labor James J. Davis was against automatisation. He was just saying that the evolution of the industry was inevitable but we have to create a plan to help those affected by the job loss that the technology will force upon them. So basically he was saying the same thing as this guy on the TED talk: yes there will be job losses but there will be other jobs created. But we can't just let it to the faith and hope that those who will loose their jobs will take the new jobs. There must be some plan of protection of these workers. Through education, to pay them for a certain period of time while they master other skills, I don't know... But something must be done that's for sure. Source: conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2016/03/automation-and-job-loss-fears-of-1927.html

Excited to watch!

I'm happy to be 26 and not being born today or any later.Life is hard enough as a young person in this day.If automation is the future I will be happily checking out of society and moving into a remote forest to live out my days.

How many bank tellers per customer or capita over the years? that would be more telling.

This talk is an eye opener in so many ways....

He's got his head in the sand. "Done Detroit Lately", Homeless all across the USA. Largely the jobs that are left are subpar jobs. The reason so many more people are working is that they are working in jobs that can't support them. I'm earning almost the same as I was 40 years ago but now the .15 candy bar is 2.15. So now over the last 50 years 2 family members have had to go to work for the family to survive whereas one bread winner could support a family in the past.

*Automation will introduce highly skilled jobs which everyone can't afford , because to acquire high tech friendly skills you need money to go for training and certification which a large number of people can't afford because of high wealth gap .People don't like nowadays to get into debt trap either so either make education and healthcare free and affordable or face poverty*

before 10s, i never imagine jobs like youtuber could be full-time job. and who draw their thumbnail image too.

Beautifully presented! I agree a 100% I believe the future will bring numerous jobs that we cannot imagine right now. Quality of life will be immensely improved. As far as we have come as civilization, we continue to have countless limitations ; disease, poverty, environmental degradation , crime, confinement to a single planet🙂... I believe future humans will be solving problems we haven't yet heard of... its very exciting if you think about it.

I feel like this made a better argument than the last TED Talk saying not to fear automation. Still not sure I buy it, but it was interesting.

He probably should have mentioned that the changes and resulting prosperity is already taking place, unfortunately it isn't being shared.

The world's oldest profession will outlast any AI...often imitated never duplicated

Forty years ago, there were a LOT more banks. More physical places and different brands to bank at. True they were in larger buildings and more centralized. AND there were tellers at ALL of the windows each bank had. Additionally, there were a dozen people in each bank on the floor who were doing loans, forecasting, ordering supplies, typing forms. It's all been computerized. So now they CALL people tellers, but they do the other jobs too.

It is the first time I heard a sensible voice on the matter. Great talk Mr. Autor.

Artificial Intelligence will always upgrade itself, improve, and evolve. And it’s already doing that faster than we want to admit.

A BASIC INCOME in contrast, allows virtually no room for bureaucratic discretion, and thus minimizes the opportunities for political rent-seeking and opportunism. It is, as the late James Buchanan once noted, a perfectly general policy that treats all citizens the same. It is thus entirely ill-suited for use as a method of political exploitation. We should therefore expect to see much less rent-seeking and opportunism with a BIG than we do with the present welfare state, and therefore a more effective transfer of resources toward the genuinely needy as opposed to the politically well-connected.

thanks for this!

He has a point. Think about it like this: If we introduce expensive societal institutions suited to address today's people's problems, and suited to enable a marketplace of tomorrow. For an example (that the speaker doesn’t make), an unconditional basic income, as an unconditional access right to resources. Then people will find meaningful things to do, demand access to the skills needed (where they’re not freely available to learn already, or superseded by tools) and tools needed, and sometimes do these things for a profit. More often than not for a profit (even if market income might be highly chance and customer habit based), if UBI is aggregate demand increasing, which I think it should be, for considerations regarding social justice as for example Guy Standing outlines. We don't run out of work, we just run out of work incomes today, we run out of (paid) customer demand and out of access rights to resources (at least most people do; and those who don’t have somewhat low propensity to spend, due to their demands being mostly fulfilled already), and policy can remedy that. He does make a clear case along the lines of expensive societal policy having gotten us through previous technological revolutions, and that we maintained those policies, for one. Now that technology is poised to also increasingly replace skills, it seems foolish to not take a look at unconditional incomes, as an essential societal institution, going forward. But we're not running out of work. Probably. Maybe. Doesn't really matter, if we do justice to the people, and enable ever more creative and chance based work. And provide to people the ability to decently negotiate for wages for more traditional work (and to more customers the ability to decently pay such). When it comes to the mid term future at least.

Well, yes, new jobs will be created in response to automation - much like how new jobs were created in response to the proliferation of agriculture and industry. However, by what means of logic would one have to think under to believe that *WE* would occupy these new vacancies. If we're presumptuous enough to believe that automation will take hold over high-end specialisation industries we should also put aside our intellectual hubris and adhere to the notion that automation will consume all forms of labour. The robot will be smarter than you - it will be more efficient - it will be faster; It will posses all these attributes at a fraction of the cost of your human labour. The only alternative to technological despotism is to stop viewing humans as a means to a capital end, and dare I utter what system of order will be necessary to circumvent that reality..

The way he praises the US education system of the early 1900s as if it was the innovation of the century blew my mind, and I skipped to the next video in my watchlist.

The take away at the end is important though. We don't live in an age where scarcity is a real threat. We have the means. We just have to set some higher goals now.

How to get only the audio of this lecture?

All? No. Most of them? Of course. Now, I will watch the video.

Yeah but you know, THIS time it REALLY is different

One of the best Ted talks. Very eye opening.

I think it would have been more illustrative if his first example (of the tellers) if he had said not the absolute increase in bank tellers, but the relative change per capita. Based off of rough calculation it seems we're looking at a general increase per capita (x2 job increase, x1.5 population increase).

Automation alone won't take all of our jobs, automation with sound AI will though. We are past just automating things, we are now in the place of making CLEVER automated things. That is where we will have a problem regarding jobs.

Can not believe experts are still peddling the ATM myth that there is more people employed in banks because of ATMs. What utter and complete nonsense. Yes, there was a growth in the number of banking products but that was due to deregulation and had nothing what so ever to do with a hole in the wall. The hole in the wall took jobs, period. You think putting a self service till in a supermarket means that more people are gonna be employed? This is stupid.

Amazing Ted Talk!

Im writing a paper about the fourth industrial revolution and how it effects companies( focus on insourcing). But im lacking the argument of falling automation-robot prices. So if any of you have found Or can direct me where i can find the statistics i would be very grateful, ive tried for hours now, and havent moved a bit.

This guy misses the most important point.More people are working as real wages have receded so much making it impossible for a family to survive on single earner.The graph he showed going back a century,i would like to know how many families had multiple earners back then.People have no option but to work for survival.

Even if the speaker is write in his thesis that 'we are smart, motivated and greedy, so we'll invent new products and the jobs needed to make them', he is ignoring the extremely unequal distribution of value / or wealth which is a principal characteristic of our society and economy. We commonly see statistics that 1 per cent of the population has half of the total wealth. This money is stagnant, residing in investments. The people without jobs won't have money to buy the new products. They will have barely enough for basic living needs. Without a mechanism for wealth-redistribution civil unrest is probable. It would only take a populist leader, promising to make lives 'great again' to catalyse this.

Sales which requires talking to people and convincing people, if difficult to replace. It is also an art.

It seems so pointless to argue that disruptive automation isn't really something to worry about because it isn't happening right now and we don't know the hypotheticals. It's still happening, it's better to start preparing for the future now rather than waiting for its effect and then deciding to do something. I mean he didn't even give examples of how automation in some fields would create employment in others. All he basically said was it happened in the past so it might happen in the future. That's a bloody big maybe to be betting the future of society on. The idea that we should just replicate the era of education that happened after automation in the agriculture sector isn't feasible. Yang's already debunked this one in his book, the re-education programs didn't produce actual results even in generous time frames, many were still left unemployed. Additionally, he talks about how automation allows for increased use of expertise and specialisation, I severely doubt that companies are going to have offices filled with think tanks. The methods by which we collect data are also being automated. All this will produce is labour market polarisation, essentially a race to the bottom; companies will leverage more specialised individuals not more workers who are specialised. He states the obvious pattern in the video; automation relieves us of more and more meanial tasks. Therefore, it's only natural that employers will seek out employees of a more specialised nature. We seen this during the recession, job offers started putting college degree requirements on applications, they didn't request a certain type of degree, just that candidates had one. Your skills didn't matter only your level of education, even if it wasn't related to the requirements of the job. We can't solve this problem by just sending more people off to college, especially considering how the college system operates already; people taking on high levels of debt which are producing students who are learning material that is already out of date in the industry, theres such a large amount of companies repeatedly saying that graduates don't have the neccassary skills for the industry. The relationship this creates only leads to recession after recession; an increase in student going into debt in order to gain specialised knowledge while more and more industries hire less people, only seeking the most specialised individuals.

Get rid of Money. And we develop the robots to serve mankinds abundant lives.

His premise is based on the assumption that everyone can be trained up to perform higher complexity work as the economy demands higher and higher performance in order to participate. The reality is not everyone is up to this. Those are the people who just appeared out of nowhere to vote for Trump. All this is fine as long as we don't require everyone to work full time and with a competitive level of effectiveness in order to earn basic living requirements.

Many comments are noting how there aren't jobs and we are losing jobs and I have to say- come move to Iowa! We have a lot of jobs that pay well without an education and we can't find people to take them. The problem, IMO, is that many people are starting to feel that working for a living isn't worth it (this isn't necessarily a bad thing). You can get by with less than a full-time job, so why not? Cut out the expense of cable, newspaper, etc and you will find that you don't need a lot of money to live. This simply acknowledges that the future will look different from the present.

Well it's not automation but the concentrated power on those who provide works and so on. Technology is growing times faster than how we handle it.

AI does not need to take away all jobs.There was 25% unemployment during the Great Depression. Its easy to see how AI can cause significantly more unemployment than that. We're talking 30 to 40% unemployment. The real unemployment rate, if you count underemployment, people who haven''t looked for jobs in a while, is actually already close to 15-20 %. We're already teetering on the edge of a depression, and AI will be the final push. Also, education isn't the answer. Sorry, but supply and demand is a thing. An increase the supply of college graduates with the same degree (STEM), makes the field more competitive. Thus, more unemployment. My field is accounting. Accounting majors 10-20 years from now should prepare to be obsolete. Software is already taking away jobs in the industry and its only a matter of time before low to mid tier accounting jobs are all but gone. If software & hardware can take jobs from accountants, do you think any lower to mid tier office job is safe?

But does this take into account the insane population growth?

I feel like there will always be a market for something that was done by the mind or hands of a human being. That being said, I am prepared for the fact that I will have to figure out my own niche and side business should automation replace a majority of jobs in the near future. I want to be optimistic on the side of there will be more jobs created as a result of automation, but the automation going on right now is different where humans are literally getting replaced. We are going to have to replace the consumerist economy society that is currently in place otherwise we are eventually going to hit a 'Brave New World' society where many people will be suffering from existential depression and rightfully so.

YES! When this happens there is a need for a basic revenue € even if you don't work. Because of automation many will not find work anymore. But this is not a problem with the basic income...

Las maquinas solo se encargan del trabajo primario y secundario, el terciario siempre dependerá de la mano y mente humana.

Banks are closing all over the place! There use to be several where I live now there are none. What a load of horseshit.

Oh crap!!!! He's was on last week tonight when John Oliver talked about automation and what we should do about it in the future!

We already have less staff (and staff with cut hours) as a result of automation with self service or touch screen tills. 5 staff now being reduced to 1, who is largely only there in order to show the public how to work an automated till for the first time. Touch screens in McDonalds, clothing and food superstores, your local mail or parcel sending services etc. Warehouse stock arrangement or packing may already be automated to a degree depending on company or product. The list is just going to get larger as the years go by. Some food stores could disappear completely and be available online only. I don't see everything being replaced, but automated taxi services will surely be the biggest most notable next step. Would you trust a driverless car running on windows? No blue screen of death, please! Drone delivery services are already here, but not exactly common. Don't forget your emergency parachute. When it comes to the lowest paid, the majority of the public's 'full time hours' in order to get by, may be made up of multiple job with no alternative, although depending on your region some might argue that is already becoming the case. AI and automation will no doubt be very notable in twenty years but I'm sure it can only be as good as it's programming

He is right ! I agree with him..the Rise of AI has been hugely blown out of proportion..but I do agree that some job sectors will face huge human unemployment . That's where the goverment should pay them a minimum income to live a decent life .

Most of the people dont want work anyway. :-) We need more time to life it self. V

He tells us that there is no limit to the number of jobs we can think of, there will also be no limit to the number of those jobs that the AI machines, computers and robots can take away not to mention the speed at which they will be able take them. Past performance in not necessarily an indicator of future performance of anything.

The apps charge a new tax to pay your bills anymore. I tried to use a kiosk a few times to pay my electric bill but they are not user friendly.

Today after a few calls I sadly thought AI might’ve done a better job Anyway if you haven’t already check out Andrew Yang. He seems to be the only candidate that gets the automation problem and have solutions #Yang2020

I really feel this guy isn't taking into account the exponential growth of technology. 15 years ago there were no smartphones, and now I can spend all day in a very immersive VR world if I want, while sitting in my self-driving car and getting a flying robot to same-day deliver an Amazon package to my house... You really think we're going to have new jobs for all the shopkeepers, taxi/truck drivers, waiters and waitresses, etc that will be jobless in 20 years time (if not sooner). That's tens if not hundreds of millions of people...we're going to need to completely restructure society, "just get a job" won't make sense anymore.

Automation has a great potential for distributed mass shareholding if states apply the necessary laws, pretty much, not exactly like but close to how nordic countries use the wealth from oil exploitation to fund generous social benefits. Only instead of offering benefits each person would receive shares from such companies and be remunerated after fiscal ends or continue keeping them letting their value grow, regardless not needing to work anymore. If such laws won't be put into practice and automation will still be pushed forward, the Elysium effect will occur.

Necessity is the mother of invention not the other way around

Did you take into account that maybe population has also risen?!?!?

Has he ever heard about this thing called Artificial Intelligence.

"necessity is the mother of invention" not the other way around

Yes but as you say the middle class jobs are disappearing and the lack of jobs will spread closer to the two extremes. I agree there will be tons of jobs. But they will either be very basic or highly specialized, furthermore the simple jobs will eventually be automated I suspect jobs involving more social capital will become more common. And people will value relationships more because they don't have to work.

@1:36 Isn't that because women join labor force? Counterfactuals might be more convincing

The number of human bank tellers doubled within the last 45 years because a) the US population grew, duh and b) more people (as a percentage of the total population) now have credit cards. In the late 1970s, only 17% of Americans had at least one credit card. That percentage grew to 72% in 2014. In addition, the population of the US grew from 222 million in 1978 to 319 million in 2014. If the number of bank tellers were to grow proportionally with the US population and credit card ownership, there should have been SIX times as many bank tellers today (as there was 45 years ago). And I'm being generous with my numbers. The 17% statistic was from the late 70's -- 45 years ago, it would be 1971, the early 70's. The population would also have been smaller in 1971. The presenter is being very disingenuous with his facts. EDIT: Oh, and the presenter fails to address the consistent decline near the end of the graph at 1:39.

Bank branches in the UK are closing. Who needs a teller when there are ATMs?

Just like computers created an entire new industry when I was a baby, websites like UKposts and Patreon are creating an entire new industry today! I WILL GET INTO THIS INDUSTRY SOMEHOW! #optimistic college student