Carl Benedikt Frey Keynote Speaker

Carl Benedikt Frey directs the programme on the Future of Work at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.

In 2013, Carl co-authored “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerization”, estimating that 47% of jobs are at risk of automation. The study’s methodology has been used by President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, the Bank of England, the World Bank, as well as a popular risk-prediction tool by the BBC. In 2019, the paper was debated on the Last Week Tonight Show with John Oliver.

In his book, “The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation”, Carl examines the interplay of technological revolutions and the social and political shifts that accompany them. Taking the long-term view, he sees big innovations accompanied by periods of often severe disruption and pain for many, but eventually a more prosperous, equal society emerges. From the industrial revolution to digital and AI, he considers how political, financial and social capital are changed by the spread of technologies. ‘The Technology Trap’ was selected as a Financial Times Best Book of the Year.  In the New York Times Book Review, David Byrne called it “the last great book I’ve read.”

Carl has served as an advisor and consultant to international organisations, think tanks, government and business, including the G20, the OECD, the European Commission, the United Nations, and several Fortune 500 companies. He is also an op-ed contributor to the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Scientific American, WIRED, MIT Technology Review, Project Syndicate, MIT Sloan Management Review, and the Wall Street Journal, where he has written on artificial intelligence, innovation, remote work, the US-China AI rivalry, and many other topics.

In 2012, Carl became an Economics Associate of Nuffield College and Senior Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, both University of Oxford. He remains a Senior Fellow of the Department of Economic History at Lund University, and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). In 2019, he joined the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the New Economic Agenda, as well as the Bretton Woods Committee. And in 2020, he became a member of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) – a multistakeholder initiative to guide the responsible development and use of AI, hosted by the OECD.

His academic work has featured in over 100 media outlets, including The Economist, Bloomberg, The Guardian, New York Times, Time Magazine, Le Monde, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In addition, he has frequently appeared international broadcast media such as CNN, BBC, PBS News Hour, Al Jazeera, and Sky News.

Speaking topics include;

• Automation and the Future of Work: How is artificial intelligence reshaping the world of work? What kind of jobs will people do, what skills will they need, and will there be enough jobs as automation accelerates?

• Remote Work and Globalization: How can companies make remote work work? How is productivity, inclusion, and innovation affected as companies shift to distributed models? And will Covid-19 usher a third wave of offshoring?• The US-China AI Rivalry: Is China closing the gap in artificial intelligence? Does its disregard for data privacy and ambitious industrial polices give it an advantage in AI? And is AI a centralizing technology?

• The Productivity Slowdown: At a time when innovation is accelerating, why is productivity slowing down? And what can governments and companies do to jump-start productivity growth?

• The Rise of Populism: Why is populism on the rise and what does it mean for the future of democracy? What is the role played by automation, inequality, and globalization?

• The Future of Cities: What will cities look like in a post-Covid world? Will they remain hubs of innovation or will we see de-urbanization?

• Big Tech and Innovation: Are Big Tech hurting competition and innovation, or are they critical to the development and deployment of new technologies? What should be the critical policy considerations in Europe and the United States as regulators are taking action?