WEBVTT - Technology 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:05.840 Hello, and welcome to the New Economy. I'm Stephanie Flanders, 0:00:05.960 --> 0:00:12.440 head of Bloomberg Economics. The factory of the future will 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:16.360 employ only one man and one dog. The man's job 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:19.639 will be to feed the dog. The dogs will be 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:22.680 to keep the man away from the machines. You can't 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:25.799 talk about the New economy without talking about technology, and 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:28.680 that joke captures one vision of what it has in 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:31.200 store for us. Robots are going to take all of 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:36.320 our jobs. But there's another view that says robots aren't 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:39.560 a threat but a liberation, an opportunity to get away 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.320 from the daily grind and focus on what's really special 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.120 about being human. It's a nice idea. I think it's 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:49.280 particularly appealing to Silicon Valley types who are programmed to 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:51.960 always believe that technology will make the world a better place. 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:55.000 Later on, I'm going to talk to Bloomberg columnist Noah 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:58.600 Smith about whether that's a realistic vision for the whole economy. 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:02.440 But first, blob Like Economy report to Craig Torres went 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.520 to a corner of Virginia where robots and humans do 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:08.039 seem to be each playing to their strengths with not 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:18.080 a dog insight. Every day we read stories about how 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:23.040 automation and artificial intelligence will make humans less relevant. Many 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.240 of these stories are alarmists suggesting robots will be doing 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:29.800 what shop floor machinists or even doctors do every day. 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:34.039 The real story is more subtle. I visited a state 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:37.800 of the art Rolls Royce facility outside of Richmond, Virginia 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:43.160 to find out how automation is changing human work. I 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:47.000 asked the plant manager, Laurence O'Dell, to take us on 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:50.080 a tour and explain how humans and machines shake hands 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:54.800 here to produce something very valuable and very precise. This 0:01:54.880 --> 0:02:00.720 plant makes jet engine parts. I have pulled into the 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:06.400 parking lot of Rolls Royce. The plant stands kind of 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:10.280 in a forest, and as you drive down the road 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:18.320 you see this modern looking facility with the very familiar insignia. 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:22.520 Now I have to watch a safety video as I 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:28.240 go into the plant. Once I am inside, I asked 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:31.120 Lauren about what work was like when he was a 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.640 young engineer in the night and an automotive engine plant. 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:40.720 How close were men and women too, metal very close, 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.079 very very close. In many ways. There were a lot 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:48.760 of hand assembly operations. If you were assembling an enginengine. 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.440 It wasn't what we would recognize in any way today 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:59.400 as smart automation. It was electrically speaking, following some some 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:03.040 pain to dance steps on the floor one to three four, 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.040 one to three four. When I look at the parts 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:10.040 Rolls Royce produces here, they are finely cut like pieces 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:14.280 of ornate industrial jewelry. One part, called a fan disc, 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:17.840 starts out as a big cylinder of titanium, about as 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:20.120 round as a tire you might see on a tractor 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.600 trailer on the highway. This disc is integrated with the 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:25.800 fan blades you see on the front of a jet 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:29.320 engine as you board a plane. The raw disc costs 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:32.480 as much as fifty thousand dollars, so it has kept 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:35.040 in a big suitcase until it has loaded onto the 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:39.480 machining process to protect it from scratching and damaged. After 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:41.960 it's machined, it's about the size of an all weather 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:45.960 tire on my pickup truck, and it's just as articulated 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:49.960 and shiny and deeply grooved. There their ultra precise parts. 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.600 They're made out of materials that are right at the 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.120 ende of right at the at the cutting edge of 0:03:56.120 --> 0:04:00.360 of what engineers can create so these are hearts that 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:03.640 are spinning at between six thousand and twelve thousand revolutions 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:08.880 per minute, and they're they're extremely highly stressed, uh physically 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.000 as well. You don't just walk on the shop floor here, 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:15.920 you have to dress for it works pretty good. So 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:21.200 we're all dressed in steel toe slippers. I have my 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:25.920 belt covered with a velcrow pad, my wedding ring is off, 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:29.279 and I have something over my eyes, so I'm pretty 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.360 scratch proof, i'd like to think. So if you were 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:38.200 wearing earrings, we let me go with those work wears. 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:47.919 Who I haven't. I haven't been out here since about 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:49.920 eight o'clock this morning, so I have no idea what's 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:54.160 going on. The rolls Royce plant is cavernous, albeit not gigantic. 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:57.280 There is lots of natural light. I feel like I'm 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.360 in a workshop, but already you can tell there's something 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.640 different about what we mean by work here. There aren't 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.840 rows of men and women standing at stations doing an 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.560 activity as in an auto plant. Instead, there are a 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.279 series of large pods about half the size of a 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:17.720 subway car with a window. Parts are placed within them, 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:21.560 and this is where the magic happens. Inside a robotic 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:25.320 arm picks out its own cutting tool, It measures itself 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:30.000 and stores this data along the way. Lauren explains, this 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:33.599 whole process is about turning a mathematical description of a 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:39.960 physical thing, a jet engine part, into reality. The car 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:44.359 by drill bit trims cuts amid a splashing milk colored lubricant. 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:49.520 The plant is relatively quiet and very clean. Where are 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:53.680 the humans. They're not running this, They're making sure this 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:59.159 automated process is repeating and repeating and repeating again without 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:07.800 much variant. There are essentially no manual operations here anymore. Though. 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:12.760 UM we're using in our machines what you would recognize 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:17.960 as big data, okay, to understand not only the parts 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.000 and how the parts are being manufactured, but also the 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:24.800 basic condition of the machine itself. Seems to be accelerating 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:29.440 a little bit every week, where every week we're either 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:34.359 implementing or we're taking a step toward implementing, UM a 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:38.320 new kind of predictive technology. I have never seen anything 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:41.640 like the shop floor at Rolls Royce. This plant is 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.520 less than eight years old. Something entirely new and different 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.039 is happening here. Humans are not on the clock like 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:54.240 pace of a typical manufacturing plant. The robots operating behind 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:58.359 the windows of the big boxes are constantly self optimizing, 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:02.880 that is, re measure ring themselves. I asked Lauren to 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:07.039 explain this to me. What he describes is straight out 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:09.960 of what twenty years ago would have been a comic 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:14.880 book kind of futurism. Humans are maintaining the process but 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:18.240 also standing back from it in a way that seems unusual. 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.440 This is how Lauren explains it. What it frees the 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:26.680 humans up to do is to think about how can 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:31.920 we make something better? So people to a significant extent 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:35.400 aren't as tied to the equipment as they have been 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:38.200 in the past, and they're really being freed up to 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:42.520 work on higher order activities. Is that more human work? 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:46.160 Would you say? Or not? Right now? I think it's 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:50.600 more human work. Okay, I'm starting to get it. In 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:54.600 an ultra automated plant like this, humans are a step 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.240 away from the whole process, less close to the metal, 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:02.200 but still very familiar with exactly what is going on. 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:07.240 So familiar, Lauren says that even the flex of titanium 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:10.680 spinning off the cutting tool can tell them something is off. 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:15.280 Lauren says he needs both skills people who know the 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:19.360 guts of the process, but can think beyond it, troubleshoot it, 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:23.240 and make it better. How do you train for something 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:28.040 like this? It sounds challenging to answer that question. I 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:31.320 drove across the bottom of the state to Danville, Virginia, 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:35.000 where Troy Simpson trains young men and women at a 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:39.240 community college with a special third year program in advanced manufacturing. 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:45.600 The location of Danville is highly significant. This city once 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:49.880 hosted one of the South's largest textile companies, Dan River Mills. 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:53.360 It's a bit like visiting an Athens of the South. 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:58.079 There are old brick temples from the tobacco and textile 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:02.320 industry everywhere. It's some are falling into ruin, while others 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:06.280 have been repurposed and restored. This area was hit hard 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.680 by NAFTA and the China trade. The state and county 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:13.320 are focused on restoring its prosperity by creating a new 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:18.520 kind of workforce that modern manufacturers will find attractive. They've 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:22.920 had some success. Here's Troy explaining how they are trying 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.040 to create this new workforce as factories are looking towards 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:29.520 a digital factory and pushing so much data, making intelligent 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:34.439 decisions through AI. Then we still got to have somebody 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:38.480 to set those factories up and the troubleshoot those same 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:41.719 problems that we have whether factor is digital or not. Right, 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:47.120 But those technicians and now need to understand what is 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:53.040 happening upstream and downstream of a process. So now we've 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:57.240 got a technician that it's a whole plethora of things 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:00.000 that could be causing those problems to maintain the process 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.000 this so we have built on the facility to do 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:06.080 to train that technician in that very environment. So let's 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:08.200 take a step back and figure out what we heard 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:12.640 and saw. Rolls Royce has a perfect mathematical description of 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:16.640 an engine part humans and machines joined forces to try 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:20.480 and hit that perfection. Every day humans are looking at 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:23.960 data as much as the things they work with. The 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:29.640 machines and the metal work is becoming more conceptual, less 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:34.360 heavy and dirty, plants are less hierarchical, and there's more 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:39.120 gender equality as work migrates in this direction. I like 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:42.840 the way Lauren puts it. If we blindly believe data 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:47.040 and we don't challenge it to say, does that make sense? 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:51.240 Does what the machine told me makes sense? Can I 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:54.599 challenge that? And I can can I verify it? Or 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:58.200 am I just going to blindly believe it and make 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:02.040 an offset to thinking Whatever it is, whether it's a 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:05.440 physical machine or computer model or whatever, Am I just 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.480 going to make that make that change on the basis 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:13.640 of of what it's told me. If it doesn't make sense, 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:15.880 then why would you allow it to make the change? 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:18.840 Or maybe we need to change our paradigm. Maybe we 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.680 need to update our paradigm of how that little piece 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.960 of the world works. And I think that for now, 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:29.160 and I think that until artificial intelligence really becomes prevalent, 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.280 I think that's where humans are always going to be 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:34.920 taking a step up, not a step away. Don't think 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:36.360 I don't think of it as a step away. I 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:40.160 think of as a step up the humans role. And 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:46.320 there is no organism or machine better equipped to do 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:50.280 this on the planet than a human being is to recognize, 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:55.600 in the purest sense, a non standard situation. Yes, there 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:59.040 is a quiet revolution happening in all trades, from medicine 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:03.040 to making term both fan disks as artificial intelligence and 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.959 automation creep into more of what we do. What does 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:11.000 it mean for humans? The stories I'm hearing are enormously 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:15.080 positive yes, there will be fewer people working in a 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:18.920 particular plant, but that doesn't mean there are going to 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:23.320 be fewer people working in manufacturing. That depends on how 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:26.040 quickly we can train people to work in this space 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:29.920 where they understand a job as not producing one thing, 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:33.560 but it's part of a larger creative process, full of 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.600 data and feedback that aims at a more repeatable, more 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:50.640 perfect thing. I'm Craig Trusts, an economics writer for Bloomberg News. Well, 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:54.040 I'm joined now by Noah Smith, Bloomberg opinion columnist on 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.640 all Things interesting in economics. He's in our San Francisco studio. 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:00.000 I mean, no, I think I guess the big question 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:03.360 first coming out of that report from from Craig Torres, 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:05.839 I mean, do you buy the idea that the robots 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:08.880 and artificial intelligence could be the best thing that ever 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.640 happened to humanity? I think the best thing that ever 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:15.240 happened to humanity is a little exaggerated. Um, But what's 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:20.800 interesting is that most jobs can probably not be completely automated. Usually, 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:24.080 what happens is that some tasks in the middle of 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:28.000 the job get automated. In other words, a robot won't 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:30.760 take your job it'll take half your job. And of 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.160 course that really reminds me of what happened to menial 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:38.960 labor and factory work during the Industrial Revolution. Before the 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.079 Industrial Revolution, you had people putting together every bit of 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.320 every product themselves. Now you have these machines that can 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:46.880 do some of the things, but they don't do all 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.680 of the things. So you have assembly line workers doing 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.880 some of the things, and you have um basically manufacturing 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:56.560 workers doing some of the tasks. And that made the 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:59.480 manufactured goods a lot cheaper. Demand for the manufactured goods 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:04.280 released biked, and therefore, even though half of craftsmen's jobs 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.760 are being taken by these machines, you really had a 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.600 lot more employment and a lot higher wages in the 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.760 manufacturing sector during the Industrial Revolution. And I think this 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.080 could be the same thing for service jobs. You know, 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:19.120 service sectors really have had low productivity growth. We've seen 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:22.960 huge productivity growth and manufacturing very slow productivity and services. 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:25.880 It's possible that this could change that and could make 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.920 services behave more like manufacturing used to. I mean, it's 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:31.120 interesting you talk about productivity. I do always find it 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:35.360 quite funny when you're in these conversations where people are talking. 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:37.200 You know, what should we most worry about, you know, 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.080 the end of the terrible things happening in the global economy. 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:41.280 And of course, you know, one of the big things 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:44.600 we talk about is the very slow rate of productivity growth, 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:46.000 the fact that we're not getting more out of the 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:47.800 same number of people, are not at the same rate 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.480 we have in the past. And that's obviously hugely important 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:55.600 because it drives wage growth and standard of living in growth. 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:58.640 But the people who are really gloomy about productivity growth 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.200 are often also the ones who are really gloomy about 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.000 everyone losing all their jobs because of technology, and you 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:06.359 sort of you can't really have you know, if technology 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:08.680 does get rid of all those jobs, it is inevitably 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.080 going to raise productivity. I guess the question is whether 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:15.160 the benefits of that get um distributed equally. But I 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.360 guess when people think about this what they tend to 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:20.320 come back at and say, well, we know that's true, 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:23.520 we know that it can't be completely automated. But if 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:26.480 it can be automated, I mean, you know, if you 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:30.160 had all of the picking for you know, in a warehouse, 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:34.160 for grocery shopping or whatever else, if it all gets 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:39.600 done by robots, but it's not accurate, and you need 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:41.720 to have one or two people wandering around, you know, 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.360 putting the robots back up when they fought, when they 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:47.120 bump into something, or you know, correcting it when they've 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:49.440 when they've gone wrong. You know, that is still a 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:52.359 loss of jobs that have been lost in that process. 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:54.720 And this just feels like it's going to be on 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:57.000 a greater scale than in the past. You buy that 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:00.240 it could happen. The entire question is where or not 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:04.320 demand expands. So what was interesting about manufacturing is that 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:09.080 you suddenly had um people having so much more stuff, 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:12.480 physical stuff, manufactured things. People now had cars, and they 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:14.800 had TVs, and they had much larger houses, and they 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:17.320 had many more bulls and many more dresses and blah 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:21.520 blah blah blah blah. And because this demand expanded, even 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:25.160 though each each dress, for example, that was made didn't 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:29.320 require as much human labor as before, overall people were 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:33.760 getting paid more for doing human labor involved in dressmaking 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:36.720 than they were before, much more, much much more so. 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:40.680 Because demand expanded in this way, UM, we had increase 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.960 in employment, increase in wages, increase in productivity. All at 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:46.840 the same time the question is could a similar thing 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:50.840 happened with services the The dissatisfying answer is that a 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:53.720 lot of different things could happen. But I believe people 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:57.280 aren't paying enough attention to the good possibility. People are 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:00.520 fixating on this extremely simple story of like you get 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:02.520 replaced by a robot and now you have nothing to do, 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:05.600 and people are completely ignoring that upside of the story, 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:09.119 you know, focusing less on trying to bring about the 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:11.359 good future because they're not even trying to visualize it. 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:20.120 Your argument is it goes back to what people point out, 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:23.560 even with the adjustments that you've had so far, you know, 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:25.520 since the introduction of the a t M. I know, 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:28.440 lots of bankers in the US like to point out 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:31.480 that the number of factual cashiers in the U. S 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:34.280 economy has increased dramatically since the introduction of a t 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:37.400 M S. So you don't end up necessarily with the replacement. 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:41.359 But I think even your own examples highlight that there's 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:46.000 going to be adjustment costs and a transition where the 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:49.719 jobs that are created. You know, even on the certainly 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.159 on the old version of the way it happened in 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:54.720 the past, you had a lot of jobs created that 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.480 were very different from the jobs that have been lost. 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:00.840 And if you're thinking about what happened to those individuals 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:05.480 in those particularly in sectors that were really affected by technology, 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:09.080 and in the sort of manufacturing technology, you know, the 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.720 story of those people and their ability to get into 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:16.120 the newer sectors is not not really a very happy one. 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.399 I'm certainly thinking of large parts of the manufacturing sector 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.400 in the UK where people lost their jobs and the 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:26.160 industries moved on, and those people did not necessarily ever 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:29.240 work again, or they certainly spend a long time unemployed. 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:33.280 So you know that has to be a question mark. Sure, 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:35.440 Nor can I say that you know we're going to 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.680 have a happy future where absolutely everybody has higher wages 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:41.359 and better jobs, etcetera. We're not, um, We're going to 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:43.720 have a complicated future where some people lose out and 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:48.720 some people win. And the question is on balance what happens, 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:50.679 is it good or bad? What can we do to 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:52.840 make sure that there's more people out there who are 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:55.600 gaining than losing a lot more, What can we do 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.520 to sort of steer this CATEC universe generally in the 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:01.520 right direction. With our limited powers of government and are 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:05.800 limited understanding of what's going on and the you know, 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:08.800 the results of our actions and the current situation. We 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:10.840 have all this limited understanding. We're operating in the dark, 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:12.639 and we have limited control, and we don't really know 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:15.520 what our control does so much. How do we steer 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:18.359 things in a better direction? And that is the question. 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:20.239 I mean, that was interested. It seems to me we 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.280 don't need to just it's not satisfying to say we're 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:26.000 just going to wait and see why where the cards fall, 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:28.560 and wait and see if a meteor lands on your 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:29.840 head or not. I mean, you kind of want to 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:33.399 know whether you're government actually is willing to give you 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:36.760 an umbrella or something stronger to prevent the meteor hitting 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:39.119 knocking you out. What I sometimes think is when I 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:42.080 look at the US, but it doesn't seem like there's 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:46.880 a much appetite or capacity for government or for other 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:51.199 institutions to help people manage the human consequences of this 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:53.720 kind of dislocation. I mean, we've got I was looking 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.280 at some of the numbers the spending on public spending 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:59.480 on sort of training and labor market stuff as one 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:01.080 of the lower in the O E c D. It's 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:04.919 gone down by as a share of GDP since the 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:08.159 eighties in the US trade unions, who might have been 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:11.960 the kind of natural institution that could have sort of 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:15.760 stood between kind of workers and companies and helped people 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:18.800 up skill. You know, they're clearly not and on the 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:23.439 horizon at all in the US now. So what do 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.960 you when you think about what tools government has, even 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.720 with all this uncertainty about the impact, You know, are 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:31.720 there things if you hadn't if you had a different 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:35.080 kind of appetite political appetite, are the things that you 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:39.800 would say would make a real difference. Absolutely, Now we 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:42.359 don't really know what will work. By the way, we 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:45.960 tried a lot of government retraining programs in previous decades 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:49.520 and all the evaluations say that they were completely ineffectual. 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:52.280 They didn't help anybody get jobs in long term. They 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:54.080 were a giant waste, and that's why we cut back. 0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:58.080 The government was terrible retraining people. UM companies are really 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:00.440 good at training people because they know what to train 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:03.439 people for, they know what they need. The thing is, 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:06.960 you know, American companies have just been in this orgy 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:10.920 of offshoring and outsourcing, especially outsourcing, so offshoring isn't as 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:13.120 big of an issue as people think it's it's more 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:17.080 outsourcing to contractors, you know, within the United States. Because 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:19.240 of that, companies don't spend a lot of money and 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:22.320 time training people anymore, and you get this equilibrium where 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:25.359 it's very easy for people to jump to other companies, 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:28.920 unlike in a lot of other countries. But then because 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:32.680 it's so easy, companies don't want to spend the time 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:35.879 and effort training workers. And so we need to shift 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:40.640 back to this equilibrium where companies give people more job 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:44.600 security and and more training and more investment in the workers, 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:48.520 and um, we need to have a more harmonious labor 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:51.600 management relationship. And I think the most interesting proposal for 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:54.480 how to do that has come from Elizabeth Warren, who 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:57.399 proposed codetermination. I don't know if they're familiar with this, 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:00.280 but it's yeah, so it's I mean, Germany does it. 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:03.280 It's it's corporatist. It's not the sort of socialist model 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:06.160 of the benevolent, all knowing government will do everything for you, 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:10.440 but it is. It definitely makes companies more democratic and 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:13.560 give work, gives workers more of a saying company policy, 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:15.640 and of course workers are going to want more investment 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:19.359 in workers and her proposal didn't have the sort of 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:21.560 workers councils that Germany has, but I think that would 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:23.800 be a good addition as well. So I think that 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:28.080 policy has the largest chance of anything that we've thought 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:31.560 of are proposed of shifting back to this good equilibrium 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:34.960 where companies invest a ton in training workers. But that 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:37.920 policy is a million miles away. I mean, although it's 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:41.920 been proposed by a US politician, it is a long 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:46.639 way from the the culture that we've seen of American 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:50.680 companies and American capitalism really for for many, many years. 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:53.439 I mean, there's not that the few bits of worker 0:22:53.480 --> 0:22:55.600 code inmidentation that I think you did have, or we 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:57.359 started to have in the US, I think in the 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:04.160 thirties got um overwhelmed by efforts against it and never 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:06.679 really got established in the US. I mean your it 0:23:06.800 --> 0:23:08.520 is certainly true. There's a lot of this kind of 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.440 thing in Europe. Jeremy Corbyn and the Labor Party has 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:14.200 has talked about it. I was out of something where 0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:16.159 there was a lot of people from different parts of 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:20.639 Europe talking about the challenge of technology and digitalization of 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:23.560 the workforce, and the Swedish trade unionists said, you know, 0:23:23.640 --> 0:23:26.200 we've with our members. We don't think that the new 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:28.640 machine opposes a threat to our members. It's the old 0:23:28.680 --> 0:23:31.080 machine that poses a threat. And it's it's a completely 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:34.960 different psychology, which comes from the social partnership they have 0:23:35.280 --> 0:23:38.280 and the kind of funds that they've come together. Employeed 0:23:38.320 --> 0:23:42.360 and employers contribute to retraining programs that, as you say, 0:23:42.400 --> 0:23:45.720 are closer to the work. But it feels just culturally, 0:23:45.720 --> 0:23:48.000 it's not just the current administration. It feels a million 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:50.600 miles away from the from the traditions of the US. 0:23:50.680 --> 0:23:54.159 Is it really something that could easily start to be 0:23:54.240 --> 0:23:59.479 effective in the US? Uh So, I don't know, um, 0:23:59.760 --> 0:24:02.240 but I do know that it's closer to our culture 0:24:02.240 --> 0:24:06.520 and traditions than a government managed thing, and it would 0:24:06.560 --> 0:24:09.000