A Plan to Stop AI from Automating Our Decline | Gina Raimondo | TED

0:04 What will it take for America to lead the global AI competition?

0:11 Now we all know we’ll need plentiful energy,

0:13 the best chips, the most innovative AI companies, the best models.

0:18 But I argue that's not nearly enough.

0:22 Because if we're the best in the world at those things,

0:25 but we've displaced millions of American workers,

0:28 then we're going to lose the global AI race.

0:32 In fact, we will have automated our decline.

0:37 Because recessions, social unrest, political upheaval,

0:41 those will weaken our country, our politics and our economy.

0:46 And ultimately, I believe, I know, they will lead to excessive,

0:52 burdensome regulation of AI that will slow and stop and hinder AI innovation.

1:00 The reality is the United States can't lead the world

1:05 in technological innovation if it's failing its people at home.

1:10 We need a technology strategy and a human capital strategy,

1:16 because the only way to truly win the long-term AI race is to lead

1:22 in the technology and to have a plan

1:25 that brings everybody along to an AI economy.

1:29 Now I think it’s incredibly exciting to think

1:33 about what a well-trained individual can do with AI.

1:37 Think about how much more productive and creative we'll

1:41 all be and how many new businesses will be created.

1:45 And I'm optimistic because history shows every time we create a new technology,

1:52 it does create new jobs, new industries, new products, new services.

1:58 Over time, with some time.

2:01 And I'm confident that that will happen again, this time with AI.

2:06 With time.

2:08 So what I'm worried about is the near-term disruption

2:13 to workers as we transition from here to an AI economy.

2:20 Because, I know this as a former governor and secretary of commerce,

2:25 America's workforce and career transition systems weren't built for this moment.

2:32 Some people estimate tens of millions

2:34 of American workers are in AI-vulnerable jobs.

2:37 All kinds of jobs, people of every age, geography, income, level of education.

2:43 We are not prepared for this transition.

2:47 And Americans know it.

2:50 I was at a bar the other night watching NCAA basketball.

2:54 Huge University of Michigan fan.

2:57 And it's all— Go Blue!

3:00 It's all everybody was talking about.

3:02 It's all the chatter.

3:03 "What are you going to do when you lose your job to AI?" "I'm so bummed,

3:06 I'm paying all this money for tuition for my kids in college.

3:09 Are they going to have a job when

3:11 they're done?" Americans are anxious for a reason,

3:14 and we owe them more than empathy.

3:17 We owe them a plan, we owe them action.

3:20 And so far, I'm not hearing a lot of good solutions.

3:24 There’s the slow AI, stop AI, overregulate AI crowd.

3:29 It's a bad idea.

3:30 It denies Americans the promise of AI, and China will pull ahead.

3:35 And then there's the universal basic income crowd.

3:38 That's also a bad idea.

3:40 Every one of you know, a job is more than a paycheck.

3:45 It's dignity, it's purpose, it's pride.

3:47 Without purposeful work, a society unravels.

3:51 So what are the elements of an effective transition plan?

3:57 Unfortunately, as I stand here today,

3:59 I don't know the exact details, But here's what I do know.

4:03 I know it's rooted in a new grand bargain between government and business.

4:09 I know it means tearing down the wall

4:11 we've had for so long between school and jobs,

4:16 and I know industry, every company needs to help lead the transition.

4:22 And here is what I know more than anything else.

4:26 I know if we are determined, we can make it happen.

4:32 At a minimum, we need massive changes in both

4:35 our workforce training system and our career transition support system.

4:41 In an effective workforce training system, employers define where work is today,

4:47 what skills are needed, where it’s going.

4:50 And then schools and government training programs prepare people to get there.

4:54 That is not what we have today.

4:57 Today, in our country,

4:58 we spend hundreds of billions of dollars to incentivize enrollment

5:03 in college— without regard to whether people get a degree,

5:07 the skills they need for a job or a job.

5:11 The truth is, and you all know this, government and schools

5:15 don't know the skills employers need today or will need tomorrow.

5:19 Industry has the most accurate and dynamic view.

5:24 By the way, I’ve seen this be successful as governor and secretary of commerce.

5:30 When TSMC decided to expand manufacturing of chips in America,

5:38 they told us what they needed.

5:40 They needed skilled electrical engineers and equipment operators.

5:45 So we got to work.

5:46 We designed with them, with community college, with certificate initiatives,

5:52 accelerated certificate programs and apprenticeships

5:56 tailored to the company's needs.

5:59 Today, TSMC is thriving in Arizona,

6:02 making leading-edge AI chips at scale for the first time in America's history.

6:09 (Applause) Another problem with our current

6:16 system is it's a one-and-done system.

6:19 You graduate high school, you go to college, you're done with your education.

6:23 That isn't going to work in an AI economy.

6:25 All of us, all of us, will have to learn new skills because our jobs

6:29 will be constantly changing over the course of a career.

6:33 Let's be honest, most people learn most of the skills

6:40 that they use in their job every day on the job.

6:45 Yeah?

6:47 So why don't we have more effective, affordable,

6:49 flexible options at scale so people can earn while

6:53 they learn continuously over the course of a career?

6:57 A good friend of mine's husband recently lost his job in IT.

7:04 Super smart guy in his late 30s.

7:06 So he spent a long time trying to figure out a job that excited him,

7:10 that he thought was an AI-resilient career path.

7:13 He finally found a job in the HVAC industry.

7:17 He was psyched for it.

7:19 He spent a lot of time looking for a training program in his area.

7:22 He found one that he could get into.

7:24 It took a year, over a year actually,

7:27 cost money, and he wouldn't be paid for a year.

7:32 Who can go a year without a salary?

7:35 Now look, I know, I’ve seen it, there is a lot of really excellent

7:41 innovation out there around employer-led worker training,

7:46 apprenticeships, co-ops and college.

7:49 But here's the reality.

7:51 All of those efforts are a tiny portion of America's post-high school system.

7:59 They ought to be the system.

8:02 They ought to be the norm and not the exception.

8:04 And there should be no stigma for going that path.

8:09 OK, now, the reality is it's going to take more than just

8:13 new workforce training system if we're

8:15 going to get through this economic transition,

8:17 because we also have to provide support for people as AI changes their jobs.

8:23 And unfortunately, today in the US,

8:26 our primary career transition support system is unemployment insurance.

8:31 It was created 100 years ago in a different time where

8:34 people had a single job in a single industry for decades.

8:38 It does nothing to support people getting new training,

8:41 starting a new business, entering a new field.

8:44 And actually, I know this from being governor,

8:47 it doesn't provide nearly enough income support for middle-class wage earners,

8:51 let alone high-income earners.

8:54 So in addition to unemployment benefits,

8:58 why don't we offer temporary wage support to get workers

9:02 back into the workforce quickly by topping up their salary,

9:05 if they take a pay cut to enter a new field?

9:10 By the way, one of the reasons I'm excited about AI

9:12 is I think it'll make starting a business easier than ever.

9:15 So why don't we look at a program of self-employment

9:20 assistance to support workers while they start a new business?

9:25 So let's say we do all this.

9:27 Let's say we are determined, creative, and we do all this.

9:29 What might it look like?

9:32 Imagine a 45-year-old woman.

9:34 She's been an accountant for 15 years, closing the books.

9:38 She's got two kids, a pile of bills and a mortgage.

9:41 Pretty typical.

9:43 Last week she was told she's losing her job because it's being automated.

9:47 Today, in our system, if she's lucky,

9:51 she'd get a retraining brochure and two weeks' severance.

9:55 There's over a million accountants in America.

9:58 In a better system, her company would be incentivized

10:03 to allow her to start retraining months before she's laid off.

10:09 Maybe she gets a short-term credential to learn a higher-value skill.

10:14 It puts her in a position to get redeployed

10:17 at that company if the company is committed to redeployment.

10:20 And if she needs it,

10:22 maybe she could collect temporary wage insurance to top up her income

10:27 to make up the difference between her old job and her new job salary.

10:32 So how are we going to do this?

10:34 How do we get there?

10:35 Incentives, innovation and urgency.

10:38 First, the government needs to fund

10:42 schools and training programs on their outcomes.

10:49 (Laughter) How about that?

10:51 (Applause) They shouldn't just get the money because people show up and enroll.

10:56 They need to be funded based upon whether

10:59 people get good skills and actually get a job.

11:03 Incentives need to change for businesses as well.

11:06 Right now, the incentives are such that a company

11:11 lays a lot of people off today, and their stock price surges tomorrow.

11:16 It is too easy to hit the “easy button” of layoffs.

11:21 Companies need different incentives.

11:25 Quite frankly, we need a new system where it's

11:28 more expensive to abandon workers than to retrain them.

11:34 (Applause) We all respond to incentives.

11:40 How about we pilot tax credits or other

11:43 economic incentives that reward companies for worker redeployment,

11:48 for entry-level hiring, for reinvesting AI productivity gains into new jobs?

11:56 We have spent decades, if not longer,

11:58 perfecting the incentives for investing in machines.

12:02 We need to do the same so companies invest in people.

12:06 And here's the reality.

12:09 It's in all of our interests to have a smooth transition to an AI economy.

12:14 It isn't business versus workers.

12:17 Nobody benefits with the recession, excessive AI regulations,

12:20 social unrest and political violence and divisiveness.

12:26 By the way, it's in everyone's benefit

12:28 to reach this exciting potential of AI innovation.

12:33 It’s not corporate charity to do this.

12:35 Last time I checked, agents didn't walk into the store and buy things.

12:39 Humans do that.

12:41 And they need money in their pocket to do it.

12:44 So it turns out America has seen a similar movie to this before,

12:49 when we didn't plan for an economic transition,

12:51 and by the way, it didn't end well.

12:53 It happened when American companies moved

12:56 their manufacturing overseas, mostly to Asia,

12:59 chasing cheaper labor, and millions of Americans lost their jobs.

13:04 And a lot of communities were crushed.

13:07 How do I know this?

13:08 Because I lived through it.

13:10 In the early '80s, when the Bulova watch factory closed,

13:14 my dad lost the only career he’d ever known after

13:18 devoting almost 30 years of his life to the job.

13:21 One job, one company, one identity.

13:25 Gone.

13:26 Here's the thing, he was 56.

13:28 He still needed a job.

13:30 He still needed to work.

13:31 My dad was a smart guy.

13:33 He understood the economics of outsourcing to China,

13:39 and he knew it would help some American businesses grow faster and add new jobs.

13:46 But he and all of his buddies still needed a bridge to another chapter of work.

13:52 And there wasn't one.

13:54 I mean, after a lot of pain and bitterness on his part,

13:57 my family got through it.

13:59 But the truth of it is,

14:00 my country paid a huge price for that poorly planned transition.

14:05 In fact, I argue, 30 years later, we're still paying a price for that poorly

14:10 planned transition in the form of increasingly divisive,

14:14 dysfunctional, violent politics.

14:17 Now— (Applause) Think about this.

14:25 At that time, it was a few million Americans who lost their jobs.

14:34 Some say two million, some say three million.

14:37 Let's resolve right here, right now to do it differently this time.

14:42 Here's good news.

14:45 History also shows that when the stakes are high enough, America reinvents.

14:52 After World War II, record public investment and research seeded new industries.

14:58 COVID accelerated growth in clean energy, in health care.

15:04 AI is a 100-year technology and needs a 100-year response so

15:08 that all Americans can reap the benefits of an AI economy.

15:14 Why am I optimistic?

15:16 Because if we're a country that can design the best chips in the world,

15:22 create the best models in the world and spend

15:25 trillions of dollars to build out our AI infrastructure,

15:30 then we're up to this challenge.

15:32 Because here's the reality.

15:34 And you know this.

15:36 Our future isn't predetermined.

15:40 It's ours to create.

15:42 It's why you're all here.

15:43 So let's get to work.

15:45 Thank you.

15:46 (Applause)