Translator: Claire Kister Reviewer: Robert Tucker
In 2030, we will work 15 hours a week
and spend most of our time doing what we enjoy.
(Applause)
Unfortunately, this is not my prediction, but that of the great economist Keynes.
Keynes imagined that technical advances and gains in profitability
would make our world an abundant paradise,
where we will all be at leisure, prosperous, and happy.
Well, things did not exactly work out like that.
At leisure? We are certainly working less, but we expect everyone to have a job.
Prosperous? Probably, for the 1%.
Happy? Maybe, but it certainly doesn't result from the world of work.
So, what's happened?
Well, constant advancement in technological development
has had a serious effect on labor and employment,
which we are having equally as hard a time evaluating as Keynes did in his time.
Let's consider Ford.
In 1929, Ford employed 130,000 people.
Less than a century later,
Tesla Motors, one of the leading
and most innovative car manufacturers today,
employs no more than 6,000, and most are engineers.
There are not many people in Tesla factories.
Of course, I'd not teach you anything by informing you
that mechanical and manual tasks are performed by robots.
Farmers, workers, right.
But executives!
Not so long ago, a marketplace like the New York Stock Exchange
was full of people.
There they screamed, gambled, pulled their hair out, made phone calls.
In 2012, more than half of the orders passed in the U.S. market
are passed via high frequency trading,
that is, using algorithms.
And as for the intellectual professions,
those that require our empathy, courage, judgment,
well, I present to you Wordsmith.
Wordsmith does not have a robot head,
but it knows how to write a financial dispatch
in less than one second.
And the list is long.
Pepper the robot, the empathetic robot,
the personal assistant that knows how to learn from humans,
will be sold in stores in less than a year.
We will have robot waiters, bankers, nursing aides, cashiers,
and even caregivers
- this famous bastion against human obsolescence -
will not be spared.
We will have robots that do TedxParis in 2030.
Robot politicians - now that's not a bad idea.
Of course, man will not become obsolete overnight,
and new activities,
of which we currently cannot conceive,
will occupy us more than we might expect.
And, of course, it will be a few more years yet
before our engineers and web developers become unemployed.
Years, but certainly not centuries,
because it is clear that a large amount of the work we do today
can be performed by robots.
So, what's to be done?
We can continue to maintain the myth of full employment,
but then it will draw all the consequences:
Continuously reducing the cost of human labor
to make it competitive with machines,
forever create new demand, with ever higher complexity,
to replace just a part of the jobs that will be wiped out.
In other words, choosing to live in a society with insecure jobs
for fear of having to face a rising unemployment graphic.
And that is exactly what we are living through.
For lack of vision, for lack of courage,
all our governments, all our policy makers
today focus their agenda on full employment.
Now, we can recognize that a social plan that focuses on full employment
has become a chimera.
And, employment defines all aspects of our social,
cultural, political, and economic lives.
Children are asked,
"Well, what are you going to be when you grow up?"
Education, retirement, health,
our entire social system has its roots deep in employment.
And not to mention public debate.
For 40 years, whether left or right, regardless of the environment,
all politicians have placed full employment as their main focus,
whatever the price, and with the success with which they're recognized.
Full employment cannot form the foundation of the house we will live in tomorrow,
because with full employment,
it's not just the plumbing that gives out, it's the whole house going up in flames.
Today we must build new homes,
and we would like to have a say
in the type of house in which we will live, right?
This is actually not the case.
It's not that today we lack political or social plans;
it's that the majority of them are made without us.
Take Google - much has been said about Google -
Google has a pretty clear vision of the world, it's transhumanism.
Well, recall that one of Google's investment arms, Google Ventures,
today manages over 1.5 billion dollars
invested in fields as diverse as robotics, of course,
but also education, mobility, genetics, music,
skills assessment and even legal services.
That is to say that Google now has the means
to ensure that its vision of the world today,
becomes our reality of tomorrow.
Of course, these projects may seem very surrealist,
but they are not just technological.
In fact, San Francisco and Silicon Valley
are now a laboratory for political plans.
Take for example, this investor
who proposed in 2013 to split California into six states,
in order to, and I quote,
"Set the political reality in line with the economic reality."
Well, if the plan had been successful,
he would have created the richest state in the United States, Silicon Valley,
right next to the poorest state, Central California.
He lacked just 50,000 signatures for the plan to have a chance of success.
I'm not saying that these plans are good or bad.
I would rather tell you of a myriad of plans bringing hope
in areas as varied as: the collaborative economy,
social entrepreneurship, education, and the like.
Today, thousands of entrepreneurs want to give economic power back to us.
They want us to have social impact, if only on a very small scale,
but today that's no longer enough,
because it's no longer economic power that must be regained
- and it's already still far from won -
it is political power.
I know what you'll think,
"How are we going to regain political power,
when the steady worsening of our economic situation
leaves us neither the time, nor the energy to do it?
What should we do now? Take to the streets?
We've tried, and it doesn't work very well.
What, carry pitchforks?"
I've good news for you: the pitchforks are optional.
Because at this very moment,
a large number of French, European, and world citizens
have formed into communities.
These communities all have a different story,
they all have different ideas, but they share common objectives.
This is what they say to us,
"Stop waiting for realization or stupendous reforms from above.
Take back, right now, the public debate,
in the name of an interest that for long
has had nothing in common with it but the name.
Become the informal government of our societies ourselves
since the formal government has shut us out anyway.
Be the architects of tomorrow's world rather than its hostages."
I'll give some examples.
OuiShare, I know very well
since it is a community of which I am fortunate to be part.
Well, OuiShare wants to lay the foundation for a society
that's based on collaboration, cooperation, and trust.
MakeSense, that wishes to help social entrepreneurs
gain real sustainability of their business model.
Zero Waste France, which brings together people, local and national,
with the goal of reducing waste at the source
in order to move towards zero waste.
Parlement et Citoyens,
who want to help citizens to participate in the development of the law.
Or, without a label,
this list of citizens of the city of Saillans
who last March won elections against the incumbent mayor.
Well, a few months later,
they are establishing a true participatory democracy.
And there are many others.
Alternatiba, Ars Industrialis, Colibris, Carrotmob, Noise, Movilab,
P2P Foundation, Villes en Bien Communs,
Collectif pour une Transition Citoyenne.
These movements are a click away.
It is thanks to them today that we can have a political platform,
in any case, much more than the act of voting for the king every five years.
It is thanks to them that we can start
to exercise our duty and power as citizens today.
No need to recruit, you join and leave when you want, no hard feelings.
But most importantly,
these movements today need us as much as we need them.
They need us to pass to the next level and to truly weigh in on the transition.
Because the cards are still in play.
Two centuries ago, Jefferson already warned,
"If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs,
you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors,
shall all become wolves."
We no longer have the right to lock ourselves in our homes
and wait for it to happen.
This is our opportunity.
Thank you.
(Applause)