#MiEmpleoMiFuturo 2: un documental sobre robots, economía, clase media... y el fin del mundo

this video is the second part you should see. . .

the first part before continuing if you haven’t click here or search for #miempleomifuturo (myemploymentmyfuture) now in order to confirm you’re a human being activate your web cam and wrap yourself in silver foil forget it, I trust that you’re human OK, so we were talking about the fourth industrial revolution, right? well. .

. if this is true we’re talking about a bomb that’s about to explode why aren’t all the politicians talking about this? the reason even has a name it’s called the Overton Window the Overton Window is a theory that states that in each era there’s only room, or a window, to discuss a certain number of subjects everything outside that window is considered dangerous, stupid or self-indulgent bollocks for example, in Ancient Rome there was no room to talk about abolishing slavery they had a reason abolishing slavery would mean destroying the Roman economy because it was based on slaves we had to wait a thousand years for that window to open and to be able to talk about abolishing fucking slavery yes the arrival of machines helped quite a bit in stopping the enslavement of people today, there is no window to talk about the employment of the future and computers why?

because we can still afford to ignore this problem it will explode in our faces in maybe 20 years? 30? who’s it mainly going to affect?

those who are still young today up until the 60’s, the majority of the population were young men and women under the age of 40 there weren’t many old people we call this the population pyramid young people were at the base of society political parties used to take notice of the problems of young people because there were a lot of voters out there but our societies have increasingly fewer young people and more old people we’re having fewer children and and we’re living longer now most people are over 40 and this isn’t going to change by 2050 we’ll have reversed the pyramid and old people will be at the base not young people that’s why politicians are now looking for voters here which is where there are more people and are promising solutions to their problems why aren’t they talking about something that’s going to affect the people who are young now? because there are a lot less voters of that age on the other hand, it’s not so bad that politicians aren’t talking about these things when a party is the first one to talk about a subject they usually politicise it what the hell does that mean? well, it means that the automation of work could become a left-wing issue something invented by communists or a right-wing issue invented by neoliberals to avoid talking about the true causes of unemployment or even worse.

. . that some extremist turns it into a thing about young people against old people that hasn’t happened yet so you can listen to this video whether you’re left-wing or right-wing younger or older and that’s an opportunity OK.

. . so you’ll notice that in this video I’m focusing too much on what machines are capable of doing right and what about what we’re capable of doing right?

in the 19th Century, when our education system emerged we couldn’t answer that question because we didn’t really know how the brain worked even now we still don’t fully know, but. . .

we do have a much better understanding of it and we know that. . .

one we cannot simply enter data into the brain or that we forget almost everything after an exam the brain needs help to swallow data stimuli the best stimuli are emotions feeling happy or surprised helps dopamine to appear in our brain which helps us learn and engage with other human beings two we complete exercises repetitively until we create a habit this isn’t necessarily a bad thing but machines are much better than us at repetition, at what is predictable however, something they’re hopeless at is managing the unpredictable to complete their work, robots need everything to go as expected otherwise they have no idea what to do a human can improvise we’re good at that the same thing applies to specialisation it’s not a bad thing in itself but something that, for now, only we humans are capable of is quite the opposite cross-referencing different things many of the people we consider geniuses are geniuses not because they were the best at one thing but because they combined many different things most Nobel Prize winners are very good at this but so are you has it never happened to you that you’ve done something incredible at work with an idea you got from somewhere completely different for example, from your hobbies maybe? four about following orders sometimes you have to do what you’ve got to do otherwise the world wouldn’t function however we’ll never be better than a machine at following orders if the machine has a power supply it will always obey but we have this weird thing critical thinking sometimes instead of doing what is supposed to be done we try something different that’s the origin of crazy ideas but also of incredible progress why aren’t we trained in critical thinking? one more thing our education is competitive it’s very much based on grades it turns students into disconnected units that compete among themselves to see who’s best at this or that but the psychologist David Kolb says that we’re too different to be competing in class some are good at theory and books, yes but others would learn better by observing their surroundings others require more emotions and creativity and others will learn more out there in the real world Kolb discovered an incredible thing observing different types of learning we complement one another there’s proof that teams with people with different profiles perform better it’s almost like we’re designed to help one another I could carry on playing the opposites game for another hour but I think you get the idea we’ve spent 200 years educating ourselves in reverse to how our brain works it’s natural that computers are robbing us of our data-based, repetitive and specialised tasks those are the traits inherent to machines and we have a natural limit in how good we can be at that computers don’t but in this human intelligence we have no rival and we don’t know where the limit is we only know that everything that has been achieved by Mankind up until now and, we really have achieved many incredible things, has been without training ourselves to use these things we’ve achieved everything by acting like mediocre robots what would we achieve if they trained us to use these ‘superpowers’?

besides does it make any sense to continue competing against a machine in tasks we’re not even that good at? wouldn’t it be better to be liberated from these tasks and dedicate ourselves to becoming better human beings? and I do mean that we complement one another two humans working like that, their work wouldn’t just be added together it would be multiplied we are scared shitless of entering the era of machines, but.

. . what if machines were the key to us throwing ourselves head-first into the era of humans I say again what would we achieve?

but let’s get back to automation the work that isn’t repetitive and specialised in other words the work machines don’t like doing can mostly be divided into two these jobs require skills that only humans can perform such as really understanding people combined with manual skills examples of this could be waiters, domestic workers. . .

caregivers for children or elderly people of whom there’ll be more and more or a hairdresser combining the physical and the mental is not for machines they work better specialising in one thing also, you prefer to see humans over machines in some of these tasks the problem, as I already said, is that although these tasks are quite specialised and we’re the only ones able to do them they’re very badly paid the jobs we pay well are these others which, in addition to human brain skills, such as team leadership require a high level of studies here there’s also a lower risk of automation because the future lies in humans supported by machines example human surgeons in addition to knowing a lot about the human body they have skills that are so important in an operation such as learning to manage the unpredictable and if in addition they use robotic arms they can perform much more complicated surgeries this is interesting it’s not just that machines can liberate us here they can also help us go further here OK so we know that a vast quantity of this employment is going to be destroyed of the people who are going to be left out some of them will have the level of studies required to get here but I’m sure the majority will end up here so as not to divide society into two and not lose that middle class that we’ve worked so hard to create what should we do? should we enforce better wages for these jobs? given that no computer can perform them there are experts who say that it might be necessary to provide a basic wage to everyone in society so that if automation leaves you out on the street you don’t just say yes to the first shitty job that comes your way and you can study or reinvent yourself and do something that is better paid however not even those experts can agree on where that money would come from some have even suggested that robots pay taxes to sustain the welfare state a bit complicated because, what is a robot?

a mechanical arm? accounting programs? is a music app a robot?

the reality is that avoiding that society gets divided in two is a difficult challenge to wrap up do you remember this? preparing them for jobs that are on the verge of disappearing that’s another major problem in our education system employability the education system is preparing young people for the employment that exists today but while they’re studying the world is changing and maybe when they enter the job market the employment for which they’ve trained will no longer exist however, what there will be, are jobs that did not exist when they started studying such as ‘biohacker’ or weather police there are so many doubts about the employment of the future that you read things like 65% of the jobs our children take have yet to be invented others say it’s 75% the fact is that nobody has a fucking clue but the issue is very clear how are we going to prepare you today for something that will not happen until 10 years from now? this study has analysed the skills required in more than 900 jobs and it’s identified the 10 that are growing the most do you know what some of them are?

one, to understand the reactions and emotions of other people two, to solve problems that have not arisen before three, creativity in other words, to be able to come up with new ideas four, the ability to work alongside people who think differently and, surprise critical thinking straight up and the study says that the top 3 for 2020 will be this how are they so sure? well, because nobody knows what the computers of the future will be like but we do know what the humans of the future will be like like this these skills will never go out of fashion how about you, have you been taught them? because I haven’t OK so, we’re not only teaching people to become robots when we already have robots we’re not only not teaching the skills that humans are good at it’s also that the only skills that we know for sure will be needed in the future are those what’s more if you look closely, this video is basically a bunch of questions how much time do we have to avoid that polarised society?

how much employment will be destroyed? how much will be created? will they be quality jobs or shitty jobs?

what will happen if the virtuous circle is broken? but those questions cannot be answered with data alone they’re not logical or mathematical questions but rather touch precisely on what makes us human how will we protect people? what do you believe is fair?

we need humans to answer these kinds of questions where are those humans? wasted programmed to behave like robots on top of which, this information could be dangerous in the wrong hands, it could become a discourse against machines and we wouldn’t have achieved any of this without machines obviously, a video cannot answer all these questions but there is something it can achieve do you remember the Overton Window? as I speak, that window remains closed the politicians the people we choose to solve our big problems aren’t talking about this it’s up to us to ask them to talk about it those of us who have made this video have written an open letter to politicians where we ask them one that we need to hear them talk about this matter two that we want them to work to prevent technology from producing a polarised and unequal society three that our education system has to teach the skills in which we are better than machines and that we should rely on them but not compete with them four that we don’t want anyone to have to be a second-rate robot that technology must make our jobs easier, make them more human five that companies have to do their part invest in technology but at the same time, teach workers skills in which no robot is better than them but rather complements them and something else which I think you’ll like if you’re 40 years old or younger I believe I need to explain to you why it’s important that you sign this letter you’re going to have to deal with this and you’re not ready none of us are if you’re over 40 years old I could blackmail you and tell you that this is the future that awaits your grandchildren, children or nephews/nieces or that maybe you’ll end up with no retirement pension if half of us end up unemployed and we can’t pay taxes but that’s hard to say for sure I have to be honest without you they’re not going to listen right now politicians are concerned about securing your vote it will take you one minute to sign it we’ll make sure it gets it to them do you remember the initial question?

it was What do you think the future will be like? in 1820, women couldn’t vote most men couldn’t either slavery existed children worked in factories we worked a 50-hour week there was no social security and not everyone had faith that these things would change but the unpredictable happened I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the virtuous circle is flawed when a company’s production increases wages don’t simply increase automatically people have to come together to ask for it economists which talk about the virtuous circle admit that it only started because companies, The State and the workers came to an agreement I shouldn’t be asking a human what you think the future will be like a machine could maybe predict it better than you the question is What would you like the future to be like?