WEBVTT - Dull, Dirty, Dangerous 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:08.320 Sleepwalkers is a production of I Heart Radio and unusual productions. 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:18.400 AI will make phenomenal companies and tycoons faster, and it 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:22.919 will also displace jobs faster than computers and the Internet. 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:27.440 It's already happening. That's Kai Fu Lee speaking, the former 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:30.560 head of Google China and the so called oracle of AI. 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:34.240 I think there are at least two issues involved. One 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:39.159 is how to do income redistribution, and that is a 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.760 very complex issue. I'm not an expert, but one way 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:47.200 or another, the ultra rich who did extremely well based 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:50.440 on AI or other reasons, I think somehow need to 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:54.840 help the people who are under privileged or even victimized 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:58.480 by technology. The exact mechanism I don't know, but if 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.000 we don't do it, redistribution is going to be a 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:05.400 serious matter for our social stability. It's not actually a 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:11.360 underprivileged minority, it will become an underprivileged majority. The benefits 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:14.720 of the AI revolution will not be evenly distributed, and 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:19.559 according to Kaifu, automation will replace fort of jobs worldwide 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:25.080 in the next fifteen years. The second part is how 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:28.800 do we help people whose jobs have been displaced find 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:32.440 the new beginning? We ask the question what can AI 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:36.959 and automation not do? That is the central question this episode, 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.440 as AI and Automation displays more and more jobs, What 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.160 will be left for us to do and who will 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.280 be qualified to do it? Today will explore the automated 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.520 economy and the changes it will bring. Im as Velashen 0:01:49.880 --> 0:02:05.680 Welcome to Sleepwalkers. So, Carol, when I hear Kaifou talking 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:08.800 about jobs being lost to AI, my mind goes immediately 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:12.840 to driverless cars and self driving cars replacing taxis, um, 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:15.639 long distance trucking, that kind of thing. Yeah, but there's 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:20.080 also you know, agriculture, like combine harvests, like robots who 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:24.040 are picking fruit. Um. Washington State actually announced that next 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:26.840 season they're going to be rolling out these vacuum harvesters 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:30.520 that use AI to identify and pick only ripe apples. Wow, 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:32.960 so not only picking the fruit, but also being smart 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:36.040 about which fruit it picks. That's right, the ripe stuff, 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:40.640 the stuff. And there's actually this raspberry picking robot in 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:44.760 the UK that was funded by some British supermarkets and 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.960 those robots can pick twenty five thousand berries a day 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:52.600 versus a humans fifteen thousand in an eight hour day, 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:55.880 and also remember this, eight hour days for human being 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:58.240 is a long day for a robot. A robot doesn't 0:02:58.240 --> 0:02:59.600 know what a long day is, nor does it know 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:01.440 what a short day is. And it can work into 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:03.800 the night right and when we force ourselves into comparison 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.960 with these robots, that kind of creates very realistic expectations 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:11.560 for workers can do. Interesting is not just jobs that 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:15.279 require mechanical skills that Kaifu thinks will be lost to automation. 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.160 And AI actually doesn't distinguish between white collar and blue 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:22.280 collar jobs. So any job that has a routine element, 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:26.160 whether it's underwriting loans or telemarketing or researching, you know, 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:28.480 this is a lot of work. The first AI podcast 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.919 may not be too far off. Um. It actually reminds 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:34.200 me the episode we did about AI and creativity that 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:37.880 algorithms that can write poetry and music and screenplays are 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:41.440 already here. This is not some robot apocalypse in the 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.720 distant future. Job displacement is with us. Julian, You've got 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:46.760 in touch with somebody who's seeing this play out in 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:50.080 real time. Yeah, it did. His name's Wild Kankowski and 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:54.880 he lives in Florida, all around the city whatever direction 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:59.000 we're gonna go. We know where every every McDonald's pretty 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:01.440 much is on the did a job well. A lot 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:04.200 of the people know us because we go in there 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.320 all the time. A lot of them know me because 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:15.080 not too many people get a medium coffee with twelve creams. Yeah, 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:17.520 as what is taking a huge number of creams and 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.320 his coffee? What? He owns the pool screens and repair 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.920 business in Orlando, Florida. His job takes him all around town, 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:27.200 but every morning starts the same way Adam McDonald's and 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:31.120 recently what he has seen a change. They just started 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.560 to show up, probably about a year or so ago. 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:38.479 That way, when we go to a counter, people are 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:42.360 getting mad because they want you to go to use 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:44.719 the key off and I'm walking up to the counter 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:48.040 wanting to get my coffee and get on on our day. 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:50.080 They're like, oh, you got to use the kios so 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:52.200 and then they want me to hit the screen. The 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:57.000 screen says, go to this thing, go to beverage. Okay, 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:00.919 what kind of beverage? Well, okay, go the coffee, but 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.280 what do you want? Ice coffee? This? That? And then 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.760 instead of me saying twelve cream and she hears me. 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:09.479 Now I get to hit the machine like twelve times 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:11.360 that that that that that that that that that that 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:14.400 twelve times to get it, because that's how many times 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:16.520 I get to hit it to get to twelve. The 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:19.680 thing is knocking someone out of a job. We've all 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.560 been wally stuck at a self checkout or yelling at 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:25.719 an automated phone menu that refuses to understand what we're saying. 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.880 But those interactions are not just frustrating for us. They're 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.800 real world examples of jobs being displaced by technology, and 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:36.320 they don't only affect the people whose jobs are threatened. 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:40.240 We're in a lot of different McDonald's and I probably 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:44.680 recognize every single person in there. Some people I've known 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:48.240 probably ten fifteen years, and they know who I am. 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:51.719 You know, they're friendly enough to make you feel a 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:55.120 little special there. That way, I guess we might be 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:58.240 walking through a store and then I'll see those people 0:05:58.279 --> 0:05:59.960 and I'll go over and them say, yeah, you're for 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:02.279 McDonald's or that, and then they'll be like, yeah, I 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:05.120 know who you are. Then you actually get them meet 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:08.559 and greet someone and make a conversation for a minute 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:12.560 or two. That way, why would human contact when you 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:15.320 talking to a person for a second and getting my 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:19.359 food and paying them in another two seconds. There shouldn't 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:23.840 have been nothing wrong with that process. So, Julie, how 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:25.640 did this come about? What made you want to include 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:27.919 Wally story in the podcast? Well, for one thing, I 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:31.080 love Wally, but these are also familiar stories, right, I mean, 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:33.040 and while he's been able to see this one play 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:35.880 out over time, where you can see how just changing 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:38.240 one part of one task the way he orders a 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.159 coffee has actually had this ripple effect that also follows 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:43.480 him around as he goes about his day. Yeah. I 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:46.039 was especially struck by Wally story because it's easy to 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:50.520 talk about automation and job displacement as these big abstract ideas, 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.560 but here's somebody who's actually felt it. Even though it's 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.640 not his job that's been lost. Is something that affects 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:58.760 the whole community. You know, I don't mean to be 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:03.479 super nestar algic, but a lot of great movies and 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:08.000 great young adult novels have you know, the teenage girl 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:11.560 who's angsty and you know works at the Friar and 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:13.440 you know, now it's just like you're gonna have like 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.200 an angsty data scientist, you know, mulling over the express 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:21.720 checkout crouched over the screen. Well, those those golden arches, 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:25.360 they are very enduring symbol for America UM And earlier 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:28.720 this year, McDonald's acquired an AI company for three hundred 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:32.120 million dollars. It was their biggest acquisition for twenty years. 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:35.440 And it's all about predicting what people might order before 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:37.720 they even arrive at the store. So even the days 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:40.680 of Kiosks maybe numbered, maybe we'll be nostalgic about them 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:44.040 in twenty years, but nonetheless, this AI acquisition could ultimately 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.640 lead to a better customer experience. And it's important to 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.560 remember that the AI revolution doesn't need to be just 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.200 about displacing jobs. It can also be about augmenting us 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:58.240 and our experience. One person working on human machine partnership 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:02.200 is Gil Pratt see EEO of the Toyota Research Institute. 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:07.400 Many of our colleagues at other companies are really focused 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.920 on building only the self driving car, where you replace 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:13.920 the driver with an AI system. But we also have 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:17.120 this other track of building something that we call the Guardian, 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:20.440 which is meant to safeguard a human being when they drive, 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:24.440 to avoid accidents and to avoid crashes. I think the 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:28.560 Guardian approach has been at odds because of money. The 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:33.080 economic desire to replace the driver in a taxi is 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:35.560 very large, and a lot of companies are sort of 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.439 going after this attractive idea of automating out the human 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:42.920 being from driving taxis. But you know, Toyota is first 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:46.680 and foremost a car company, which means that we have 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.080 this business of making cars. We also want to make 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:51.800 cars a lot more safe, and we also want to 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:55.240 make them a lot more fun. Gil makes an important 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:59.600 point today, our innovation is driven by the market. Companies 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:02.199 like Uber in tested to keep their valuations high by 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:04.160 promising their investors that they will be able to do 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:08.880 better business in future by replacing human drivers. Toyota is 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.800 actually an investor in Uber, but it's primary business is 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:15.600 car manufacturing, so there that is on enhancing the abilities 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:19.240 of human drivers rather than replacing them, making driving more 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:23.400 fun and Gil's humanistic approach to technology is also being 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:26.640 applied to other problems at the Toyota Research Institute. We 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:31.760 want to allow people to age in place with dignity, 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:36.040 and in particular, we want to help them by amplifying 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.280 their abilities to make up for what was lost, rather 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:43.160 than replacing their abilities. And make them feel as if 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:47.880 they're elderly. It's a subtle difference, and it's very easy 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:51.600 to get it wrong. It's very easy to build a 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:56.480 technology that is ostensibly going to help some someone, but 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:59.040 it's what it's really doing is offloading work from them 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.680 and making them feel they can't do it and therefore 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:03.480 they're old and they should just sit in a chair. 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:08.280 It's much harder to figure out a way, particularly in 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:12.720 the robotics field, to continue to engage the person so 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:15.839 that they feel like they can do it themselves. And 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:17.800 that's a little bit of a difference in how we 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:21.240 try to do things. There's one that we've recently started 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:25.120 to show, which is a machine called the Buddy, and 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:28.320 this idea is one where older people have a lot 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.800 of difficulty reaching down low to pick up things from 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:36.160 the ground and difficulty moving heavy things, and so we're 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:39.040 working on a machine that still has the human in 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:42.280 the loop, but makes it much easier for them to 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:46.600 do that task. But it understands that no matter how 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:49.319 much robotics may be able to help solve the practical 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.400 challenges of life as an older person, it can never 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:56.199 replace a human cab provider. Just to be very very clear, 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:59.800 we don't want to replace people as companions. We think 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:03.400 it what human beings want most of all in a 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:10.720 companion is another human being, so companion. This brings us 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:12.559 back to what Kaifu was saying right at the top 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:16.079 of the episode, what can AI and automation not do? 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:19.600 So Yeah, Gil acknowledges that no matter how much progress 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.000 is made in the field of robotics to help elderly people, 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.640 nothing's going to make up for human contact. I actually 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:28.000 was able to talk to Sherry Turkle, who's a professor 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.720 at m i T who talks a lot about human 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:34.600 beings and their relationship with technology, and she talks about 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.800 this fluffy seal robot called Pero, which is used in 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:42.240 nursing homes to soothe Alzheimer's patients. And it can simulate 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:44.839 this like affectionate little animal, and it can be really 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:47.000 effective at drawing people out of their shells when they're 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:50.200 otherwise hard to reach or feeling disoriented. On the other hand, 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:53.200 and this is Sherry's argument, it becomes really easy for 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:55.800 family members to be like, well, you know, my grandpa 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:57.679 has this, you know, seal at home. I don't need 0:11:57.720 --> 0:11:59.600 to go visit him all the time. And I know 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:01.840 that sounds extreme, but it's more of the idea of 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:05.400 the fact that we're using these robots to make us 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:08.760 feel better about calming people who we could otherwise have 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:12.479 strong relationships with. Yeah, and I think it also normalizes 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:16.440 the idea of interacting with robots or technology instead of 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:19.000 real people. And that's painful. That's what wal he was 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:21.800 really talking about. Yes, it's frustrating to have to use 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:24.400 the Kiosk when you want twelve creems with your coffee. 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:28.480 But more important, Leader Rhodes Community bonds. It's no wonder 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:31.760 that a company like McDonald's is spending a ton of 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:35.520 money on this. It makes them more efficient and profitable 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:37.520 if they don't have to pay people. Yeah, and it's 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:39.600 hard to turn back the clocks. You know. Donald Trump 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.160 talks about bringing back the cold jobs, but jobs that 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.160 have been lost are very hard to recreate. It doesn't 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:47.319 make me think about Kaifu's comment at the top of 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:51.680 the episode about the underprivileged majority. Uvell know Harari, who's 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:54.000 coming to join us later in the series, talks about 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.640 a useless class. When we come back, we look at 0:12:57.640 --> 0:12:59.520 what this means for the people at the sharp end 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:02.640 the people losing their jobs to automation, and at some 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:12.800 of the proposed solutions. According to an OXFAM International report 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:16.360 published earlier this year, the twenty six richest billionaires in 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.200 the world have as much wealth as the poorest three 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.800 point eight billion people, and many of those billionaires made 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:26.880 their fortunes from technology. Jeff Bezos is the world's richest 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:30.640 person thanks to Amazon. Meanwhile, Amazon is investing hundreds of 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:34.040 millions of dollars in automating their supply chain, in other words, 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:36.320 attempting to cut out the labor force who made the 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:39.520 business possible. It's a bit like Uber's investment in self 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.680 driving technology. So what jobs might be safe from the 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:46.800 relentless march towards automation, I asked Kai Fu Lee. My 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:50.679 general feeling is that these will be the human interaction jobs, 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:54.520 the compassion and empathetic jobs, the jobs that we expect 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:57.520 a human and refused to work with a robot. That 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:01.160 would doubly ensure these jobs are safe as one AI 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:04.280 can't do them now, and too, even if AI got better, 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:08.120 customers don't accept it, then those jobs will become the 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.840 right areas to retrain people to move into so jobs 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:18.160 like nurses, Nanni's elderly care, high end jobs like psychiatrists 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:21.600 and doctors, because the future it will be different. AI 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.600 can do the analytical part, but the doctor will still 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:27.560 need to provide the warmth and the human contact that 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:33.120 the patient expects during the worst period of vulnerability. What 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:36.960 we may move more towards ordering from kiosks and help menus, 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:40.240 or not even needing to order at all. Kaifu agrees 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:42.880 with Gil, will still need to human touch in a 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.840 range of industries, many of them senters around care and 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:49.720 human services, and it's striking to hear these two pioneers 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:54.280 of new technology. Kaifu and AI and Gil in robotics agree, 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.600 both arguing that automation might increase the value of what 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:01.080 is uniquely human. Guilt terms the history. To back up 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:03.800 his argument, he looks at how our understanding of our 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:08.680 own value as humans shifted during the Industrial Revolution away 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.560 from the ability of our bodies towards the ability of 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:14.600 our minds. You know, if you go back in history 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:17.200 and you say, how did people earn a living back 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:20.120 in the days of mechanical work, There wasn't you know, 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:23.600 steam engines, no use of gasoline or oil or anything 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:27.200 like that. And the answer was that the economic capital 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:29.680 that a human being would have just by being born 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:34.040 was primarily mechanical. So our muscles made us worthwhile at 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.920 a minimum level, and machines effectively took over most of 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:40.760 the mechanical work that we do, and so we now 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.280 are valued mostly what we can do with our minds, 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:48.360 assuming that this next stage of AI occurs where most 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:52.560 of the mental labor that is done is displaced. What 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:55.320 I think we need to think about now is what 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:57.720 will we do then? And we need to think about 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:00.640 it even if this next stage of A doesn't come 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:03.880 for a while, because we went from mechanical to mental. 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:09.200 Is there something next? Is there something next? That is 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:13.080 the trillion dollar question? According to Guilty, industrial revolution led 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:15.440 us to place more value on the mind than the muscle. 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:19.160 Now that a I can increasingly perform mental labor, but 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:21.880 we find a new source of value. And could it 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:25.680 be like CAIFU hinted at as well, some emotional connection. 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.800 When I read a story to my son, it matters 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.200 a whole lot to him. When I read a story 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:35.080 to my mother, it's very much the same thing. So 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:38.960 could we actually decide to increase the value that we 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.440 pay for social work. There's many, many different jobs that 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.120 really should be paid much much higher than they are now, 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:49.160 jobs of teaching and helping so forth. And so I'm 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:51.880 an optimist that we can find an answer, but I 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:54.680 think we need to realize the difficulty in order to 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:58.800 move towards that answer. The difficulty is huge because as 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:02.400 of now, excepting the luxury, the market does not reward 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.520 the kind of human contact that Kaifu and Gil allude to. 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:08.480 And while we, like Wally may wish for our food 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:11.359 orders not to be automated, how much more would we 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:14.200 pay for human contact? How much more could we afford 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.159 to pay. Part of the problem is that automation is 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:21.440 exacerbating the gap between rich and poor. Technology companies can 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.879 increasingly create wealth without needing to pay the wages of 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:28.520 additional employees. That's the secret behind that word you hear 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:32.480 so often scale, which is why Kai Fu Lee proposes 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:36.600 a radical solution. If we start to redistribute the income 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:39.200 that is taking away the power of the ultra ridge, 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:43.040 If we start to give the people who are stripped 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:45.800 of their current jobs a new job that has not 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:50.120 only income but also meaning, I think um people would 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:52.600 be more fulfilled, their children at least would have a 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:55.920 chance just to pause. Kai Foo Lee is a hugely 0:17:55.960 --> 0:18:00.040 successful international investor arguing that we need to overturn and 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:04.000 one of the most fundamental assumptions of American society that 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:06.719 the market should be allowed to set the price. And 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:10.080 Kaifu is not alone. Others in Silicon Valley are calling 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:13.480 for a so called universal basic income as SI pen 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:17.200 pay to all citizens to acknowledge an increasingly broken relationship 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:21.440 between labor and value. Today, we're nowhere close on either 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.760 of those ideas, but a growing course of inside voices 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:29.280 is acknowledging that automation will bring further disruption to society, 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:32.520 and others have even greater fears. You may remember Ian 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:35.800 Bremer from our episode on China and Surveillance. He's a 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:39.040 political scientist and the author of Us Versus Them, The 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:45.560 Failure of Globalism. I am less worried about just jobs 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:50.920 going away, then I am about technology facilitating the creation 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:55.760 of completely different types of human beings. What happens when 0:18:56.200 --> 0:19:00.680 you have the ability to actually provide comp copletely different 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:04.639 sets of cognitive skills to human beings that have access 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:09.000 to certain types of new technology ian sphere is that 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:13.280 as technology improves, the rituals simply reproduced their privilege through 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:17.640 elite universities and professional networks, they may start to upgrade 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.560 their very hardware, making social mobility even harder for those 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:26.639 who can't afford the same modifications. Better memory retention, better 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:31.600 pattern recognition, more ability to link to real time information, 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:34.679 and the global net I mean, ability not to sleep 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.680 for longer periods of time, all of this sort of thing. Right, 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:41.720 The danger is that I don't care how much money, 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:44.120 how much wealth in society, and when you start creating 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:48.000 that kind of differentiation, everything we know about human history 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:51.959 is that that doesn't end well. Those other people that 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:56.600 aren't as capable get treated like animals or worse. And 0:19:56.840 --> 0:19:59.959 I am very deeply worried that the speed of technol 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:04.480 logical transformation, coupled with the speed of this new industrial revolution, 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:08.200 makes it much more likely that large numbers of people 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:11.639 in our own societies, not in other countries, but like 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:15.800 right here, are suddenly not going to have that capacity, 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:19.120 and we're going to treat them as different types of humans, 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:22.760 maybe not even as humans at all. This is the 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:25.920 truly dystopient future that we will fear carat this concept 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:29.399 of a two track humanity facilitated by technology, where some 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:32.520 people have value and others don't. Yeah, you know, this 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:35.480 is the dark version of trans humanism, which we're going 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:37.879 to talk about later in the series. But you know 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:41.919 it's not some sci fi fantasy. Our favorite pre super 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:45.960 villain Elon Musk, founded Neuralink, which aims to create brain 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:50.080 computer interfaces. Like why do we need that? Well, I 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:53.280 guess because in today's economy, being smart is seen as 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:56.160 the most important differentiating factor. But we're not talking about 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:59.160 being an intellectual, like, we're talking about being cognitively enhanced 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:03.280 by a computer or by technology. And Elon Musk isn't 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:05.480 the only person who's noticed how important it is to 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.800 be cognitively enhanced, shall we say? Last year, the World 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:12.199 Bank announced the program called the Famine Action Mechanism to 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:15.639 get relief to famine hit areas faster, and they explicitly 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:17.879 said one of the reasons they're doing this is that 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:20.600 because people who are malnourished in the womb may have 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:23.480 cognitive issues later in life and thus be unable to 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:25.399 compete in the new economy. You know, I found it 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:29.600 really interesting that this program is actually powered by AI. 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:33.440 It draws on data like social media, food prices, rainfall, 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:37.480 and then automatically assigns funds so that money gets where 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:40.040 it's needed before it's too late. It's a textbook case 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:41.800 of what AI can do and we can't, which is 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:44.680 to notice these patterns and correlations between different types of 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:47.280 data sets which are so big as to be impossible 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:50.640 for us to compute, and as so often in Sleepwalkers, 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:53.440 and it's an example of technology being a double edged short. 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:55.880 On the one hand, it may be widening the gap 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:58.080 between rich and poor, but on the other hand, it 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:01.199 can potentially feed the world. When we come back, we 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:04.720 explore other ways AI and robotics can revolutionize food production. 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:15.359 We've looked at how AI and robotics could exacerbate the 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:18.800 gulf between rich and poor, and how this new industrial 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:22.439 revolution could put a new value on human connection. But 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:27.120 could we use automation to actually decrease global inequality? One 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:31.280 key factor is access to quality nutrition and roboticist George 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:33.960 Kantor gave a talk last year at south By Southwest 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:38.000 called AI will help feed a growing planet. I wanted 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:40.439 to learn more, so I called him for a conversation 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:43.440 from his office at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon. 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.879 A lot of people when they think about robots and 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:51.960 technology being used to assist agriculture, think about robots driving 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:54.920 around and picking grapes or plowing fields and things like that. 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:58.639 But despite being a robotics expert, George is currently focusing 0:22:58.640 --> 0:23:01.879 on crop genetics. The way plant breeding works, you have 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:05.960 a bunch of parents. Uh plant breeder very carefully uses 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:08.760 all his or her experience to figure out which parents 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:12.600 will make the best potential children. They make those crosses. 0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:15.840 They then do these field trials where they grow the 0:23:15.920 --> 0:23:19.360 child varieties and they measure them and see how they do, 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:21.600 and then the winners go back in the pool and 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:24.320 the losers they weed out. One of the crops we 0:23:24.359 --> 0:23:27.080 work with is sorghum. It's grown all over the world. 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:30.320