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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Dennis Combines is recognized as a leader in robotics education.

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Speaker 1: His approach to teaching robotics has helped thousands of students,

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Speaker 1: and he's also trained hundreds of teachers, helping them understand

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Speaker 1: best practices for teaching robotics. He's frequently invited to present

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Speaker 1: at educational conferences, and his presentation Preparing Students for a

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Speaker 1: Robotic Future has been described as transformational and something every

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Speaker 1: educator needs to hear. Dennis's innovative approach and strategies have

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Speaker 1: helped educators of all levels deliver inspiring world class robotics

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Speaker 1: and programming education. Hey Dennis, welcome to Coast to Coast AM.

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Speaker 1: How are you? I'm doing really great, Richard, how are

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Speaker 1: you terrific? Thank you? First of all, I have to ask,

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Speaker 1: how can I be certain that I'm not talking to

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Speaker 1: some artificial intelligence or an intelligent robot. It's a tough one. Now.

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Speaker 1: They you know, they've they've passed the Turing test, So

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Speaker 1: you know, just you'll just have to judge me as

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Speaker 1: we go along. All Right, all right, I'm guessing you know,

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Speaker 1: probably we we interact with technology that may not look

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Speaker 1: like robots, but but perhaps they qualify as robots. For example,

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Speaker 1: I'm thinking of things like Siri or um, a Google

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Speaker 1: Nest or a self driving car. Are all those things

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Speaker 1: would they would they uh count as robots? I mean,

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Speaker 1: what makes a robot a robot? So I would I

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Speaker 1: would say those are our robots, or at least mostly

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Speaker 1: you know, in the in the same sphere as robots.

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Speaker 1: And to me, the litmus test is, you know, I

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Speaker 1: guess robotics is really how your computer interacts with the

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Speaker 1: physical world around it. And so a robot has to

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Speaker 1: have a processor like a computer, it has to have

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Speaker 1: sensors so it can sense its environment, and it has

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Speaker 1: to have the ability to physically interact. And when we

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Speaker 1: think about robotics under that framework, there's robots all around us,

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Speaker 1: even as simple things as simple as doors that open

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Speaker 1: for you at the mall. When you walk up, there's

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Speaker 1: a sensor it you know, it sees motion that gets

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Speaker 1: registered by the process or the processor says okay, well

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Speaker 1: when there's motion, I opened the doors. So that would

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Speaker 1: be a very very basic robotic application. But then we

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Speaker 1: get to the point where you know, a car would

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Speaker 1: be a robot, and I think that that's kind of

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Speaker 1: changing the way people view robotics. We've always kind of

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Speaker 1: viewed a robot as a saying, you know, a giant

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Speaker 1: machine that's making a car, or you know, even a

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Speaker 1: humanoid robot. We don't think about larger things like vehicles

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Speaker 1: or buildings as being robots. But there are buildings where

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Speaker 1: the whole building will be a smart building and would

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Speaker 1: be you could be defined as a robotic application itself.

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Speaker 1: Right now. You you're an educator, so you you meet

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Speaker 1: and you speak with teachers across North America. I'm guessing

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Speaker 1: also political leaders, um, and what is what is your

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Speaker 1: pitch to them? What are you trying? What is your

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Speaker 1: call to action to these to these individuals. There are

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Speaker 1: some really troubling misconceptions about the changes that are coming.

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Speaker 1: You know, a lot of times when we think about

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Speaker 1: artificial intelligence, people are concerned about the singularity or you know,

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Speaker 1: robots and artificial intelligence intelligence becoming self aware. But the

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Speaker 1: truth is that we have reached a level of sophistication

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Speaker 1: in our artificial intelligence now where we are already going

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Speaker 1: to start to see significant societal impacts. And so a

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Speaker 1: lot of times people are thinking about AI as some

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Speaker 1: fantastical science fiction thing. The real world consequences for what

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Speaker 1: we already have out there are dramatic. We're talking about

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Speaker 1: massive job loss, and we're talking about the social challenges

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Speaker 1: that come with that, you know, massive new opportunity as well.

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Speaker 1: And we can get into those statistics, but it's really

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Speaker 1: a scenario where the you know, we're on the brink

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Speaker 1: of the largest workforce and societal transition in the history

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Speaker 1: of mankind, and buy and large people don't understand what's coming,

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Speaker 1: so people aren't preparing for it. And what kind of

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Speaker 1: reaction are you getting? Do people get angry when when

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Speaker 1: you deliver this rather ominous news, some do you know?

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Speaker 1: Some some some respond really really badly. I can recall

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Speaker 1: I was talking with a teacher at a conference in

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Speaker 1: New Jersey and I was explaining these changes that are coming,

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Speaker 1: you know, the forecast for job loss, and she got

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Speaker 1: so angry at me she started to physically shake, and

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Speaker 1: then she said to me, you are the worst form

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Speaker 1: of person profiteering off the demise of mankind. And she

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Speaker 1: walked away. And that was the first kind of really

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Speaker 1: bad interaction I had, and it really jolted me. But

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Speaker 1: the next day she came back and found me and

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Speaker 1: she said, I just want to apologize for you know,

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Speaker 1: what I said and how I had reacted. The things

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Speaker 1: you were telling me all run true, and it was

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Speaker 1: really impacting me badly. And so I apologize for what

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Speaker 1: I said, and thank you for having the fortitude to

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Speaker 1: stand in there and keep delivering this message, because this

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Speaker 1: is a message everybody needs to understand. So let's talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit about the numbers here. We've got a

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Speaker 1: few minutes before the break, and we'll continue after the

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Speaker 1: break as well on this tugging at this thread. But

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Speaker 1: you talked about this massive job displacement that's coming our way.

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Speaker 1: Let's just talk about North America, so Canada, the United States?

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Speaker 1: How many, how many people? How many of us will

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Speaker 1: be replaced by a robot. So the quick and easy

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Speaker 1: number is there are forecasts that show up to which

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Speaker 1: represents sixty million people losing their employment. And there's a

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Speaker 1: real critical distinction that we have to understand when we

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Speaker 1: talk about losing your employment to a robot. This is

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Speaker 1: not job loss to a recession. These are jobs that

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Speaker 1: are being eliminated permanently. This isn't something that the government

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Speaker 1: can go, you know, we'll do a stimulus package and

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Speaker 1: help the truckers to get back to work. We have

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Speaker 1: to understand that if you're a truck driver, bus driver,

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Speaker 1: cab driver, if you're working in retail or the hospitality industry,

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Speaker 1: these changes will eliminate your jobs. And then we have

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Speaker 1: to think about what the societal cost is of all

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Speaker 1: these people losing their jobs, the societal cost of retraining them.

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Speaker 1: And there's another big stat that is really important. It's

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Speaker 1: not just about the jobs that are going away. The

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Speaker 1: World Economic Forum is also forecasting well, I guess they're

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Speaker 1: released a report in twenty eighteen that forecast that by

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Speaker 1: the year twenty twenty two, So we're two years away

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Speaker 1: from that now, a year and a half away. By

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Speaker 1: the year twenty twenty two, a minimum of fifty four

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Speaker 1: percent of adults we're going to meet significant retraining and

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Speaker 1: upskilling to remain competitive. Now, the cost in the US

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Speaker 1: to do that has been pegged at about thirty four billion,

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Speaker 1: close to twenty five thousand a person, And so we

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Speaker 1: start to think about these numbers and they're almost incomprehensibly large.

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Speaker 1: So we have to think about what that looks like

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Speaker 1: for the individual people. And you know, then I'm not

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Speaker 1: trying to pick on people in a transportation industry. But

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Speaker 1: let's just distill this down for a second, because a

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Speaker 1: lot of times people hear statistics and they can't comprehend it.

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Speaker 1: So if you're a trucker, bus driver, cab driver and

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Speaker 1: you lose your employment, you know, let's forecast five years out.

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Speaker 1: You lose your employment, you come home on a Tuesday afternoon,

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Speaker 1: you've slowed down on the couch. You're like, Okay, now

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Speaker 1: what am I going to do well? And so you

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Speaker 1: start going, okay, I don't you know, if you've been

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Speaker 1: a truck driver for twenty years, you probably don't have

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Speaker 1: any high tech skills to take the new world jobs

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Speaker 1: that are also coming. So you start going, okay, what

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Speaker 1: could I do well? Maybe I could get a job

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Speaker 1: in retail, but retail is being hammered by technology. You

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Speaker 1: can't get a job there. Well, maybe I could get

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Speaker 1: a job in hospitality. Hospitality is getting hammered by this technology,

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Speaker 1: significant job loss waiters, waitresses, chef and so you start

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Speaker 1: to recognize that this person is going to quickly go

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Speaker 1: I'm in a lot of trouble, and that's What we

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Speaker 1: have to understand is going to happen, not once, not

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Speaker 1: ten times, sixty million times, and we have to start

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Speaker 1: preparing for this right now. Listen to more Coast to

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Speaker 1: Coast AM every weeknight at one am Eastern, and go

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Speaker 1: to Coast to Coast am dot com for more