one day when I was 16 years old I was
sitting in a cold office in a school on
a council estate in Luton and a stranger
walked in said he was my careers adviser
he said what do you want to do with your
life and I replied I don't know and he
asked me well what do you like to do and
I said play Monopoly I like to be the
banker and he said that's what you
should do and I said what be a bank
manager like the guy down the road and
he said no a cashier so what was I gonna
do with my life except that I was going
to be a cashier or go on and do
something that might go on and make a
much bigger difference to the world
something that I'd be passionate about
something I'd be proud of that question
of what we do with our lives is one that
I think all of us will have to face in
the coming years as tech and AI become
more powerful and start to change the
jobs that we do we can accept that
technologies will take over our world or
are we going to rise above the machines
you know the other day I was talking to
my friends Mehmet and Trinity their
pupils that the 1-degree Academy a
school i co-founded to give
opportunities to children in one of the
poorest parts of london and after a chat
i wondered about them what will they do
with their lives because work is really
important to us we spend a lot of our
time doing it it connects us to others
it provides us with an income gives us a
sense of identity and now there are all
these headlines saying that the future
of work is bleak the same millions of
people are going to be out of work why
are they saying this well they're saying
this because there is no doubt that tech
is changing our world it's going to be
changing our world in a big way let's
take a look at some examples this is an
automated warehouse from a cada there
are hardly any people at all but
hundreds of robots all working error for
if this tech continues to evolve what
happens to the warehouse workers there
are over half a million alone in the UK
and they're also even more retail
cashiers with Amazon go supermarkets you
can stuff your pockets like I did here
just walk in and stuff your pockets and
just walk out there's no lines no
checkout no cashiers here's me trying to
shoplift I got the bill twenty seconds
later but in the u.s. they're over three
and a half million retail cashiers what
will they do and we've all heard about
autonomous vehicles in Phoenix today you
can get into a way mode taxi that drives
you completely autonomously without even
a safety engineer in the front think
uber without the Yuba driver and
companies like iron ride in Sweden are
doing the same with truck drivers and
there are over 600,000 truck drivers in
the UK alone what will they do now you
might be thinking well I'm gonna be ok
cuz these jobs are all routine and
manual and I'm not That's not me I'm a
professional I'll be fine
but the machines are coming after
professional jobs - whether it's in
banking accounting Lords medicine tax
whatever and millions more people are
employed in these kinds of jobs now I
have some friends who think that
Mehmet's and Trinity and the rest of us
will all be fine they say that people
are feared machines for a long time even
since the time of the Luddites or when
Frankenstein was published and despite
the machines coming in in many countries
there's very little unemployment today
so why should we you're afraid of the
machines we've been worried about them
for a long time and nothing's really
happened but I think this time it might
be different the reason why it might
might be different is one big reason and
that's exponential technology technology
is changing in a huge way let me give
you an example this is the Space Shuttle
this was one of the best fastest
computers of the time in in the space
and it's 480,000 operations per second
but the Google mini does a trillion in
one second and the fastest computer in
the world is Chinese is this one it does
93 thousand trillion operations a second
actually it's not the fastest the
fastest is now IBM's Oakridge Summit
which does double that speed at less
than half the price actually that's not
gonna be the fastest because the fastest
is going to be Intel's computer next
year which will do 1 million trillion
operations a second
all of this pace means that today we are
the things of the slow is that ever
going to be and all this is going to
affect a vast array of technologies all
of these technology is going to be
impacted by that exponential improvement
and that means that we're going to see
several revolutions in Trinity and
minutes lifetime and probably in all of
our lifetimes so what does this mean for
jobs then if you take jobs like this
does it mean that they all disappear
like this at lots of people have tried
to work out what's going to happen with
jobs and their guesses are all over the
place some people are saying maybe 18
million jobs might be at risk that's the
Bank of England others are saying maybe
it's only 10 million and others still
are saying or will create more jobs than
will lose so the answer is we don't know
what's gonna happen with jobs what we do
know is that we are going to have to
re-skill that whether or not there's
mass unemployment there will be mass
redeployment and mass Reese killing
needed so what needs to happen for
millions of us to re-skill well I think
firstly governments need to act and some
are like Singapore here they give
everybody every citizen 300 pounds of
future skills skills future credit to
learn new skills in areas like
automation data analytics
entrepreneurship advanced manufacturing
I think this is something that all
nations are going to have to copy and we
also need schools to prepare
our children to take on this new
learning we need to create kids who are
curious and who treat learning as part
of failure it's crucial that we prepare
our children for this more uncertain
future by teaching them not only what to
think but how to think because whatever
they know now will become possibly
obsolete very soon but we can't just
have governments to get this done for us
because it takes a long time for
governments to act you know charities
and companies also need to pay their
part and I've got a friend Herman and he
saw that in London we have too many
people who are homeless too many people
who are refugees from war and too many
people who are long-term unemployed so
he started a charity called code your
future but trains these people in coding
skills over six months and at the end of
that they helped them get a job I think
the world needs more people like Herman
and it needs more code your futures and
companies are acting too so this is
Ernst & Young they have introduced UI
badges to help people learn new skills
and AI in blockchain etc and then once
they've learned about learning they
rewarded or the virtual badge which they
share on social media and today eighteen
thousand people are trying to get an ey
badge just within the company alone but
actually I think we all need to think
much bigger hundred years ago we
invented the concept of teenagers before
that teenagers were workers and 80 years
ago invented the concept of the weekend
before that people used to work six or
seven days a week
so I think we need something equally
bold as bold as that for this new
revolution the 34 year old prime
minister of Finland
Sanna Marin has proposed a four-day week
and what she's saying is that actually
people would be happier if instead of
you working 50 hours and me not working
at all maybe we should share our jobs
we'll share your job and we both do 25
hours each and I think she's on to
something but of course if we do less
work we're going to have to figure out
how we'll learn
and maybe the answer is to tax the
machines but that's the subject of
another talk I think the reality is
though that we can't just rely on others
to solve the new skills challenge all of
us individually have a responsibility to
lead ourselves and inspire the people
around us to meet this challenge I think
there are three things we need to do I
think we need to all be more curious
more adaptable and more bold firstly
like our children I think we need to be
more curious we need to learn as much as
possible especially about technology and
the impact it will have on our world as
my friend Paulo Gallo says in the age of
machine learning we all need to become
learning machines and we need to learn
from others people who we disagree with
and get out of our social media bubbles
secondly I think we need to be more
adaptable more open to change and
children are really good at this they
have this in spades this is why they can
learn new languages so easily and why
even toddlers can operate high pads we
need to remember to be more like
children more often and finally I think
we need to be more bold brave enough to
step outside our comfort zones and take
more risks if you're weary of being too
bold
then try lots of small step experiments
so that if you fail you learn quickly
and you move on as Yoda says the
greatest teacher failure is and I think
he's right so I think being curious
being adaptable and bold will help us
respond better but I really think that
this needs to be underpinned by a clear
sense of purpose I think it's really
worthwhile to spend time on developing a
clear sense of what your life should be
about what your passions are so what's
your purpose you know I see too many
people at a certain stage of their life
look back and wonder hell did I get here
I think they would have ended up in a
much better place if they'd really
thought about
purpose and their passions because I
think having that's clear sense of
purpose gives you that true north by
which you can assess all the
opportunities that will come your way in
this machine revolution so I think these
four things curiosity adaptability
boldness and purpose are all really
important for the mindset that we need
to adopt for the Machine age and each of
these have been really crucial to me in
a journey that I've had over the past
ten years in 2010 I met this very
charismatic young man and man Jeffrey
has an event and he was really cheeky he
said you need to see me tomorrow for
lunch because I'm gonna tell you that
something that might change your life
and I happened to be free the next day
so I did see him for lunch and he said
you know I'm running a Saturday
mentoring program for 16 year olds in a
disadvantaged school in London and the
charity's called one degree because one
little intervention on a Saturday could
lead to a big change in the trajectory
of your life because because one little
intervention on the Saturday could lead
to a big change in the trajectory of
your life and he really wanted me to
visit the school and see the impact that
he was having with these kids and I said
well I'm not interested in education how
many interested in technology and
business but you know there was
something about him so persuasive but I
did go I saw the impact he was having
and he and I became really close friends
used to I saw him most weeks and a few
months later he became him and this is
in his hospital room he asked me to walk
over in his hospital room and hold his
hand he wanted me to promise him two
things he said if something happens to
me will you take over the one degree
mentoring program and I said yeah I will
but you know you'll be fine see
and second he said that the government
has just started this new idea where
anybody can set up a free school and he
said will you start up a new school
called the 1° Academy aimed at the same
kind of kids that society's forgotten
about I said no I can't I don't know
anything about schools I don't know
anybody's a teacher I don't know anybody
in government and I don't even have kids
I can't possibly promise that and he
said okay will you at least try I said
okay I'll try a few days later had nan
died of a rare form of cancer aged 30
it's a couple of weeks later I was with
many of his friends and I asked who's
going to help me with this one degree
mentoring program and four hands went up
and those people are still involved with
us and we've now helped together 500
children pass their GCSE high school
exams and then I asked who's going to
help me set up the school and no one put
up the hand I said we were all busy
professionals just like you and doing
the mentoring is enough and I said but I
made a promise that I was going to try
and so over the next two years at every
gathering I used to be that guy he says
hey do you know anything about free
schools and and no one did until one day
someone said that their friend Hassan
did so immediately I took their phone
and I called house then and I said I
need to see you tomorrow for lunch and I
need to tell you something that might
change your life just like have landed
to me and when we met I said I've been
looking for somebody like you to do this
with and he said I've been looking for
somebody like you to do this with so we
started they were two of us and
magically over the next six months we
managed to find another eight people all
somehow experts in education and
together this team of people
wrote a 120 page proposal to the
government it was a really tough time
even after we got accepted by the
government we went through hell with
government bureaucracy and making sure
the school opened and it looked like it
wasn't going to happen so I took a year
off work to make sure that the school
opened and it did open in September 2016
the 1-degree Academy in one of the most
deprived parts of London was an
incredible team led by Aidan how
inspirational headteacher this captures
the day that the school opened it was a
truly wonderful moment for our entire
team in 2019 the government came to do
the government came to do an inspection
and the lead inspector asked me what
rating I wanted and I said outstanding
of course he laughed he said none of the
last 100 inspections there done had led
to an outstanding rating two days later
he gave us our rating it was outstanding
together our team has created a school
that's setting our students up for
future success we're focused on reading
writing math strong sense of values and
purpose these kids could easily have
been in the same type of school I was in
that cold room being asked to do
something ordinary like a cashier
something that the machines are already
beginning to do instead they're getting
a great education focused on human
values instead they've had 68 careers
visitors in the last year alone instead
they're going to go on to do something
really special and so I think that if
like the students of one degree academy
we all choose to be more curious and
learn new knowledge and skills choose to
be more adaptable and open to
opportunities and choose to be more bold
and embrace something new and we do this
all with a clear sense of person
purpose then I think we won't just
survive the future of work I think will
thrive in it and I think all of us
including my friends Trinity in minute
can then rise above the machines
[Applause]