Martin Ford: How we'll earn money in a future without jobs
马丁·福德: 如果未来没有工作,我们将如何挣钱?
Martin Ford imagines what the accelerating progress in robotics and artificial intelligence may mean for the economy, job market and society of the future. Full bio
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a future without jobs?
of interest in this question,
that's been asked
might displace workers
to lots of unemployment
to the Luddite revolts in England.
has come up again and again.
heard of the Triple Revolution report,
by a brilliant group of people --
two Nobel laureates --
to the President of the United States,
of economic and social upheaval
was going to put millions of people
to President Lyndon Johnson
hasn't really happened.
of thinking about this.
entire industries.
and types of work.
to entirely new things.
that will arise in the future,
will have to hire people.
that will appear,
we can't really even imagine.
that have been created
a lot better than the old ones.
been more engaging.
more comfortable work environments,
have played out so far.
class of worker
has been quite different.
decimated their work,
any new opportunities at all.
point in the future,
workforce is going to be made redundant
reflexive reaction to that.
human beings to horses?"
and tractors came along,
are intelligent;
always find something new to do,
relevant to the future economy.
critical thing to understand.
workers in the future
and trucks and tractors
of thinking, learning, adapting machines.
beginning to encroach
so different from horses,
of the march of progress
to the economy.
this ongoing process
broad-based than that;
for example, to software,
bandwidth and so forth.
been going on for a really long time.
circuits were fabricated,
of 30 doublings in computational power
of times to double any quantity,
where we're going to see
of absolute progress,
to continue to also accelerate
to the coming years and decades,
that we're going to see things
that astonish us.
in a limited sense, beginning to think.
artificial intelligence;
are making decisions.
and most importantly, they're learning.
that is truly central to this
the driving force behind this,
this incredibly powerful,
I've seen of that recently
division was able to do
to beat the best player in the world
stand out about the game of Go.
that the board can be in
than there are atoms in the universe.
a computer to win at the game of Go
brute-force computational power at it.
thinking-like approach is needed.
that really stands out is that,
of the championship Go players,
even really articulate what exactly it is
as they play the game.
that's very intuitive,
about which move they should make.
at a world champion level
that's safe from automation,
raise a cautionary flag for us.
to draw a very distinct line,
are all the jobs and tasks
fundamentally routine and repetitive
might be in different industries,
and at different skill levels,
going to be susceptible
that's a lot of jobs.
on the order of roughly half
that require some capability
that we think are safe.
about the game of Go,
to be on the safe side of that line.
and that Google solved this problem,
to be very dynamic.
that consumes more and more jobs and tasks
as being safe from automation.
low-wage jobs or blue-collar jobs,
low levels of education.
climbing the skills ladder.
on professional jobs --
and tasks and jobs
by automation in the future
challenged going forward.
very well end up in a future
or stagnant wages,
of inequality.
a terrific amount of stress
a fundamental economic problem,
are currently the primary mechanism
and therefore purchasing power,
and services we're producing.
lots and lots of consumers
the products and services
then you run the risk
customers out there
and services being produced.
on access to that market economy
in terms of one really exceptional person.
say, Steve Jobs,
on an island all by himself.
to be running around,
anything special,
is that there is no market
his incredible talents across.
is really critical to us as individuals,
in terms of it being sustainable.
What exactly could we do about this?
through a very utopian framework.
where we all have to work less,
genuinely rewarding
absolutely strive to move toward.
we have to be realistic,
a significant income distribution problem.
to be left behind.
to solve that problem,
to have to find a way
way I know to do that
or universal basic income.
a very important idea.
of traction and attention,
pilot projects
throughout the world.
is not a panacea;
a plug-and-play solution,
build on and refine.
written quite a lot about
explicit incentives into a basic income.
high school student.
of dropping out of school.
that at some point in the future,
basic income as everyone else.
a very perverse incentive
and drop out of school.
structure things that way.
from high school somewhat more
incentives into a basic income,
an incentive to work in the community
things for the environment,
into a basic income,
a couple of steps
going to face in the future,
meaning and fulfillment,
there's less demand for traditional work?
a basic income,
more politically and socially acceptable
that it will actually come to be.
to the idea of a basic income,
expansion of the safety net,
with too many people
I'm making here, of course,
to be capable of pulling that cart for us.
our society and our economy,
beyond simply being an option,
is that all of this is going to put
begins to erode in the future,
it with something else
may not be sustainable.
is that I really think
to build a future economy
challenges that we all face
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Martin Ford - FuturistMartin Ford imagines what the accelerating progress in robotics and artificial intelligence may mean for the economy, job market and society of the future.
Why you should listen
Martin Ford was one of the first analysts to write compellingly about the future of work and economies in the face of the growing automation of everything. He sketches a future that's radically reshaped not just by robots but by the loss of the income-distributing power of human jobs. How will our economic systems need to adapt?
He's the author of two books: Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future (winner of the 2015 Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award ) and The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future, and he's the founder of a Silicon Valley-based software development firm. He has written about future technology and its implications for the New York Times, Fortune, Forbes, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Harvard Business Review and The Financial Times.
Martin Ford | Speaker | TED.com