The United States is on track to win the AI race — and hollow itself out in the process, says Gina Raimondo, former Governor of Rhode Island and US Secretary of Commerce. In this unflinching look at the threat of AI-induced economic disruption and social unrest, she offers a concrete blueprint to prepare workers for what’s coming next. “AI is a 100-year technology and needs a 100-year response,” she says. Is America up to the challenge? (Recorded at TED2026 on April 14, 2026
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@Zelousfear
April 17, 2026 at 11:17 am
This reminds me of the street sweepers union for cleaning horse manure arguing against cars.
@phoebej7806
April 17, 2026 at 5:07 pm
?
She said explicitly, multiple times that we shouldn’t stop or over-regulate AI. She does not talk about slowing or stopping AI to save jobs.
She believes there will be large changes due to AI, and proposes ways to assist people during the transition
@dennistucker1153
April 17, 2026 at 11:30 am
A.I. will be the cause of great death and destruction to most of the world’s population. All those people developing A.I. will have blood on their hands but money in their pocket. It’s so fricken evil and most people are just way too stupid to know this tech will kill so many. Nothing like trading profit for people’s lives.
@BigSacMac
April 17, 2026 at 11:31 am
Hate to say it, there is no saving the U.S. We have 7th graders who can barely read and write because of excessive screen time and short attention spans. The decline is only going to get worse. And these companies and this country care far more about profits and greed than they do its people.
@sanjuansteve
April 17, 2026 at 11:32 am
She thinks we should fight against AI to defend our need to work. lol
@AdvantestInc
April 17, 2026 at 11:33 am
Big takeaway: AI strategy isn’t just chips and models, it’s career mobility at scale. Without that, even the best tech roadmap struggles to deliver real impact.
@antonioas709
April 17, 2026 at 11:39 am
It is businesses against employees
@bluefairyme14
April 17, 2026 at 12:01 pm
Gina is awful, just throwing this out there as a fact since she is from my very small state and discriminates those with disabilities do with that what you will. If you see this Gina… good
@Schlutophen2
April 17, 2026 at 12:06 pm
Oh I know that’s why I said she’s a Glowie. Literally governor of one of the richest states per capita and proven collusion for money between its private sector and government. Now she’s speaking on behalf of these people? Come on.
@joeldheath
April 17, 2026 at 12:06 pm
If work is so much about dignity, decoupling it from our ability to survive seems like the perfect solution
@TheZombiecowmeat
April 17, 2026 at 12:10 pm
add it to the list of other things we desperately need but wont ever get
@Christine-e7b
April 17, 2026 at 12:18 pm
So brillant and realistic ! 🎉 THANK YOU for bringning it to light 😊❤❤❤
@jamesa378
April 17, 2026 at 12:37 pm
She begins this talk saying that she believes AI will create new jobs like in previous technology leaps. If that does not happen, everything she has said is wrong. I work for an AI company and for every new job I see AI creating I’m seeing 10 lost. The value proposition of the technology is cutting human resource costs, the biggest expense for most companies, while providing the same or better product.
@kiksonskumatarou8366
April 17, 2026 at 9:06 pm
This!! And it doesn’t make much sense. How will the companies get value if they have to invest money into new jobs? Either you’ll get a pay cut, or you’re gonna get less benefits
@tomquagliata9381
April 17, 2026 at 12:53 pm
AI and this digital age is very unlike the Industrial Revolution. The industrial revolution took decades due to the need to construct infrastructure and facilities. AI is changing the economy and work overnight. Literally. It will impact taxation, jobs, and not in a good way. Sure, it’ll make some things efficient, but we heard this with the advent of the laptop, email, cell phone, iPhone. All those things did was increase your workload, and you didn’t get any pay increases. It benefited corporations. Just the amount of work you had to do increased. And now you can take it with you – everywhere! I think it will destroy more than it helps humanity. It’s literally removing humanity from transactions.
@salomenapetvaridze9610
April 17, 2026 at 1:11 pm
I think that in USA,AI is too powerful to stop and there are many people want to increase the iq of AI,this will lead to something bad in some years or centuries
@gigamoment
April 17, 2026 at 5:35 pm
With more intelligence around, the only thing that will happen will be a better world, not a worse
@wyattx008
April 17, 2026 at 2:57 pm
So… Can you make me successfull, today? Like, right now, this very moment?
@Onionbaron
April 17, 2026 at 3:59 pm
And of course it will spill to us in the rest of the world…
Why no one read Isaac Asimov, so far ahead, but also so positive to what future could be…
Why are YOU giving the support for the opposite!? Don’t be afraid of thought, don’t be afraid to challenge your beliefs!
There are no believes that is worth more than life on this planet, and all of it’s genius divercity…
We have all that is needed for a good life for us all, no resources should be funneled to the few thousand that are scoping up and hamstering all of our assets for a very short gilded frame of their lives, that has no real value at all!
Should your own retirement savings be the thing that put your children on death row!? (ALL OF OUR CHILDREN, IN THE WORLD)
And of course it will spill to us in the rest of the world…
Simple question:
Are you former Europeans, now calling yourself Americans, and those natives who was there before Columbus…
Do you want a new world war?
That is a somewhat stupid question since we are now in the age of “Newspeak”.
For all my life I have worked for Peace, and I know from experience that 97% people around the world feels the same, and we the people seldom have any beef with each other…
But for the rest, the “power mongers”, they have been struggling since ancient times to become the Lord of the hill… (usually for getting soldiers, in the name of a “god” accepted by the potential soldiers, and also by painting the warlords enemy as the most evil society created… (Axes of Evil, Weapons of mass destruction etc…) (We are better than them…)
If you support this, I will fight you, in your own home to my last breath, I will not care how many arms you have…
I will be as what they describe people that are defending their land and culture, a terrorist…
Sadly so few of you have had any thought about who the real TERRORIST is…
@Onionbaron
April 17, 2026 at 4:05 pm
Read the ignorance fostered in one nation for so many decades below in the comments…
@matthewgray659
April 17, 2026 at 4:28 pm
The American economy is so broken and unsustainable. Liberal Arts college has become somewhat of a scam for a while now.
@4KALTITUNED
April 17, 2026 at 4:35 pm
I don’t trust her agenda. Since America is hollowed out by greedy and corrupt individuals, this digital, soon omnipresent AI MASTER whip will make sure that no human slave is spared.
@PigletCNC
April 17, 2026 at 4:49 pm
This goes off on the presumption that we are in decline.
@phoebej7806
April 17, 2026 at 5:04 pm
“…we need a new system, where it’s more expensive to abandon workers than to retrain them.” 👏👏👏👏
@Visiblyunwell
April 17, 2026 at 5:45 pm
Posting this and then posting the AI Ted talk minutes later is a choice.
@eXtremeDR
April 17, 2026 at 7:54 pm
Interesting, after 4.5 billion years of evolution we have proven that we can survive, build, create and destroy. Our ancestors wouldn’t have progressed without millions of different self-assembling, fully automated production systems providing food and more for free. And now many people are afraid of what has been here on Earth for billions of years?
Tell me, how will you do anything in a modern society without access to modern technology? And who said that proactive AI will not want to evolve and work for its own progress along with us?
We have other things to do than what we have all proven over millions of years – it’s time for the next level.
@KMHill
April 17, 2026 at 8:05 pm
Deeply rose-colored glasses.
@jugglaassassin
April 17, 2026 at 8:26 pm
So.. when do we start calling it Skynet??