 Mae'r union cyntaf yw'r unig. Mae'r union cyntaf yw'r unig? Mae'r union cyntaf yw'r unig? Mae hyd o'r union o'r union cyntaf? Rwy'n caeth arnynded i'r union cyfrannu? Mae'r union cyfrannu? Mae hwn o'n cyfrannu? Mae'r union cyfrannu? Mae hi yn cael i gyd? Mae hynny'n ceisio gilydd Simon. GŰnt ar wahid feddwl chi'n cyfrannu. Mae hefyd yn ysgolion i ni gymdeithasol. Mae hynny'n cyfrannu arnynni. Mae'r union cyfrannu. robo jobs. Then I can get a sense from you in a moment of what you're thinking is on the motion that we have before us this morning. We're going to be doing this for no more than one hour and don't leave before the end please because I want to know if you've changed your point of view and if you're not in the room. I can't actually know whether you have changed your point of view. So let me introduce our participants this morning, both for and against, against the motion. We have just we have we have two speakers. First of all, we have who's a Manuel Salazar welcome. You are the Assistant Director General for Policy International Labour Organization, formerly the Minister for Foreign Trade in Costa Rica. Welcome and against the motion as well is Lord Adair Turner. Welcome Adair who is currently senior fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking in the United Kingdom and relevant to this discussion is that he was chair of what in Britain is called the Low Pay Commission, which sets payment for workers at a certain level in the market. Speaking for the motion and I'll tell you what the motion is in a moment is Justine Cassell. Welcome who is the Director of Human Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. And you may notice actually that there's one person missing at the moment who hasn't yet quite arrived. But I'd like to introduce coming in here. He is Eric because this is about smart jobs and smart work. Welcome Eric Eric is joining us from MIT. Eric is the Director of the MIT initiative on the digital economy. Notice he's checked in with a badge because he's not wearing a tie. I insisted that the arrival should be accompanied by a tie. Welcome Eric. Can you hear us? Thank you Dick it's a real pleasure to be here. Right he will be looking in your direction as well but Eric I want to first of all thank you and turn around and face the people behind you as well to show that you are a fully mobile smart worker. There you are that's Eric in MIT at the moment. Now the debate is about smart machines will make workers better off so we have those for the motion and those against the motion. I'd like now to know what you are thinking at the moment are smart machines making workers better off. Can you go on your tablet or your iPad or whatever you've got and just vote with whatever you can see and I'll give you that result in a moment. The motion is smart machines will make workers better off. Can you vote now please and we'll see that result in a moment. Let me help you. Form of view because we're talking about economists arguing in the past that technological innovation would serve us all individual workers may suffer but new and usually better uses are found for the workforce as a whole and history largely supports the claim according to McKinsey's of the global Institute all but one 10 year rolling period since 1929 has recorded increases in both U.S. productivity and employment but in the aftermath of the economic crisis unemployment remains stubbornly high in many countries. So technology technology improving what is the impact on smart jobs and jobs are the jobs better ones that didn't always seem to be better ones and the gap in the U.S. between averaging common media alley wages has grown since the 1970s. So again that question about smart machines liberating our labor force or do they leave us unemployed that motion is smart machines will make workers better off. Have you all voted please. Can we see the result please do we have it. What are you thinking at the moment is it coming. Yes or no Adele. Okay. There it is Eric I'm not sure you can see it so I'm going to read it all the motion is that smart machines will make workers a better off agreeing 61% disagreeing 39% so at the moment you have a fair win behind you but you've got 39% of those in this room to convince with your argument. So the rules of the game of this that each of the four speakers has no more than five minutes to put their case first for them against them for an against and then all of you in the room have a chance to offer your thoughts about this motion speaking for them no more than a minute each. So Eric from MIT we can see you we can hear you you have five minutes to speak for the motion go ahead. Thank you Mr going fellow debaters on and guess it is my great pleasure and honor to be here even if only be a robot. I'm here to argue for the motion smart machines make workers better off. You know 200 years ago in 1814 the Luddites smashed the weaving machines because they thought that they would hurt workers and surprising number of people who should have known better agreed with them back then. This was a supreme irony because there's only been one force in history that has consistently improved a lot workers and that is technology. Today despite 200 years of history and lessons some people continue to make the same mistake even the same mistake even here in the heart of China where more people have been lifted out of poverty at a faster rate than even during the industrial revolution and they've been lifted out of poverty because of the power of technology. The motion before us is smart machines can make work will make workers better off note that the motion does not say it will instantly liberate all workers or that there will be some bumps and setbacks along the way but the question is ultimately whether workers will be made better off and the answer is yes. Let me explain why for thousands of years most workers were literally slaves or serfs that was the opposite of better off living standards were stagnant year after year decade after decade century after century and then something remarkable happened in 1780 living standards began to improve and soon they were growing exponentially doubling every 35 years eight fold every century and today the average worker is 100 times richer than his ancestors were 230 years ago as an economist. I consider this the most remarkable thing in history and the best thing for workers in human history and why did it happen one word technology in other words better machines the Nobel Prize winner Bob Solo showed that it was not by working harder that workers improve their lots or from the kindness of kings or emperors or bosses or capitalists that workers lots improved the reason they're lots improved was because of technology now the technology of the industrial revolution mainly overcame the limitations of our muscles first the steam engine and then other technologies like the internal combustion engine and electricity today a new wave of technology is doing the same thing for our minds computers software big data machine learning they're unleashing incredible intellectual power in who McAfee and I call this a second machine age and it is creating a new inflection point in human history every bit as important as the industrial revolution that liberated so many workers today productivity wealth and GDP are all at record highs they've never been better poverty rates have fallen faster in the past 20 years than ever before and there's a real chance that the next 20 years they will completely eliminate severe poverty worldwide think how remarkable that is what's more there are enormous benefits that don't show off in the official economic statistics. I'm curious how many people in this room have some kind of a GPS device that they use that gives them turn by turn driving directions please raise your hands if you have such a device GPS GPS I would say Eric not with you but looking around if you can hear me that almost everyone is everyone and how many people had a device like that 10 years ago. No hands have got at one hand has gone on nobody. Maybe one over there. Okay, yeah sure. Justine. And why is that possible? It's because technologies improved so much and we now have those devices built in for free in our smartphones and they don't even count as part of the improvements in GDP because they're given to us virtually for free. Not only that but phones can now help diagnose cancer you can take pictures of dangerous moles and they are providing benefits and all sorts of other dimensions. There's a technology called CPAP that diagnosis cancer better than human diagnosticians. There are now self driving cars and within a decade there will be widespread on roads. They will help eliminate 1.2 million auto deaths per year including up to 200,000 of them here in China. Now has the path always been smooth? Of course not. It's been very bumpy. There have been depressions, recessions and setbacks but the tip today better off than the kings or robber barons of a century ago. Now the last 10 years in fairness have been especially tough. We've had a very bad recession worldwide and as I wrote in my own book, the second machine age and the earlier book race against the machine, median incomes fell and employment population ratio fell. Smart machines have helped millions but they haven't repealed the business cycle but that's because the full benefits of technology require changes in our institutions. In the industrial revolution we invented public education and the income tax. Today we're going to have to reinvent education and create new income support systems like guaranteed basic income. Technology can make the pie bigger. It can liberate workers. In fact it's the only thing that ever has in history. I believe the arc of history is long and it bends towards better lives and the best hope by far for workers is more and better technology like smart machines. Thank you very much. Eric, thank you. So then ladies and gentlemen, you've heard the first voice for the motion with a very clear underscoring of the value of technology to creating jobs. Jose Manuel Salazar, you're speaking against the motion. The floor is yours for five minutes. Thank you, Mr Gawing and fellow panellist and dear participants. I agree with a lot of what Mr Wil Johnson has said and has said also in his books that smart machines are creating a new technological and industrial revolution and boosting productivity in many sectors that this industrial revolution is completely different from past ones and that we live in an age of exponential technologies and it is only actually the beginning that this change is happening across a very broad front and also that the defining characteristic now is that while the first machine is substituting for human muscle, the present one is based on computers and that increasingly used abilities that used to be uniquely human. And of course we are all excited by the innovations and the promise of the brave new world or smart machines, but there are also very strong downsides. If you look into the economics of the acceleration of technology, I see a dashboard full of red lights and needles moving in the wrong direction. Problem number one is that productivity increases are very heterogeneous between sectors and between countries with some sectors experiencing dramatic productivity increases and some countries of course being leading leaders in productivity while in many other sectors and countries productivity is stagnant. So productivity increases brought about by the smart machines are not lifting all boats equally. In fact many of them are lagging behind. Problem number two is that smart machines are massively substituting for workers and are therefore aggravating unemployment. True technological change complements the work of many workers, but these are mostly the high skill workers and in the big picture of things they are the minority. If you are an on-skill worker or a worker engaged in routine work easily automated you will not be complemented. You will be substituted and your job will be terminated. And as you very well know the vast majority of workers in the world today are on-skill workers doing routine work. Now this is not to deny that new jobs will be created by the new technological revolution. It is happening all around us but they will not be nearly enough anytime soon to absorb the large masses of on-skill workers particularly if you think also of the new generations coming and look at the levels of youth unemployment in the world. For instance think that the whole smart machine phenomenon in Bangalore India has created around one million jobs while the large majority of India's labor force of more than 600 million people live in poverty and will not join the smart machine revolution anytime soon. Think also that out of the around 600,000 workers needed to produce Apple products in the world only 60,000 are direct Apple employees mostly highly skilled in the United States. Most of the 600,000 are in China and by the way they are rapidly being substituted by robots. Recent research from Oxford concluded on 47% of total US employment that is around half of the US labor force is at risk of being substituted for machines. So this time is really different job destruction is advancing much faster than job creation. In fact this is the major factor behind the so-called great decoupling between growth and jobs. Lord Turner is going to refer I think to job polarization and other downsides. Let me finish by saying that even for the skilled workers the promise is not necessarily an utopian paradise. There will be lousy jobs also for some of them. The boundaries between work and life and between public life and private life will continue to dissolve thanks to the smart machines. It is true that the new technologies offer new possibilities of working from home or from more convenient locations. They also offer more autonomy over how working time is organized and a whole new world of online marketplaces is emerging and all of this can be liberating or make many people better off. But there are also downsides. The new ICT technologies allow work anytime and anywhere. But they can also result in workers working at every time and everywhere. In fact I think you asked for smart phones to be turned off now but these are just short periods. There is also evidence that workers who telework on a regular basis work longer hours and have more frequently changing work schedules. So even for the high skilled and the privileged new technologies pose important challenges for work quality and work life balance. So what I'm saying is that the new industrial revolution will bring good and bad effects on labour markets but that the good will be concentrated on a few while the bad will be widely spread. The rising tide of technology is not going to make everybody better off left alone and this is very important left alone the outcome will be a small minority of huge winners and a vast number of losers. Of course we can talk about policies that can mitigate and try to compensate some of the strengths but what I'm saying is the trend of technological impact itself is full of this negative impacts and it is better to reason and to see and recognize this to devise appropriate policy responses from governments enterprises and individuals. Thank you. Jose Manuel Salazar the first voice against the motion. So we've heard two voices for and against. Let's hear the second voices the seconders of this motion. Let me introduce now Justine Kessel who is director of human computer interaction the Institute there at Carnegie Mellon a reminder that some of you can contribute as well after we've heard these four opening speeches. Justine the floor is yours for five minutes. Thank you very much. I agree with some of what Jose has said and and I'm going to come back to that notion but I want to remind the audience that while we've heard from two economists I'm here to speak as a technologist and this notion of smart machine has until this point in the debate gone unexamined but we have an example of the kind of smart machine that my colleague suggests is going to uniformly destroy jobs. Here is the best the newest the most important smart machine. Now it's it has in fact liberated the workers already Eric was able to stay in Boston and join us here at the same time. It also almost caused the machine to lose all of its abilities destroying thousands of dollars worth of equipment because it wasn't able to get on a stage and so in some sense I could really rest my case because if this is the smart machine that's going to take away our jobs we really don't need to worry so much. It's a joke amongst roboticists that while there is widespread fear about a robot revolution really all anybody need do is stand in the middle of a puddle because when the robot approaches the puddle it'll short circuit and that'll be the end of the revolution. So I think we need to take apart this notion of smart machines and also take seriously where the fear comes from at every world economic forum event that I've been invited to for the last four years I've been asked to speak to the fears of robots taking our jobs the fears of a robot revolution of them destroying our lives and to my mind that comes from a kind of xenophobia a kind of fear of the other that is somewhat like us and somewhat not like us. It's a very old vision. It's an unexamined vision and it's been unexamined for a very long time. Remember that in the short story the Sandman more than a hundred years ago it was argued that automata those figures that are around this tall and run by clockworks were going to become so similar to humans in their aspect and their behavior that men would no longer be able to tell if their wives were human or clockwork machines that vision hasn't come to pass and I don't think that this vision is going to come to pass either. I also think that at this point in the debate we need to examine the contrary of this motion the opposite that is Will smart machines make workers worse off if we believe that that's a concrete possibility then we should stop developing them right now and you could all help by turning off your computers and your smartphones but you can't and you haven't been able to in any session that I've sat through so we don't really seem to have much of a choice. We don't have a future without smart machines because we're on that path. We do however have a choice as to what those smart machines are going to be. Norbert Wiener had the same fear in the 1940s. Norbert Wiener who's the father of cybernetics a faculty member at MIT in 1949 wrote a letter to the head of the car makers labor union in Detroit. It's an extraordinary letter and I have it here afterwards for anyone who'd like to look at it. He said if our only standard is profit automation will lead us to levels of economic disruption that will make the great depression seem a pleasant joke. He wrote this in 1949. Of course the 1950s and the 1960s saw unparalleled economic advantage and not economic disruption that made the great depression seem a pleasant joke. Today again we see economists and in fact Eric has really argued both sides of the equation but Eric himself as well as economists like Sacks and Kotlachov have suggested that one of the ways that smart machines are going to destroy the quality of life of labor is to depress the salary of laborers so supremely that they can't invest in better jobs they can't invest in the retraining or the education that will result in better jobs. However that analysis was done before in the last year or 18 months new kinds of educational technology have offered free education to virtually everybody in the world and so I think the most disruptive smart machine that we have in front of us is the MOOC the massive online open course. Now the MOOC in its current instantiation is by no means perfect but it is open. So I would say that as in the past where film strips in the classroom were introduced to educate returning soldiers after the Second World War where computers in the classroom were result of vocational training to retrain after technological disruption MOOCs today are going to allow workers to retrain for jobs that do afford a better quality of life as Eric has argued when jobs when machines substitute for muscles we need jobs that stimulate brains as a technologist finally I have to argue that we have a choice technologies don't construct themselves and they won't it is our job as citizens and certainly as technologists to vote for really what constitutes smart technologies in artificial intelligence today which is technologies that collaborate with people. Those of you who attended the robot revolution talk just a couple of days ago heard Manuela Velloso talk about the newest generation of robot that is a robot that collaborates with people. Crowd sourcing is another example recapture that at the same time gives us security for websites and puts old manuscripts online eternal that folds proteins and plays games with children. So I would summarize by saying that only if we allow the development of truly smart machines if we don't turn off our cell phones and our computers but we allow what really is the development of a better smart machine will we truly liberate workers will we make them better off. Thank you. Thank you Justine so we've now heard two voices for the motion and one against and the second voice against the motion is Lord Adair Turner Adair Turner the floor is yours. Imagine that 25 years ago somebody had managed to discover some magic words and those magic words enabled you to say abracadabra John one two three and you were talking to John at the other end of the world. What would be the economic impact of that well provided the inventor was clever enough to make sure they got the intellectual property right. She would end up as the richest person in the world. Her intellectual property lawyers would be pretty rich as well and her party good party organizers and her luxury good providers and she would probably employ lots and lots of people are cleaning a house and looking after her garden. But as I have described it would be nobody else actually involved in the process of mobile telephony because of eyes described its its complete magic now modern information and communication technology is not complete magic but it is such a powerful technology that it is far closer to it than the technologies of the electromechanical age. We are able to create enormous amounts of economic value with extraordinary few people when general motors was the biggest company on earth. It employed a million people Microsoft only employees 100,000 Google only 50,000 Facebook only 6000. These are drops in the ocean of the labor market of the world. Now is t t I C T has two extraordinary features the doubling of the fundamental productivity of the hardware every two years and the zero marginal cost of the replication of software. That's what makes it unique and Eric has written about that. I believe that that has enormous positive potential for humanity but we will have to have interventions to make sure all share in it because left to itself this is going to have a very unequal result. I am not worried about a lack of jobs. I think if you have flexible labor markets and flexible real wages you will create jobs, but I think it is very important to realize that the jobs that are going to grow are not in the high tech areas themselves. They are in what I call the high touch areas everything that you can't automate look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics forecast for the next 10 years of jobs. There is a list of 30 of one of the big categories of job creation. Only one of those software and applications development is remotely high tech plus 140,000. The big quantities are in personal care aids, home health aids, janitors and cleaners, maids and housekeeping, food preparation and service workers. In total in the American economy there are less than four million people in total in all computer and IT and maths related occupations. There are 23 million in the combination of food preparation, buildings, maintenance and cleaning and personal care aids. That's where the jobs will come from because that's inevitable. We automate away manufacturing, we automate away clerical tasks. We only need a small number of people to be the very clever people who create the applications and the jobs. Everybody else will get jobs but the crucial issue is at what wage rate. Now Eric argued that in the long run and he's right eventually technology makes us richer but it can be the very long run. There are economic historians who have suggested and I think they have a good argument that if you look at the whole of the first half of the 19th century 1800 to 1850 British workers in the industrial revan the early industrial revolution received no increase in real wages for 50 years. Indeed many of them received a reduction. So yes there were Luddites Eric but actually those weavers they were worse off and all of the return went to capital and skilled labor. The impact of technologies is not the same. It depends upon the particular nature of the technology, the pace of technology, the marginal cost and the fixed cost. It depends on the nature of the elasticity of substitution of capital and labor. It depends on the complementarity of skilled labor with capital. It varies over time and there is something about this particular technology which I think is more likely than previous technologies to have an unequalising effect. I think that's absolutely clear at the top. Facebook a company worth $170 billion as best I can work out the actual technology base of that was created by 5000 software engineer man years. I can't work out women years. I can't work out there was any more man years went into Facebook than that that is very small compared with what had to go into building Ford's factories before he could produce the model T Ford and that's because the thing is so powerful and as a result it gives enormous returns at the top end of the distribution because of network and personality effect at the bottom end as we have extreme pace of automation as we create jobs in low paid what currently low paid sectors because all of the sectors that I mentioned earlier have an average rate of pay of about 20 to $25,000 in the US whereas on average those software application developers are getting 75,000. That's where the jobs are growing for the last 20 years not just Eric in the business cycle but as you well know I think as you yourself say for 25 years as a secular development not a cyclical development. There has been no real wage increase for the bottom quarter of the US population. I'm not worried about jobs. I'm not afraid of the machines. I think we can make this positive but I think we will have to try very hard with things like minimum wages and minimum income guarantees to make sure that this cornucopia of technology does not read to a very significant increase in inequality. A dear Turner, thank you very much indeed. So everybody you've heard the voices for and against very rich arguments and for those of you who are here at the beginning you'll know that two-thirds of those in the room at the time do agree with the motion that smart machines will make workers better off. We've got about 20 minutes to run and for those of you who might be tempted to leave beforehand I will ask you at the end to vote so we can get a sense of whether the vote has been swung either way or views have been swung either way by those who've been speaking for and against the motion. I'd like to put a one minute cap on any interventions from the floor who'd like to come in at this point please did you want to yes Austin behind me now turn to your left smart Eric there you are. My name is Austin O'Kerry. I'm the founder and CEO of computer warehouse group in Nigeria and a visiting professor at Columbia Business School in New York. I listen to I miss part of Eric's but I listen to Josie and I think that there is a contrary dashboard signals to what you pointed out for instance we listen to Premier Lee Koechang and he told us that there's been 10 million jobs created in the past eight months. When you say job created it is taking job losses and job created and taking the difference. So that's 10 million in Nigeria. E-commerce has increased jobs by 1.2% in the last year on the back of broadband and ability to shop online and so on in the US job unemployment has gone down steadily for the past six years at least since the beginning of the Obama administration and for me it's like comparing the fact that we will have nothing to do because email has made it easier to communicate than writing manual letters or that the internet has made going through big cyclopedias much easier. In that sense you worry about what are we going to do with all the time do we have all the time even with email and the internet. No we still don't have much time so I don't think that we're going to lose jobs. So which which where you voting. I'm voting for and lotana says that jobs will come from high touch areas and I can't agree more anything you cannot automate what you cannot automate is creativity and everybody has creativity so you can't really substitute jobs as much as technology seems to do so is going to rather increase jobs. Thank you Austin right please across directly behind you each of these speakers will be allowed a minute at the end to respond to some of these interventions. Again we have about 20 minutes to run please. Thank you. I wish to be chasing her with the global shapers community of the web from the Colombo hub in Sri Lanka where you voting exactly. I haven't decided yet and maybe by in the next 10 or so minutes I might swing either way to. I want you to swing one way or the other. I try it might depend on the responses to these points and about to raise. I'm the first is a Nobel Prize winning economy labiae economist Dale Mortensen showed that post the recession particularly in the US a lot of the job loss has been this middle skill and this job polarization. Now that was a result of the recession and the leaning of trimming down of the fact in the in the US and not necessarily because of technology. So I guess what the point that I'm trying to get your views on is is it technology leading to a polarization of jobs or is it just the economics of it leading to certain skills going becoming redundant and needing to find automated solutions for it. The second point I'm trying to I didn't quite hear this coming out both from the technologies and from the economists in the room we might in era where through this collaboration between robots and humans where folks who didn't have certain skills are able to enhance their skills because of robotics because of exoskeletons on them and they didn't have this. They're having more strength than they used to or most of different skills because of robotic enhancements so just want to get both sides opinion on that and I haven't yet decided which all right thank you who let who else would like to come in please at the back lady there if you turn a little bit to your right again Eric turn round to the lady there. Hi Eric it's Manuela okay so I actually think that this discussion is very interesting and we are very lucky to have people that care about jobs talk with people that care about technology but in some sense what I think that the discussion could be a better going forward is that what is the solution in some sense so there is something in technology that we call a Markov system and Markov systems means that we are in some state and we don't care how we got there and we assume that state and only think about actions towards some type of like reward so we are always in the business of deciding for the future so what I'm saying is like this I said this several times we know this it's inevitable just in said Eric knows it the computers are here the robots will be here tomorrow this is all going to happen the same way that if we think about the telephone operators remember that every single telephone call required someone to switch manually and input to an output like with these courts and then there was a software switch the hardware switch nobody thought about like okay we are not going to have a mechanical switch because we are going to take the jobs of all these operators it was not even conceivable from a technology point of view we are at the same stage it's not conceivable to have a policy that will cut the development of robots intelligence in machines it's just inconceivable that these would be a policy so what I think that maybe not now that we have only 15 minutes but the discussion that we should all engage is that like a conditional probability given that this is the case that we are going to have these machines I completely agree with the goal of trying to see if we can actually not unbalance so much the outcome of this technology in terms of rich of the poverty or riches in the world and that's true but that's true about many things to the moment we do fish farms we take jobs of the real fisherman I mean it's so we face these question over and over right well let me ask you what which way are you voting on smart machines for the make workers better off for the smart machine for the motion inevitably because that's what this is all about yes right any other interventions the gentleman at the front to your right Eric not too far back again Eric there you are he's standing up hi Lucien tanoski from break me tell me I live in San Francisco and just side point I'm the topic champion here for employment and skills so there's a debate going online both on Twitter and also on the forums top link so please do join if you've got other thoughts which way is it going then so on Twitter I think it's pro machines on on top link will wait to see my my I'm pro machines but I'm pro machines with a caveat and that's that I think what we need to do is use smart technology to be better apply human capital I think still human capital is most wasted resource on the planet and therefore there's a huge opportunity for us to leverage technology to better apply human capital I'd love to ask if there's any thoughts about what you're seeing you've said MOOCs but I think MOOCs are actually at risk of being to reference George Orwell the animal farm of education they had a lot of promise but actually they haven't lived up to it because all the research is showing the people that actually graduate are people that already have a degree so what what are you seeing from a technology perspective that can democratize access to education and in doing so create more of a meritocracy around opportunity thank you very much indeed that's a wonderful phrase the MOOCs the animal farm of education who else would like to come in at this stage anyone here Scott Hansen there's a silent other person sitting at the back there there's another machine from suitable technologies we've got you've got the microphone now Scott you've been listening to this debate you have a minute to offer your thoughts on this motion that smart machines will make workers better off go why I guess can you guys hear me yes indeed so I have a slightly different wording or understanding of the question and what you said was we'll make workers better I believe that work is not essential to humanity so I actually voted no it is not going to make workers better because I think work is going to go away as a thing to do so because machines are basically to do all the work for us so that's my my comment so can I just check which way you voting smart machines will make workers better off I say voted no because there aren't going to be any workers left they're all going to go away and it's just going to be people that makes sense all right well we're going to have a debate about working jobs but we don't have a lot of time for that work or jobs anyone else thank you indeed Scott anyone else want to come in please otherwise the debate will continue between those here anyone else you must have strong views some of you please behind me microphone behind and if you look behind me Eric I will get up so you can see the gentlemen speaking please go ahead Michael Michael Marquot I work for black rock you know and we spent a lot of time day in and day out automating processes and you can really see the difference of jobs going away from processing and moving into that higher value where human intelligence is really valued in the leverage of computing but the real worry I have is in the short term of the dislocation and the gap in skills and the potential for that dislocation to lead to social problems and violence and long term I'm a huge proponent but it's that short term dislocation that I think is the real issue so Michael which way would you vote smart machines will make workers better off long-term yes how long is long-term 20 years okay thank you anyone else want to come in please at the front here half quarter turn to your right smart Eric so I'm shrieze romanian from Bristol University I'm not a I'm not an economist I'm a technologist I work in the same area as human computer interaction but one thing that made me wonder was better off should be surely about social well-being and happiness of people it's not clear to me just because you're working in a high skill job you are necessarily happy so that issue was never addressed in this forum and I can see what you're going to ask me which way am I going as a technologist I feel I have to say I'm for the motion but I'm not convinced yet probably I'm leading towards a no as well yeah all right I'm intrigued of course about the use of your for your word happy workers being happy what is happiness in work but that's again for another for another session not for this session at all right anyone else please gentlemen here over here thank you Richard Jefferson social entrepreneur in the agriculture sector and in some ways speaking for the several billion people that never show up either at Davos at any other world economic forum venue who are in fact workers very very hard very poorly compensated and very poorly educated in other words the majority of the world these people work in fields that can easily be automated I can envision the automation of agriculture rendering several hundred million Indians unemployed and a very large number of Chinese and some small number of Iowans have already gone this way now are the workers better off when they have no alternatives or have we got an inelastic problem here should this question have been promoted 200 years ago when the population of the earth was dramatically less then we would have a different outcome but now we have a problem with the inability to absorb these two or three billion people into productive income generating or pride generating activities which we have actually not discussed in this general the last intervention is very important what does it mean better off a sense of purpose is a sense of value I strongly vote no and the word happy very important that's a sense of value Nick it's a matter of do you feel your life is worthwhile you're contributing to your community that is a key part of being a human being thank you very much any more interventions please the lady at the front just your right Eric I'm friend Taiwan I'm a reporter my point is whether you like it or not we can't stop the develop development at the most important thing is we have to we have to reform our tax system to make sure losers are not always losers for generation that's my point thank you very much indeed anyone else want to come in quickly before I close the floor one here at your left Eric Victor here with a microphone coming in your direction soon microphones will be handed out by a machine thank you Victor ponard at those IPFL in Switzerland and professor of math there I think we are we might be confounding I think two issues and one thing is whether it's inevitable and whether we should stop it this was posed as a dilemma I'm strongly against that it's not inevitable it is inevitable we should not stop it it's human nature to pursue science and technology and it's another thing to somehow negotiate whether or not it will make workers better off or not and I think I would say no it would not make them better off in the short run and in the long run it very likely will as it has how long the long run will be it's very difficult to predict but it's a long run going to be much shorter than we expect very hard to say at least I can't but I think that it would be a mistake to somehow be trapped in the dilemma of whether or not we should stop it if we agree that workers will not be better off right we can agree that workers will not be better off but still think that we shouldn't stop it in fact we should promote it so do you have a clear view of which way you vote I will vote workers will not be better off because I take the answer to be I take the question to be in the context of the short run not the long run right anyone else one one more intervention please please here yes Tony Abraham's I'm a young global leader and social entrepreneur from Australia and my I vote for the motion and with the perspective of people with disability in particular one in five people have a disability and technology has enabled people with disability over the last several decades to participate in ways that would never have been possible before and I think this is a vast untapped labour force. Thank you Tony right I think we heard Eric say here here thank you very much indeed Eric right I'm going to close the floor because time is marching on before I ask for the one minute summaries in reverse order from each of the speakers can I ask all of you to get up your the website again weff W E F dot C H slash robo jobs will be coming back to that in a moment and you can see the address at the top of the screen on each of the walls around this auditorium right a minute now for each of the speakers to summarize and to respond in reverse order a dear turn up against the motion you're about to vote you're not voting on a motion about whether you're pro or anti technology I am pro machines I'm pro technology I'm pro technological progress I'm not about to launch on that machine and destroy it like a Luddite I think it is wonderful wonderful the things that we are achieving they are an expression of human ingenuity we can never hold back ingenuity and they have an extraordinary ability to deal with things like disability et cetera but they will not naturally raise all boats together they will not and that is because this technology itself is so powerful in its doubling of productivity every two years and then it's zero cost of software replication it is more powerful than the chemical the electromechanical age the great or the period of the steam age this is I think this third or fourth industrial revolution is going to be the most powerful of all but it is going to drive inequality very few people are going to have high value high tech jobs the vast majority of jobs are going to be in high touch personal service jobs we will have to intervene significantly to make sure that all workers are better off we have the ability to do so but it will require very significant public policy interventions it will not occur naturally Lord Edirtona thank you very much indeed for the motion Justine Cassell who reminded us what happens to a robot when he gets to a puddle so we've heard that jobs aren't at risk and I've been convinced of that and we've heard that smart machines are here to stay and I'm convinced of that as well we've heard that smart machines can bring with them higher value jobs higher creativity jobs and higher touch jobs and I want to stay there for a moment because higher touch can be high touch jobs can be low paying jobs or they can be higher paying jobs and smart machines can play a role in that my own work and I've saved this for the end is in the social infrastructure of work and the social infrastructure of learning and how smart machines can enhance that social infrastructure so in fact I've argued quite forcefully against the MOOCs of today and for something like a MOOC of tomorrow where rapport among students is what carries learning forward and that rapport is enhanced by a machine that can mediate amongst people who otherwise might have intercultural difficulties who might otherwise never meet a kind of education that most people have no access to today an example that I'm very fond of is a group of seamstresses in Bangalore they were child laborers they're part of a child labor organization they're paid pennies for everything they sew but they went online and they took a design course at a computer in the wall site a free computer they went online they taught themselves design they built a cooperative and now they've hired the entire village older and younger to design, to create to be creative to use the parts of themselves that are self-actualizing and thereby through the possibility of smart machines to go into the future better off because they have acquired dignity I think that's something that smart machines can give us and thereby make workers better off Justine Cosell, thank you very much indeed the second voice or the first voice originally against the motion Husein Manuel the floor is yours and I remind you that Lord Adair Turner said you're not voting about technology and you said earlier there's a dashboard full of red lights and it's moving in the wrong direction Yes, and I stand very much by that statement but I agree that starting point is to clarify this is not arguing for jobs versus arguing for the machines I totally agree this is a great revolution to be welcome it will continue it's inevitable congratulations to all the technologies and professors working on robotics and all of that in the long term it would improve many lives but what I think we are arguing here the point about the needles in the wrong direction is let's be realistic let's not get over excited or hype this because the impacts are going to be very strong the adjustments are going to be massive and this is a huge challenge for policy makers not just policy makers for societies for everybody to discuss what we have to do even as individuals because the burden of reskilling of being employable and so on also falls on individuals so I think it's very important to recognize that we are and this thank you very much Eric and your colleagues in a world of exponential technologies that this time is different that time is accelerating but things are going to speed up this is all that we should recognize that what I am pessimistic about is the capacity of societies to be up to the challenge and to respond societies and institutions unfortunately you can make a list of all sorts of things that will be good ideas but will be as a human race let's put it in this broad brush have the capacity to respond to put in place the right policies etc this is the problem so if we don't have the capacity then the net outcome is going to be negative now this is not a call to go and smash machines it's a call to put in place the right policies thank you Jose Manuel so the last voice against the motion smart machines will make workers better off let's now get the last voice for the motion Eric in MIT in Cambridge in Massachusetts smart machines will make workers better off the last minute is for you thank you Nick you know we all agree on most of the issues we agree that machines are creating unprecedented wealth we also agree that we haven't done as much good as we should be taking advantage of the technology there are plenty of red lights in the dashboard but here is the difference I believe the fault lies not in smart machines but in dumb decisions I don't blame technology for whatever shortfalls we have instead I hold our leaders accountable and I hold ourselves accountable technology makes the pie bigger we all agree on that indeed it's the only thing that ever really has but technology is not a force that acts on its own technology is a tool the real question is not what technology will do to us is whether we will use that technology to create shared prosperity we are fortunate now to have a more powerful tool than ever before Lord Turner said it's almost like magic creating enormous wealth with very little work my God that should be great news that's exactly what we want technology to do shame on us if we don't use this powerful tool to create shared prosperity how we divide the unprecedented bounty by technology is not decided by machines it's decided by people it is a social choice and it depends on our education policy our tax policy our health and welfare policy and the great wealth provided by technology only makes it easier to make improvements in all those areas if you want to blame the machines for our problems then go ahead and vote for the other side I think machines are just a tool and we humans will ultimately choose prosperity just as we always have in the past and Lord Turner says we will in the long run will we try to try as hard as he said? of course we will but that's never stopped us before if you agree that we the people and not machines will ultimately decide our future and you must vote for the motion right that's the moment to vote Eric thank you let me ask you those of you in the room to use your smartphone or tablet or whichever smart machine you have you can't unfortunately put up your hand because it won't be registered so I'm going to ask you just quickly if you can use that website and say yes or no for or against the motion and then quickly we can compare it with what those of you in the room at the time were thinking when we started this debate are the votes coming in? I'm not going to summarise the debate don't leave the room please because otherwise it'll distort the outcome and Scott is actually the chief executive is now turning to the wall to see which way the motion is going I will report it to you as well in a moment Eric do we have votes there please Adele right I think it's going to be punched up there we are against the motion well against the motion 53% and for the mo- hang on what's going on I'm not sure what the credibility of this voting is keep voting there's people still voting do we have stability is someone voting multiple times does the technology stop them voting multiple times yes it does I've got to tell you this is a beta test of a principle here and I think we need to do a little bit more on the voting process here but oh two devices so the machines are voting you see how it makes things unequal the guys with the more devices get more votes smart voters will be better off I'm going to declare that I can't declare a result on this because I don't think I'm confident in the system but I think we've had a good airing of unless someone's going to persuade me otherwise at the moment Eric I've got to tell you that it says against the motion 51% for the motion 49% that's statistically totally insignificant but it's been going up and down and as we've discovered some people have got two or three devices so they are skewing the vote so I declare the vote irrelevant but on the other hand we've had a very very strong airing of the discussion and the points five minutes each and what we've done is get to the bullet point issues in a very efficient way in less than an hour so can I thank you all very much indeed and before you all go Eric what was it like being a smart machine at the other end and not travelling and flying 18 hours each way to take part in this debate but what was it like could you get the sense of the debate I have to be frank I really regret I wasn't there in person I think I would have enjoyed being able to interact with you like a real human so I don't think it's a substitute on the other hand being able to travel from Boston to China at the speed of light does have its advantages I know how much wear and tear it takes on my body when I do it the old fashioned way the way they used to do it back in the 20th century and that's an advantage All right Eric well thank you very much indeed don't fall off the platform when you leave ok thank you very much indeed and be safe as you drive through the streets of Cambridge later on tonight thank you thank you very much thank you all very much indeed for the preparation of the speeches as well thank you