AI and the workforce: is this time different?

And here is the video of our recent Forum event at Harvard on AI & the workforce: https://iop.harvard.edu/forum/will-you-still-have-job-when-robots-arrive-ai-and-its-impact-workforce

A positive note unanimously emerged from the panel discussion which is quite reassuring given the caliber of the people on stage. But in my view the conversation might not have totally accounted for differences in terms of velocity and magnitude of the AI revolution as compared to the 1st industrial revolution in the 1800s, 2nd one in the 1900s, and 3rd one in the 1950s.

We are almost 7 billion people on the planet as opposed to 2.5 billion in the 50s and 1 billion in 1800. And all interconnected globally with a much much lower collective tolerance level for violence and individual suppression than a century ago (courtesy of the media era among other factors...). That means that our collective reaction to mass transitions implied by the rise of AI will be different. Add to this mix that the velocity of the rise of AI may generate a wave of automation in the span of 20 years as opposed to 40 during the previous revolutions, then it's going to be more challenging to address!

And so is this time different? Well... maybe! For sure we need to carry forward the conversation and do more research to make sure we are indeed comparing apples to apples, especially if we want to use past history as a guide for the future. I don't want to go to the point of saying that we may need to think "exponentially" on this and not "linearly" (as a mental model) because it rightly irritates some of us (are we really in an exponential age??).... but that's a bit what's implied here.

Contribute to our global civic debate on the governance of AI > https://assembl-civic.bluenove.com/ai-consultation/home

An unprecedented exercise in collective intelligence at the global level which we need to address such complex questions.... and many more!