This TED Talk features work philosopher Roy Bahad in conversation with TED Institute curator Bryn Friedman.

Recorded live at TED Salon Zebra 2018.

You're a guy whose company funds these AI programs and invests.

So why should we trust you to not have a bias and tell us something

really useful for the rest of us about the future of work? So yes, I am. And when you wake up in the

morning and you read the newspaper and it says, the robots are coming. They may take all our jobs. As a startup investor focused on the future

of work, our fund was the first one to say artificial intelligence should be a focus for us.

And so I woke up one morning and read that and said, oh my gosh, they're talking about me.

That's me who's the one who's doing that. And then I thought, wait a minute, if things continue, then

maybe not only will the startups in which we invest struggle because there won't be people to have

jobs to pay for the things that they make and buy them, but our economy and society might struggle to.

And look, I should be the guy who sits here and tells you everything is going to be fine. You know, it's all going to work out

great. Hey, when they introduce the ATM machine years later, there's more tellers in banks. It's true.

And yet, when I looked at it, I thought, this is going to accelerate, and if it does accelerate, there's a chance

the center doesn't hold. I figured somebody must know the answer to this. There are so many

ideas out there. And I read all the books, and I went to the conferences, and at one point, we

counted more than 100 efforts to study the future of work. And it was a frustrating experience

because I'd hear the same back and forth over and over again.

The robots are coming, and then somebody else would say,

oh, don't worry about that. They've always said that, and it turns out okay.

And then somebody else would say, well, you know, it's really about the meaning of your job anyway,

and then everybody sort of shrug and go off and have a drink.

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