It’s hard to know what will have to change. One possibility of course is that there might be mass unrest if things get bad enough.

It’s hard to know... I don’t have access to what’s happening in stealth startups working on AI — but there are a number of them, and it wouldn’t surprise me if there are some pretty disruptive things out there.

Yes, that’s a very good video. And I agree that a basic income (or some variant of that) is probably the best solution. That’s what I propose in my book. However, getting there is a very daunting political challenge. Many people would dismiss it as completely unrealistic. Still, I think we need to begin by having a…

My hope is that we’ll eventually have some sort of income floor for people. That won’t mean all the jobs will be gone, but people will then be able to survive economically in a world with fewer jobs. Many people might work part time if they could afford to make that choice. I also think a lot of people would start…

I like the robots in the Terminator movies....but I wouldn’t want to actually have one around.

I haven’t seen that movie, but yes that type of thing is possible. In the nearer term, rather than directly wiring brains, it might mean using virtual reality systems to control robots in some other location, for example.

Probably that it is all about low-skill jobs. People don’t realize that higher skill knowledge jobs are being heavily impacted by “software robots.”

Well, I don’t agree. I think the technology we have today is quite different from that of the industrial revolution or the mechanization of agriculture. IT is has become so general-purpose that it’s like a utility which delivers machine intelligence virtually anywhere. And that intelligence is already capable of…

I think a lot of that could eventually go away. It would free up huge amounts of real estate in cities. I also wonder about office towers. What happens when all those white collar jobs get automated? Will we still need so much office space?

Yes, I think all college students should be aware of this. It’s happening already. There was just an article in the WSJ that said the corporate finance departments of big companies now have 40% fewer employees than they did in 2004. A lot of the white collar jobs that college grads would like to get are really…

I don’t think robots are a bad thing in nearly any situation. The problem is not the technology, it’s adapting our system to the new reality. The big issue is not really jobs, but incomes. If you have an income, then many people would be happy to lose the job.

I don’t think it’s likely that will happen in the near future. I’d guess that it is many decades away. There are certainly people who think it could happen sooner than that, though. Ray Kurzweil believes we’ll have human-level AI around 2029. I’m doubtful.

I think eventually we will need a guaranteed or basic income, but I don’t think that’s likely to happen anytime soon. Free education would be great, but I also don’t think it will solve the problem. Already about half of college graduates can’t find jobs that use their degrees—they end up as baristas or something.…

There will definitely be opportunities to work with robots—but I don’t think that will solve the problem of of lots of workers being automated out of a job. Also, if you’re working with (or especially for) a robot or smart software system, there’s a good chance you are also training it to eventually replace you. I…

Yes, I think it’s inevitable. There is also virtual reality, which might offer experiences that are very realistic and addictive. All that could be a huge issue for society and it wouldn’t surprise me if eventually there are laws proposed—perhaps treating some of these technologies almost like drugs.

Good to be here, Meg. Yes, there are definitely some jobs being created. There will, of course, be jobs designing and maintaining robots (and smart software...a lot of this is really just automation software).

There have already been some small scale battles over solar and access to the sun in Silicon Valley. In one lawsuit between home owners, the judge ordered one property owner to cut down several trees blocking his neighbors solar panels—even though the trees were there long before the panels were installed.

I think it will be a long time before we allow trucks like this to operate without someone in the driver’s seat. This is a case where the technology is likely to run well ahead of social and regulatory acceptance.