Could AI do your job?

Beyond Today

BBC

News

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2020

⏱️ 23 minutes

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Summary

Over the past decade a tension has emerged between Big Tech’s utopian vision of an AI future and the reality that many jobs are being threatened by data-driven automation. Many of us may suspect that artificial intelligence is going to transform the world of work, but exactly how isn’t always clear. The economist Daniel Susskind has written a book called ‘A World Without Work’ which considers how technology is shaping the economy. He spoke to Tina Daheley about how we overestimate our own job skills, the true meaning of work, and what we can all do to can prepare for an unrecognisable job market. Presenter: Tina Daheley Producers: Lucy Hancock and Seren Jones Mixed by Emma Crowe Editor: Philly Beaumont

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:05.8	Hello.
0:06.8	I'm Tina Dehealey.
0:07.9	Welcome to Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4,
0:10.6	where we ask one big question about one big story.
0:14.0	Today, could AI do your job?
0:24.0	There's a job.
0:25.0	There's tension between the utopian vision of a big-tech AI-driven future.
0:39.0	Innovation is not just the word, It's an action. With artificial intelligence, we are not
0:46.1	crawling or walking or running. We are flying today.
0:50.6	And a dystopian vision of a future that threatens to displace workers.
0:55.0	It took me four years to do this job. I'm a proud Hecky carriage driver. I don't mind about any kind of competition, but we've got to play by the rules.
1:04.6	It's hard to know what specifically we should all be worrying about and when, and how on earth
1:10.5	we could gear ourselves up to compete against computers in the jobs market.
1:15.0	Daniel Susskind has been thinking about this puzzle for more than 10 years.
1:21.0	He's an Oxford University economist and used to advise the
1:24.8	government on strategy. Daniel's just written a book called A World Without Work.
1:30.4	A New York Times Review deemed it required reading for any presidential
1:34.9	candidate thinking about the economy of the future. Daniel came in to see us and
1:41.0	we talked about why we overestimate how highly skilled we are at our jobs.
1:46.0	I once gave a talk to a group of tax accountants and one of the accountants stood up and said,
1:52.0	look Daniel, you don't understand, people come to me because
	...

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