Andrew Yang is Ahead of His Time - Kai-Fu Lee | AI Podcast Clips
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00:00:02.580 | - I'm not sure if you're familiar with Andrew Yang.
00:00:10.600 | - Yes, I am.
00:00:11.440 | - So there's a candidate for president of the United States
00:00:14.040 | whose platform, Andrew Yang, is based in part
00:00:17.120 | around job loss due to automation,
00:00:19.840 | and also in addition, the need perhaps
00:00:23.240 | of universal basic income to support jobs
00:00:26.600 | that are folks who lose their job due to automation.
00:00:30.280 | So what are your thoughts about his concerns,
00:00:32.680 | him as a candidate, his ideas in general?
00:00:35.060 | - I think his thinking is generally in the right direction,
00:00:39.380 | but his approach as a presidential candidate
00:00:44.400 | may be a little bit ahead of the time.
00:00:46.960 | I think the displacements will happen,
00:00:51.160 | but will they happen soon enough
00:00:53.800 | for people to agree to vote for him?
00:00:56.480 | The unemployment numbers are not very high yet,
00:00:59.760 | and I think he and I have the same challenge.
00:01:03.580 | If I want to theoretically convince people this is an issue
00:01:07.540 | and he wants to become the president,
00:01:09.880 | people have to see how can this be the case
00:01:13.520 | when unemployment numbers are low?
00:01:15.680 | So that is the challenge.
00:01:17.320 | I do agree with him on the displacement issue.
00:01:20.320 | I think the main issue is retraining.
00:01:24.040 | So people need to be incented
00:01:27.240 | not by just giving a monthly $2,000 check or $1,000 check
00:01:31.200 | and do whatever they want,
00:01:32.880 | because they don't have the know-how
00:01:36.680 | to know what to retrain to go into what type of a job,
00:01:41.680 | and guidance is needed.
00:01:44.380 | And retraining is needed because historically
00:01:47.440 | in technology revolutions,
00:01:48.880 | when routine jobs were displaced, new routine jobs came up.
00:01:52.360 | But with AI and automation,
00:01:54.800 | the whole point is replacing all routine jobs eventually,
00:01:58.400 | and AI will create jobs, but it won't create routine jobs,
00:02:02.480 | because if it creates routine jobs,
00:02:04.680 | why wouldn't AI just do it?
00:02:06.720 | So therefore, the people who are losing the jobs
00:02:10.200 | are losing routine jobs.
00:02:12.120 | The jobs that are becoming available are non-routine jobs.
00:02:15.520 | So the social stipend needs to be put in place
00:02:19.140 | is for the routine workers who lost their jobs
00:02:21.880 | to be retrained, and then take on a job
00:02:24.960 | that will last for that person's lifetime.
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