The Effects of Technology on Employment

Professor Stuart Russell explores the future of work and one of the most concerning issues raised by Artificial Intelligence: the threat to jobs. How will the economy adapt as work is increasingly done by machines? Economists’ forecasts range from rosy scenarios of human-AI teamwork, to dystopian visions in which most people are excluded from the economy altogether. Was the economist Keynes correct when he said that we were born to “strive”? If much of the work in future will be carried out by machines, what does that mean for humans? What will we do?

Stuart Russell is Professor of Computer Science and founder of the Centre for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence at the University of California, Berkeley.

The lecture and question-and-answer session was recorded at Edinburgh University. Presenter: Anita Anand Producer: Jim Frank Editor: Hugh Levinson Production Coordinator: Brenda Brown Sound: Neil Churchill and Hal Haines