Martin Ford imagines what the accelerating progress in robotics and artificial intelligence may mean for the economy, job market and society of the future.

Why you should listen

Martin Ford was one of the first analysts to write compellingly about the future of work and economies in the face of the growing automation of everything. He sketches a future that's radically reshaped not just by robots but by the loss of the income-distributing power of human jobs. How will our economic systems need to adapt?

He's the author of two books: Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future (winner of the 2015 Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award ) and The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future, and he's the founder of a Silicon Valley-based software development firm. He has written about future technology and its implications for the New York Times, Fortune, Forbes, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Harvard Business Review and The Financial Times

Martin Ford’s TED talk

More news and ideas from Martin Ford

Live from TED2017

The human response: The talks of Session 3 of TED2017

April 25, 2017

The world is changing faster than ever, bringing with it brand-new problems, while our most persistent troubles — like poverty and health — haven’t gone anywhere. One thing has become abundantly clear: our machines aren’t going to save us; people are. How do we respond to problems new and old with humanity and dignity? In the […]

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Live from TED2017

How we’ll face a fundamental threat to the market economy: Martin Ford at TED2017

April 25, 2017

Two hundred years ago, the Luddites rebelled against weaving technology. In 1964, US President Lyndon B. Johnson received “The Triple Revolution” memo that laid out the threat of job displacement due to automation. We’ve been concerned about technology displacing humans for a long time, says futurist Martin Ford. And that’s had a strange effect on us. “Because of […]

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