WEBVTT

00:00:00.151 --> 00:00:06.087
Bryn Freedman: You're a guy whose company
funds these AI programs and invests.

00:00:06.111 --> 00:00:11.156
So why should we trust you
to not have a bias

00:00:11.180 --> 00:00:14.356
and tell us something really useful
for the rest of us

00:00:14.380 --> 00:00:16.684
about the future of work?

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:17.046 --> 00:00:18.537
Roy Bahat: Yes, I am.

00:00:18.561 --> 00:00:21.549
And when you wake up in the morning
and you read the newspaper

00:00:21.573 --> 00:00:25.022
and it says, "The robots are coming,
they may take all our jobs,"

00:00:25.046 --> 00:00:27.577
as a start-up investor
focused on the future of work,

00:00:27.601 --> 00:00:29.918
our fund was the first one to say

00:00:29.942 --> 00:00:32.252
artificial intelligence
should be a focus for us.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:32.276 --> 00:00:34.529
So I woke up one morning
and read that and said,

00:00:34.553 --> 00:00:38.000
"Oh, my gosh, they're talking about me.
That's me who's doing that."

00:00:38.839 --> 00:00:40.863
And then I thought: wait a minute.

00:00:40.887 --> 00:00:43.299
If things continue,

00:00:43.323 --> 00:00:48.577
then maybe not only will the start-ups
in which we invest struggle

00:00:48.601 --> 00:00:51.162
because there won't be people to have jobs

00:00:51.186 --> 00:00:54.048
to pay for the things
that they make and buy them,

00:00:54.072 --> 00:00:56.989
but our economy and society
might struggle, too.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:57.013 --> 00:01:00.234
And look, I should be the guy
who sits here and tells you,

00:01:00.258 --> 00:01:03.389
"Everything is going to be fine.
It's all going to work out great.

00:01:03.413 --> 00:01:05.445
Hey, when they introduced the ATM machine,

00:01:05.469 --> 00:01:07.605
years later, there's more
tellers in banks."

00:01:07.629 --> 00:01:08.787
It's true.

00:01:08.811 --> 00:01:12.127
And yet, when I looked at it, I thought,
"This is going to accelerate.

00:01:12.151 --> 00:01:15.411
And if it does accelerate,
there's a chance the center doesn't hold."

00:01:15.435 --> 00:01:17.918
But I figured somebody must know
the answer to this;

00:01:17.942 --> 00:01:19.617
there are so many ideas out there.

00:01:19.641 --> 00:01:22.695
And I read all the books,
and I went to the conferences,

00:01:22.719 --> 00:01:28.363
and at one point, we counted more than
100 efforts to study the future of work.

00:01:28.387 --> 00:01:31.244
And it was a frustrating experience,

00:01:31.268 --> 00:01:35.283
because I'd hear the same back-and-forth
over and over again:

00:01:35.307 --> 00:01:37.085
"The robots are coming!"

00:01:37.109 --> 00:01:38.712
And then somebody else would say,

00:01:38.736 --> 00:01:42.300
"Oh, don't worry about that, they've
always said that and it turns out OK."

00:01:42.324 --> 00:01:43.713
Then somebody else would say,

00:01:43.737 --> 00:01:46.469
"Well, it's really about the meaning
of your job, anyway."

00:01:46.493 --> 00:01:49.276
And then everybody would shrug
and go off and have a drink.

00:01:49.300 --> 00:01:52.402
And it felt like there was this
Kabuki theater of this discussion,

00:01:52.426 --> 00:01:54.301
where nobody was talking to each other.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:54.325 --> 00:01:57.811
And many of the people that I knew
and worked with in the technology world

00:01:57.835 --> 00:01:59.510
were not speaking to policy makers;

00:01:59.534 --> 00:02:01.603
the policy makers
were not speaking to them.

00:02:01.627 --> 00:02:05.809
And so we partnered with a nonpartisan
think tank NGO called New America

00:02:05.833 --> 00:02:07.166
to study this issue.

00:02:07.190 --> 00:02:09.538
And we brought together a group of people,

00:02:09.562 --> 00:02:12.992
including an AI czar
at a technology company

00:02:13.016 --> 00:02:14.888
and a video game designer

00:02:14.912 --> 00:02:16.395
and a heartland conservative

00:02:16.419 --> 00:02:17.663
and a Wall Street investor

00:02:17.687 --> 00:02:19.647
and a socialist magazine editor --

00:02:19.671 --> 00:02:22.639
literally, all in the same room;
it was occasionally awkward --

00:02:22.663 --> 00:02:25.244
to try to figure out
what is it that will happen here.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:25.268 --> 00:02:28.088
The question we asked was simple.

00:02:28.704 --> 00:02:32.117
It was: What is the effect of technology
on work going to be?

00:02:32.141 --> 00:02:33.768
And we looked out 10 to 20 years,

00:02:33.792 --> 00:02:37.276
because we wanted to look out far enough
that there could be real change,

00:02:37.300 --> 00:02:41.269
but soon enough that we weren't talking
about teleportation or anything like that.

00:02:41.293 --> 00:02:42.671
And we recognized --

00:02:42.695 --> 00:02:45.744
and I think every year
we're reminded of this in the world --

00:02:45.768 --> 00:02:47.975
that predicting what's
going to happen is hard.

00:02:47.999 --> 00:02:50.855
So instead of predicting,
there are other things you can do.

00:02:50.879 --> 00:02:53.675
You can try to imagine
alternate possible futures,

00:02:53.699 --> 00:02:54.851
which is what we did.

00:02:54.875 --> 00:02:56.633
We did a scenario-planning exercise,

00:02:56.657 --> 00:02:59.723
and we imagined cases
where no job is safe.

00:02:59.747 --> 00:03:02.850
We imagined cases where every job is safe.

00:03:02.874 --> 00:03:06.913
And we imagined every
distinct possibility we could.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:06.937 --> 00:03:10.220
And the result, which really surprised us,

00:03:10.244 --> 00:03:13.942
was when you think through those futures
and you think what should we do,

00:03:13.966 --> 00:03:17.881
the answers about what we should do
actually turn out to be the same,

00:03:17.905 --> 00:03:19.401
no matter what happens.

00:03:19.425 --> 00:03:23.167
And the irony of looking out
10 to 20 years into the future is,

00:03:23.191 --> 00:03:25.600
you realize that the things
we want to act on

00:03:25.624 --> 00:03:27.585
are actually already happening right now.

00:03:27.609 --> 00:03:30.395
The automation is right now,
the future is right now.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:30.419 --> 00:03:33.014
BF: So what does that mean,
and what does that tell us?

00:03:33.038 --> 00:03:35.736
If the future is now, what is it
that we should be doing,

00:03:35.760 --> 00:03:37.630
and what should we be thinking about?

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:37.654 --> 00:03:39.734
RB: We have to understand
the problem first.

00:03:39.758 --> 00:03:43.797
And so the data are that as the economy
becomes more productive

00:03:43.821 --> 00:03:45.966
and individual workers
become more productive,

00:03:45.990 --> 00:03:47.252
their wages haven't risen.

00:03:47.276 --> 00:03:50.466
If you look at the proportion
of prime working-age men,

00:03:50.490 --> 00:03:51.982
in the United States at least,

00:03:52.006 --> 00:03:55.755
who work now versus in 1960,

00:03:55.779 --> 00:03:58.247
we have three times
as many men not working.

00:03:58.271 --> 00:03:59.715
And then you hear the stories.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:59.739 --> 00:04:02.178
I sat down with a group
of Walmart workers and said,

00:04:02.202 --> 00:04:05.845
"What do you think about this cashier,
this futuristic self-checkout thing?"

00:04:05.869 --> 00:04:09.074
They said, "That's nice, but have
you heard about the cash recycler?

00:04:09.098 --> 00:04:11.471
That's a machine that's being
installed right now,

00:04:11.495 --> 00:04:14.132
and is eliminating two jobs
at every Walmart right now."

00:04:14.156 --> 00:04:17.199
And so we just thought, "Geez. We don't
understand the problem."

00:04:17.223 --> 00:04:20.501
And so we looked at the voices
that were the ones that were excluded,

00:04:20.525 --> 00:04:23.125
which is all of the people
affected by this change.

00:04:23.149 --> 00:04:24.736
And we decided to listen to them,

00:04:24.760 --> 00:04:26.744
sort of "automation and its discontents."

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:26.768 --> 00:04:29.171
And I've spent the last
couple of years doing that.

00:04:29.195 --> 00:04:31.591
I've been to Flint, Michigan,
and Youngstown, Ohio,

00:04:31.615 --> 00:04:34.046
talking about entrepreneurs,
trying to make it work

00:04:34.070 --> 00:04:37.018
in a very different environment
from New York or San Francisco

00:04:37.042 --> 00:04:38.527
or London or Tokyo.

00:04:38.551 --> 00:04:40.148
I've been to prisons twice

00:04:40.172 --> 00:04:43.053
to talk to inmates about
their jobs after they leave.

00:04:43.077 --> 00:04:46.824
I've sat down with truck drivers
to ask them about the self-driving truck,

00:04:46.848 --> 00:04:49.302
with people who, in addition
to their full-time job,

00:04:49.326 --> 00:04:51.110
care for an aging relative.

00:04:51.134 --> 00:04:52.698
And when you talk to people,

00:04:52.722 --> 00:04:55.673
there were two themes
that came out loud and clear.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:56.285 --> 00:05:01.129
The first one was that people
are less looking for more money

00:05:01.153 --> 00:05:04.431
or get out of the fear
of the robot taking their job,

00:05:04.455 --> 00:05:06.351
and they just want something stable.

00:05:06.375 --> 00:05:07.915
They want something predictable.

00:05:07.939 --> 00:05:11.614
So if you survey people and ask them
what they want out of work,

00:05:11.638 --> 00:05:15.118
for everybody who makes
less than 150,000 dollars a year,

00:05:15.142 --> 00:05:18.498
they'll take a more stable
and secure income, on average,

00:05:18.522 --> 00:05:20.387
over earning more money.

00:05:20.411 --> 00:05:22.625
And if you think about the fact that

00:05:22.649 --> 00:05:26.037
not only for all of the people
across the earth who don't earn a living,

00:05:26.061 --> 00:05:27.252
but for those who do,

00:05:27.276 --> 00:05:30.236
the vast majority earn a different
amount from month to month

00:05:30.260 --> 00:05:31.474
and have an instability,

00:05:31.498 --> 00:05:32.895
all of a sudden you realize,

00:05:32.919 --> 00:05:35.417
"Wait a minute. We have
a real problem on our hands."

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:35.441 --> 00:05:39.164
And the second thing they say,
which took us a longer time to understand,

00:05:39.188 --> 00:05:41.566
is they say they want dignity.

00:05:41.894 --> 00:05:47.006
And that concept
of self-worth through work

00:05:47.030 --> 00:05:49.641
emerged again and again and again
in our conversations.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:49.665 --> 00:05:52.649
BF: So, I certainly
appreciate this answer.

00:05:52.673 --> 00:05:54.144
But you can't eat dignity,

00:05:54.168 --> 00:05:57.053
you can't clothe your children
with self-esteem.

00:05:57.077 --> 00:06:00.565
So, what is that, how do you reconcile --

00:06:00.589 --> 00:06:02.430
what does dignity mean,

00:06:02.454 --> 00:06:06.117
and what is the relationship
between dignity and stability?

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:06.141 --> 00:06:08.625
RB: You can't eat dignity.
You need stability first.

00:06:08.649 --> 00:06:09.887
And the good news is,

00:06:09.911 --> 00:06:12.666
many of the conversations
that are happening right now

00:06:12.690 --> 00:06:14.252
are about how we solve that.

00:06:14.276 --> 00:06:18.141
You know, I'm a proponent
of studying guaranteed income,

00:06:18.165 --> 00:06:19.442
as one example,

00:06:19.466 --> 00:06:21.754
conversations about how
health care gets provided

00:06:21.778 --> 00:06:23.017
and other benefits.

00:06:23.041 --> 00:06:24.818
Those conversations are happening,

00:06:24.842 --> 00:06:27.238
and we're at a time
where we must figure that out.

00:06:27.262 --> 00:06:28.903
It is the crisis of our era.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:28.927 --> 00:06:31.839
And my point of view
after talking to people

00:06:31.863 --> 00:06:33.903
is that we may do that,

00:06:33.927 --> 00:06:35.507
and it still might not be enough.

00:06:35.531 --> 00:06:38.338
Because what we need to do
from the beginning is understand

00:06:38.362 --> 00:06:40.602
what is it about work
that gives people dignity,

00:06:40.626 --> 00:06:43.966
so they can live the lives
that they want to live.

00:06:43.990 --> 00:06:48.005
And so that concept of dignity is ...

00:06:48.029 --> 00:06:49.961
it's difficult to get your hands around,

00:06:49.985 --> 00:06:53.584
because when many people hear it --
especially, to be honest, rich people --

00:06:53.608 --> 00:06:54.764
they hear "meaning."

00:06:54.788 --> 00:06:56.694
They hear "My work is important to me."

00:06:56.718 --> 00:07:00.355
And again, if you survey people
and you ask them,

00:07:00.379 --> 00:07:03.879
"How important is it to you
that your work be important to you?"

00:07:03.903 --> 00:07:07.204
only people who make
150,000 dollars a year or more

00:07:07.228 --> 00:07:11.451
say that it is important to them
that their work be important.

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:12.050 --> 00:07:13.275
BF: Meaning, meaningful?

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:13.744 --> 00:07:16.621
RB: Just defined as,
"Is your work important to you?"

00:07:17.950 --> 00:07:19.666
Whatever somebody took that to mean.

00:07:19.690 --> 00:07:21.604
And yet, of course dignity is essential.

00:07:21.628 --> 00:07:23.348
We talked to truck drivers who said,

00:07:23.372 --> 00:07:27.336
"I saw my cousin drive, and I got
on the open road and it was amazing.

00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:30.430
And I started making more money
than people who went to college."

00:07:30.454 --> 00:07:33.628
Then they'd get to the end
of their thought and say something like,

00:07:33.652 --> 00:07:36.297
"People need their fruits
and vegetables in the morning,

00:07:36.321 --> 00:07:38.120
and I'm the guy who gets it to them."

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:38.144 --> 00:07:41.684
We talked to somebody who, in addition
to his job, was caring for his aunt.

00:07:41.708 --> 00:07:43.207
He was making plenty of money.

00:07:43.231 --> 00:07:44.548
At one point we just asked,

00:07:44.572 --> 00:07:48.834
"What is it about caring for your aunt?
Can't you just pay somebody to do it?"

00:07:48.858 --> 00:07:51.351
He said, "My aunt doesn't want
somebody we pay for.

00:07:51.375 --> 00:07:52.577
My aunt wants me."

00:07:52.601 --> 00:07:56.268
So there was this concept there
of being needed.

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:56.292 --> 00:07:58.749
If you study the word
"dignity," it's fascinating.

00:07:58.773 --> 00:08:02.048
It's one of the oldest words
in the English language, from antiquity.

00:08:02.072 --> 00:08:03.224
And it has two meanings:

00:08:03.248 --> 00:08:04.402
one is self-worth,

00:08:04.426 --> 00:08:08.653
and the other is that something
is suitable, it's fitting,

00:08:08.677 --> 00:08:11.535
meaning that you're part
of something greater than yourself,

00:08:11.559 --> 00:08:13.382
and it connects to some broader whole.

00:08:13.406 --> 00:08:15.123
In other words, that you're needed.

NOTE Paragraph

00:08:15.147 --> 00:08:17.021
BF: So how do you answer this question,

00:08:17.045 --> 00:08:19.095
this concept that we don't pay teachers,

00:08:19.119 --> 00:08:21.387
and we don't pay eldercare workers,

00:08:21.411 --> 00:08:24.537
and we don't pay people
who really care for people

00:08:24.561 --> 00:08:26.847
and are needed, enough?

NOTE Paragraph

00:08:26.871 --> 00:08:30.053
RB: Well, the good news is,
people are finally asking the question.

00:08:30.077 --> 00:08:32.380
So as AI investors,
we often get phone calls

00:08:32.404 --> 00:08:35.134
from foundations or CEOs
and boardrooms saying,

00:08:35.158 --> 00:08:36.463
"What do we do about this?"

00:08:36.487 --> 00:08:37.796
And they used to be asking,

00:08:37.820 --> 00:08:39.932
"What do we do about
introducing automation?"

00:08:39.956 --> 00:08:42.654
And now they're asking,
"What do we do about self-worth?"

00:08:42.678 --> 00:08:45.101
And they know that the employees
who work for them

00:08:45.125 --> 00:08:47.371
who have a spouse who cares for somebody,

00:08:47.395 --> 00:08:50.918
that dignity is essential
to their ability to just do their job.

NOTE Paragraph

00:08:50.942 --> 00:08:52.718
I think there's two kinds of answers:

00:08:52.742 --> 00:08:55.268
there's the money side
of just making your life work.

00:08:55.292 --> 00:08:57.617
That's stability. You need to eat.

00:08:57.641 --> 00:08:59.978
And then you think about
our culture more broadly,

00:09:00.002 --> 00:09:02.680
and you ask: Who do we make into heroes?

00:09:02.704 --> 00:09:07.164
And, you know, what I want
is to see the magazine cover

00:09:07.188 --> 00:09:09.940
that is the person
who is the heroic caregiver.

00:09:10.292 --> 00:09:13.022
Or the Netflix series
that dramatizes the person

00:09:13.046 --> 00:09:16.283
who makes all of our other lives work
so we can do the things we do.

00:09:16.307 --> 00:09:18.130
Let's make heroes out of those people.

00:09:18.154 --> 00:09:20.187
That's the Netflix show
that I would binge.

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:20.211 --> 00:09:22.490
And we've had chroniclers
of this before --

00:09:22.514 --> 00:09:23.728
Studs Terkel,

00:09:23.752 --> 00:09:27.458
the oral history of the working
experience in the United States.

00:09:27.482 --> 00:09:30.634
And what we need is the experience
of needing one another

00:09:30.658 --> 00:09:32.283
and being connected to each other.

00:09:32.307 --> 00:09:35.347
Maybe that's the answer
for how we all fit as a society.

00:09:35.371 --> 00:09:37.093
And the thought exercise, to me, is:

00:09:37.117 --> 00:09:39.695
if you were to go back 100 years
and have people --

00:09:39.719 --> 00:09:43.490
my grandparents, great-grandparents,
a tailor, worked in a mine --

00:09:43.514 --> 00:09:47.339
they look at what all of us do
for a living and say, "That's not work."

00:09:47.363 --> 00:09:51.132
We sit there and type and talk,
and there's no danger of getting hurt.

00:09:51.526 --> 00:09:55.017
And my guess is that if you were
to imagine 100 years from now,

00:09:55.041 --> 00:09:57.053
we'll still be doing things
for each other.

00:09:57.077 --> 00:09:58.483
We'll still need one another.

00:09:58.507 --> 00:10:00.514
And we just will think of it as work.

NOTE Paragraph

00:10:00.538 --> 00:10:02.212
The entire thing I'm trying to say

00:10:02.236 --> 00:10:05.109
is that dignity should not
just be about having a job.

00:10:05.133 --> 00:10:07.990
Because if you say
you need a job to have dignity,

00:10:08.014 --> 00:10:09.458
which many people say,

00:10:09.482 --> 00:10:12.299
the second you say that,
you say to all the parents

00:10:12.323 --> 00:10:14.768
and all the teachers
and all the caregivers

00:10:14.792 --> 00:10:15.966
that all of a sudden,

00:10:15.990 --> 00:10:18.537
because they're not being paid
for what they're doing,

00:10:18.561 --> 00:10:20.854
it somehow lacks this
essential human quality.

00:10:20.878 --> 00:10:22.982
To me, that's the great
puzzle of our time:

00:10:23.006 --> 00:10:26.117
Can we figure out how to provide
that stability throughout life,

00:10:26.141 --> 00:10:28.674
and then can we figure out
how to create an inclusive,

00:10:28.698 --> 00:10:32.965
not just racially, gender,
but multigenerationally inclusive --

00:10:32.989 --> 00:10:37.868
I mean, every different
human experience included --

00:10:37.892 --> 00:10:41.095
in this way of understanding
how we can be needed by one another.

NOTE Paragraph

00:10:41.119 --> 00:10:42.485
BF: Thank you.
RB: Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:10:42.509 --> 00:10:44.706
BF: Thank you very much
for your participation.

NOTE Paragraph

00:10:44.730 --> 00:10:45.880
(Applause)