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>> is the sixth annual boston book festival. you're the expert or she will see panel discussions on how mayors can affect national politics and it is an inside look of the digital world and the study of the brain and human consciousness. we will start with a debate on the uses of technology today and in the future. ♪ ♪ >> my mic is on. that's good. i am sacha pfeiffer from wbur and i'm pretty excited for this panel because you are going to hear very different views on what the future holds. so we have here and we have

talked a lot about the right order in which to bring our speakers up and we have decided you should probably hear from the optimists first about the future and then we will go to the pessimists. so the most optimistic person we have here is david rose sitting in the center. he has written a book called "enchanted objects" and next to me is our pessimist nick carr and andy mcafee or other optimists. andy and david are colleagues at m.i.t.. david and the metal, his whole work is basically been focused on how we make the physical environment interface with the digital environment. it's sort of human machine interface so when david's mind he looks at his house on the whole thing is an untapped app store. he thinks why isn't my umbrella glowing if it's going to rain later today so i know to take it with me? why are my pills somehow notifying me when it's time to take them? david is an instructor at the

m.i.t. media lab lab. his the ceo at ditto labs which is an image recognition software company that scanned social media photos for potential brands and products. >> it's truly evil. >> say that again. >> a chilly though. svinicki was previously the ceo of vitality. you find it a express scrips in cvs and walgreens. he founded a company called ambient devices which pioneered collapsible technology where you're embedding the internet into everyday things like mirrors and things like meros and goggle + potentially i'm imagining. this is david. we will hear the most optimistic view from david. coming up next will be andy mcafee and m.i.t. colleague of david. and these were basically focuses on how information technology affects businesses how they operate, how they compete how computerization affects society. he is incredibly positive. many people think we are in this period of economic stagnation of the more we computerized the more that takes away jobs unlike

the first machine age the steam engine swear and increase productivity increased wages and employment many people think the opposite is happening. and he thinks we are on the cusp of an explosion of what digital technology can do for the economy. nick here are techno-pessimist i just want to tell you there's a mixed attitude. nick with an attitude called is google making us us stupid cleckley think that sums up up next view of this. he writes about technology and culture. you could have read them in "the new york times" in the atlantic the guardian the new republic m.i.t. tech review. his work has been included in mythologies like the best american science and nature writing and i can't not note in nick's bio, he also says in the early 1980s he was a founding member of the universally unnoticed connecticut punk tha that -- punk band called the adrenaline voice.

before we begin speaking i want to give you a sense of some of the banter we were having. when andy and these guys know each other pretty well. when andy and nick saw each other and he said he and nick had to disagree for more than a decade. nick does that -- describes andy describes nick as a walking bummer. [laughter] we are going to start you out with the positive which is dated. there is no pessimism in david's view. andy is a bit more moderate and then we will hear the gloom and doom scenario from neck. so david was it you start us off and david is the author of "enchanted objects." >> i want to start by showing you an image of my living room so i brought a video. it was actually done by "the new york times." it's a couple of minutes and that will illustrate many of the products i talk about in the book. ♪ >> enchanted objects are ordinary things that have the

same functionality they have before except now they can talk. they are connected. these are ordinary things that have extraordinary capabilities. ♪ when we are creating technology for the home really do want to make something that's seamless and transparent and as opposed to having things sort of callout enjoyer attention to it. they get a more ambient experience. >> loop will continue to behave for those everyday objects as we do in the world and we can remain focused on connectivity between two people. what we are seeing now is this proliferation of different devices that are moving out from the cell phone and onto our bodies. in the middle of our living room is a coffee table that has google earth embedded in the coffee table. i just found that having access to this amazing observable map completely changes how often we

talk about travel and how often we talk about the world and how often we look of places that are mentioned. it's really nice to have this beautiful large reference objects sitting in the middle of our living space. devices can be a lot simpler and the interactions can be simpler. internet connected umbrella can be an umbrella that only shows whether it's going to rain. you don't need to tap on an icon or do anything that seems artificial. >> we come from a town in which we need to adapt to our house and not the other way round so what if our home could be a platform that we personalize and customize flex the key is how do we create this ecosystem that allows us to move from one experience to the other in a more seamless way? >> some people might think that connects at home is overwhelming that there'll be so much information in the home that is just a cacophonous environment.

i think about how we decorate our homes today. we put photographs everywhere. we put paintings up and post it notes up. there's a lot of decoration and adornment in the home. i think if enchanted objects can be designed in the right way we are going to want hundreds of them around us. >> what we are going to see is a new renaissance for designers as well as scientists are going to make a big impact in the type of technology we see at home. >> the history of computers have mostly been about efficiency. i think one of the things that is changing its enchanted objects can be about adding motion and magic to the fabric of our everyday lives and experiences. >> so isn't he cute, my son? in the book i describe our relationship to technology and how there's a huge wave that sweeping, that's taking technology from these blowing

glass lapses seem to me monopolizing her attention with a call and response back and forth. these things were designed to be the interfaces for smartphones were designed in ages where we had dos prompts. we do something in the computer do something back to it than you do something and there's a huge opportunity now to have devices that i'll have a little bit of technology in them, little bit of artificial intelligence that can really simplify our relationship to technology. as you can see in terms of the embedded pill bottle caps and desks and furniture and jewelry and all the things that will have embeddedness. i hope you appreciate that from the examples that i showed that this will impact health and a positive way, impact transportation in a positive way, impact housing. did you see the apartments, the city home apartments at m.i.t. m.i.t.? would have gopal is like a

furniture dispenser so your bed comes out in the table comes out so well the space hogs that you have before can now be vested away so you can live downtown in new york or singapore or boston for less than $1.3 million which is the cost of square footage today. so i guess the second part of the book is illustrated in this poster which i brought for you all is a the way to think about what should we make now that technology is affordable enough and small enough to embedded in everything? it made this periodic table of enchantment and divided up the things that we could embed technology and based on human desires. echo ' fairytales, spy culture and comic books and think about what our human aspirations that could be satisfied with new

technology? i talk about objects for omniscience. about half of these are real and available and have them are prototypes from the media lab and other places. their desire to be all-knowing. their desire to be -- for human-to-human connection like that little skype cabinet that my 6-year-old can talk to my parents who were in wisconsin as often as they want to. i don't have to set up a skype connection or call my parents. they just open the portal and the other person is there. or her desire for safekeeping or a desire for immortality, these objects that help us understand ourselves and our health behaviors and give us a digital self-portrait of what we are doing that hopefully nudges us towards being healthier versions of ourselves or teleportation, objects that make travel easy for the last one is objects for personal expression. once the other desires are being

satisfied by the robot that would make and spend more time, this is my optimistic view, we can spend more time with personal expression like things are objects that make painting easier or guitar hero which made musicmaking easier or legal mind storm bricks which i worked on which make making sculptures are inventing robots easier. so that quickly is the view of the book. one is to think about our position towards technology and the second one is to think about what could we invent with these new coming internet of things; enchanted objects. thanks. >> david has a number of posters so feel free to engage and take a look. [applause] next up is andy mcafee and he's the principle research scientist at the center for digital business at m.i.t.. he was previously at harvard business school professor.

now he and david are colleagues at m.i.t.. >> thanks very much and thank you all for coming out. this is already really good day for me because i am described as the optimist in the group. our book came out in january called "the second machine age" i've spent the years essentially being called dr. doom about technological progress. i want to talk about where the doctor doom part comes from the first of all i want to underscore david's optimism about this world we are creating so quickly with digital technologies. the reason i'm incredibly optimistic is that economic history tells me that i should be. honestly i found this hard to believe myself. the single biggest change in human history came in the late -- started in the late 18th century and has been going on ever since. it's a story about what happens

when really powerful technologies entered human history because we have really good evidence going back hundreds if not thousands of years and it tells us there was essentially no economic growth, almost no population growth and no advance in the state of our civilizations for honestly thousands of years until the late 18th century at which point the graph of human history went like this and just went from horizontal to vertical. the story about why that happens is that technology story. the main thing that changes the family had steam power that let us overcome the limitations of our muscles. that hair braided technology continued in the late 19th early 20th centuries with the electrical power and internal combustion engine and honestly it benefited the planet like nothing else. the fantastic part about technological progress it starts in the more affluent parts but it does spread and what we are witnessing now thanks to

innovation like the one david talked about is what we call the second machine age where we are overcoming the limitations of our minds and our senses thanks to digital technologies to at least a big and extend as we overcame the limitations of our muscles in the first machine age. i cannot conclude anything else except this is going to be the best economic news on the planet for some time to come. when you hear that you think how are you possibly getting that dr. doom label? the reason that comes them is as we look around at the evidence is absolutely true the old joke among communist is technological progress is the only free lunch that we believe in. the problem is there's no economic law that says tech progress is to benefit everybody equally. the progress progress that d.c. can very easily be biased towards some people and sort toward some groups away from other people. the main people that it's biased

against the people who are losing out in the second machine h.r. people who want to offer their labor to the economy but they don't have in demand or differentiated skills. they are finding it really hard to get a job at a wage that's going to be healthy and acceptable for them. when we look at the evidence we see the average american family is no better off today than they were in the late 1990s and is slowly going backward in some measures as well. the middle class in this country and around the world is very clearly getting hollowed out. the reason people down at the low end of the wage ladder are doing okay they work in the physical world. their restaurant busboys and gardeners and massage therapist. these are not great great great jobs that they are jobs of the robots cannot do yet so these are still human jobs. classic middle-class jobs that technology has already been good at those and that's explaining the polarization and the hollowing out and up at the high

and we are doing pretty well so far but wait a bit because when we looked around we saw astonishing advances in artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles come in robotics, science-fiction technology after science-fiction technology. my favorite quip about that, we need to keep in mind george jetson actually drove his vehicle to work. [laughter] it's not going to happen for very much longer i don't think. while that brings us this amounting -- amazing bounty the distribution of the pie is becoming problematic in some ways and it really helps me understand the rising inequality in the plight of the average worker and as tech progress races ahead unless we figure out intelligent ways to intervene those trends will continue and i believe they will accelerate instead of spontaneously reversing course.

the challenges that i see coming with technology are these economic challenges. i have not listened to david before. i always loved listening to nick because he gave is many things to think about. as sacha explained i find myself are lightly disagreeing with him so get set for around 12 or whatever this is, nick. >> andy mcafee's book is again "the second machine age." next stop on his book is "the glass cage" the word cage tells you his perspective on this. >> the gloom and doom guy should really be up at the pulpit. i'm very tempted but maybe not. let me sum up what we have heard. this is the optimistic case. in the future you won't have a job that you will have a really cool umbrella. [laughter] progress is all about trade-offs. i would like to take a slightly

different view and look at a bit of a different question as we look ahead or even look at what's going on now and think about how computers are changing our lives. the question is and i jotted it down, when we rely on machines to perform our jobs to our talents flourish where do they wear there? that's a very old question. people have been asking it for at least 2000 years, more than 2000 years back to the ancient greeks and it's a question that encapsulates our fundamental ambivalence about labor saving technology. it will save us or it will destroy us. that ambivalence is captured in the title of today's session technology, promise and peril and you see in and in their rather than an order because it's always both. i think the question is if anything more salient today than

it ever has been whether we are going to flourish in this new environment or whether we are going to see the quality of our lives actually diminish because this and he has said he has provided a lot of evidence about automation through computers and software is moving more and more broadly into the economy and to professional white-collar jobs. on the other hand automation itself isn't new. the first wave of industrial automation happened in the 1950s when we saw manufacturers install lots of electronically controlled machinery. of course this machinery which was based on technologies that were created during the second world war were much more efficient. they raise labor productivity and make companies more productive and more profitable

that the machine is also presented as kind of an emancipator. it would help workers. by taking over routine jobs on the factory floor it would raise workers up, get the more interesting jobs and give them more valuable talent but what we found out in reality was something very different than that promise. a harvard business school professor named james bright in the 50s when out and actually did exhaust is -- exhaustive research on what was happening in the industrial sector and it went into 13 to 15 different companies across a wide range of industries from companies that made automotive engines do one that were baking bread on an industrial scale and what he found in large part their skills did not rise up. the jobs did not rise up and in fact they went down throughout all of these sectors. so instead of turning the

factory worker into this higher skilled person is fundamentally turn these people into machine operators. the craftsman, the artisan, the specialized labor became a machine operator, a pusher of buttons and as he summed it up in a report that he gave to the government he said the lesson is that it's not true that sophisticated equipment requires skilled operators. this skill can be built into the machine. i think that's a lesson we are learning again now but on a much broader scale. today as we see computer automation or mechanical automation move into all these professional jobs like white-collar jobs across the economy we are often given a very optimistic view that says oh well as soon as we don't have to do these routine jobs, these routine thinking we will be raised up and we will have more strategic jobs or more aesthetic

jobs were some kind of higher level skills will be called into play and we will develop those talents. but if you look at the evidence across many different personal jobs these days you don't see that. you see something very different. if you look at the way pilots work and now that most of the flight is handled by computers. if you look at how doctors are coming to work when they are doing diagnoses with a computer. when you look at architects, when you look at accountants, when you look at managers what you see is not people being raised up by it dependence on computers to do a lot of thinking for them but people who are in fact turning into computer operators, people who look at screens. so we are going from this world where you had have lots of complex different ways to interact with the world and to express your skills and thoughts to a more homogenized economy where more and more people are

computer operators and are either watching screens were inputting data into screens or in the worst-case providing the backup should the computer failed. this is not only happening i would argue in the professional economy. in the workforce, it's happening in the lives of her individual personal lives. all you have to do is probably look at your own behavior or go out on the street or the public square afterwards and you will see people dependent on computers usually in the form of smartphones to do all sorts of everyday tasks. if you want to get from one place to another in a city launch google maps or if you want a recommendation for what movie to watch or what restaurant to eat at you launch an app and even when you want to socialize increasingly that activity is mediated and aided by companies like facebook. what this does i think ultimately is make us more dependent on computers, more

dependent on technology and less likely to engage in a rich way with the world and less likely to engage with other talent and build greater talents that ultimately opens the world up more fully to us. so i think what we are seeing is what we always see in what we struggle with tools. this has been going on since the human race first emerged where great toolmakers, great tool users and tools and technologies are absolutely essential to not only our survival but to our ability to lead a fulfilling satisfying life. we would always have two choices when it comes to tools. we can't design them and use them in a way that really does force us to engage with the world, to take on hard challenges, to use their own talents manual talents psychomotor talent analytical talents judgment making talents, in a way that leads to more

fulfilling activities because one thing we know about us is that we actually aren't very happy when everything is made easy for us. we are happy when we struggle with hard things and accomplish hard things. or we can go the other route which is to use the technology as a barrier between you and hard challenges, between you and the world and all of its complexity. we turn ourselves into creatures of the screen into people who depend more and more on computers for even very simple everyday tasks and decisions. so what i would end with is to encourage you to take a different view of technology. what we have come to do is very much judged these things as economic inefficiency types of measures which presents tools as simply a means of production and consumption. i think ultimately our tools are

something much more important. they are a means of experience and if we think about them in that way and demand that our tools, are computer tools and applications be designed to enrich our experience rather than impoverish it as a think more and more is being done today then we will actually create a future well-suited to human beings rather than a future well-suited to robots. thank you. [applause] >> i have to say nick was a former editor at "harvard business review" and i taught at the school for a while as well. only at harvard business school would research for somebody fizzes 12 to 15 companies out of an entire company be described as comprehensive. [laughter] nick i just completely disagree. the actual systematic research shows there's a really consistent upgrading the skills

of the american worker throughout the 20th century even as it became much more automated. one of the reasons we put in place the worlds, used to be the world's best primary education system was because their industries demanded an entirely different and more highly-skilled set of workers. >> you are looking at it from two different angles. you can either look at this as what does it do to particular jobs or you can look at it as what is it due to the mix of jobs? what you are saying is even if we saw do we saw dee skilling we saw the skilling and factories increase in productivity nevertheless created bigger companies with more complex management requirements and design requirements so we have this whole white-collar workforce that was built on top of it. >> i'm saying the factory workers themselves became more highly-skilled. this notion you are putting out there that we are turning into an economy of button pushers is a little dire and a little simplistic and let me say one other thing. the last time we hopped on an airplane to go on a flight how many of us were hoping that the

pilot had a fulfilling experience on that flight? and express himself about the most boring experience and if it's boring for the pilot that's good news for us. >> let me respond. they're two different ways to look at this. you can look at individual jobs or you can assume we are going to create this rich constantly create this richer level of jobs. as you write in your own book that level of jobs is being eaten away by computers and there's no sign that there's going to be this huge big general further increase in jobs. somehow it's going to spring magically from all of this. i think with a look at the reality of the situation which says when you introduce more and more sophisticated software into sophisticated jobs people begin to have more homogenized jobs, become more reliant on computers and art pushed up to a higher level.

as for the pilots for 100 years the story of automation in air flight has been a very happy story. it's been about increasing safety and increasing efficiency. if you you look at what has happened in recent years you see that now pilots are on manual control for three minutes on a flight and what happens is what happened to all of us they lose situational awareness. their skills get rusty and we are seeing this new kind of accident beginning to emerge automation related accidents where if something goes wrong the pilot because their skills are rusty react in the wrong way and the plane crashes. the lassar the faa sent a notice to airline saying you've really got to get pilots to be more engaged in a flight to practice their manual skills while flying. the story of automation and airlines is a story up to a point and then what it shows is is you can take too much

responsibility and too much skill away from a person in too much control of way from a person and then you get the opposite effect. if you backup a little and actually respect the skill of pilots and give them more control, little more control and responsibility i would say you could have safer flying than he did today. >> i want to jump in because i think the balance point is the right answer. my morning this morning was aided by three technologies. one is my 6-year-old played mine graft. you could say that screen time but i think just talking about people that as a society the screen, creatures of the screen is condemning the media itself. that's like saying you were a creature of the page. it depends on what you are reading. mine graft which is a constructionist game as long as you are playing that first

shooter motive game is like a fruitful thing for 6-year-old to do for an hour and weekends. that doesn't seem to be too bad. the other thing is i made pancakes and i was aided by the tools of a mixer and measuring cups and an inductive cooktop. all of that seemed, i didn't have to struggle of foraging for firewood in the other things that people have done in terms of cooking but also it didn't make the choice to do the tv dinner. i didn't just get something out of the freezer and put it into the microwave and say here's breakfast everybody. i made the choice to use some tools but not the ultimate tool of the microwave. there was a middle ground there. coming down there i used uberwhich is their right system so it's easier to get a car.

if you tap on picked me up now and the driver comes to you in the driver's somebody who is an ordinary person and they knew exactly where to go. i just left the cabinet billed my credit card and was an awesome experience for me and for the person who could make money on the side driving people around. those are three tools. what's wrong with those tools? >> i don't think there's anything wrong with those tools. i have to shut -- different issues with uberbut it's not as a tool. it's the labor force implications of a company like googler that is run by people who don't necessarily have the worker's best interests in mind i think it's pretty clear but no i think you're absolutely right. as i said we constantly have a choice not only as users of technology but designers of

technology to use these tools in ways that enrich our lives or impoverish our lives. if you look at a symbol that everybody uses gps navigation extremely valuable where they have gps in your car and you use google maps extremely valuable in all sorts of situations whether you are lost or you need to get somewhere really fast. >> or a relationship with my wife. >> an added bonus. instead of using it in those situations where it's valuable you start to use it all the ti time. in the last part of my book i talk about one woman who wrote about her experience. she's an artist designer at a conference in a different city and she was looking forward to going to that city. she had never been there before and after the conference was over she realized every time she left the hotel to go somewhere she would plug in the destination on google maps

200 yards take a left and takes you your next right and she never developed a sense of place in the area never got to know the layout of the city. i think we are too quick because the technology offers convenience and speed we are too quick to say let the computer do it. and we lose sometimes elemental skills, very important skills like navigation knowing how to get around in knowing where you are. turns out that that's actually a very valuable skill to develop. >> would you say the same thing about the shift from a slide rule to the calculator? >> i would say the calculator is a good tool sometimes as a slide rule was but again it depends on when it's introduced. if you give a kid. >> no kids have intuitive sense of doing math anymore. fata net loss? >> no. i don't think so at the calculator can be used into its

pretty converted into a school and tell a kid now that you have mastered a mathematical skill and it's become routine for you and you know it then you can use the calculator to do it for you. that raises you up to the next level of skill or you can bring in a calculator until the kid you don't have to learn that mathematical skill because the calculator can do it for you and that has the effect of closing off higher knowledge. what we know of mastery is it goes from one level to the next. you have to have mastered it at a particular level. if we say let's not automate everything immediately lets wait until we master a skill that becomes routine and automated i think i would be a smarter way to go. >> is a question related to skill deterioration. you feel like there's this de-skilling effect of the high-tech transformation. in your book you the knowledge that we have to reorient our education system away from an industrial era focusing on math and reading. think about the implications

because the focus of s.t.e.m. science technology engineering and math. we need more of a focus on personal and intellectual skills that will enable us to work better with smart machines. i'm wondering what you think the education seems to look like. clearly at a weekend conference talking about public education what can you say quickly we need to be doing differently in education to be ready for what technology brings us? >> everyone is to get up and leave this room immediately and find out the session happening in parallel with this one where the finnish educational researchers talking about his work. we need to stop teaching to the test and stop being so standardized. but nick hits this idea heart of things that we lose with technological products and trade-offs happen all the time everywhere. if nick's thesis was correctly would not be witnessing the flynn effect throughout the 20th century and into the 21st which is this measurable significant rise in iq is it's

been measured consistently for a long time. not in any way we can measure but in ways we can worry about the benefits, and no way that we can measure we be becoming stupider over time even as her world and societies become more technologically complex. >> i have a question for you david and in my mind i think david looks at the world and thinks everything is a lost opportunity pic i'm sure you look at this pen and you think this could be embedded with some sort of software that would make it work better. do you have a doorbell at your house that has a different chime for different family members as they approached the house? >> i do. do you remember peter and the wealth? every character in the story has a different ring tone. so at our house we have a doorbell that hopes to solve the problem at the end of day chaos,

who is where and when are they coming home? as people are homebound and 10 miles away are one mile away 4.1-mile away in the neighborhood you hear the doorbell makes the sound for that family member that indicates they are homebound and how close they are to home. it's an interface that is embedded in hopefully elegant and not screen based, just audio paste that solves this end of the day who is where problem. >> my husband and i have friends that live in outer area. they use crowdsourced traffic integration so if you hit a hot pocket you send it and it lets them know what routes to take. we had dinner with them and their persist with the new app called life treated 65. she was running late and he could see a picture of her on a map. she is now near davis square about to park on orchard street. my husband said we should get

that so we would always know where one another are. i said i don't need another reason to look at my screen. you are offering to tell me where you are at all times and i'm declining to know. my question for david is do you see anything you think is perfect that you don't think we should touch? are there things we should just leave alone? >> i'm sure there are lots of things but i look at all at the apps that people have on their screens and i think this is a signal of what people are intrigued by like spotify. they can hear music and whatever music you want as a signal of something that's interesting to a lot of people. then i think about how would you marry that app with a place in someone's life like cabinets were a chore or a chair or a gesture or an object that could put the information in that service in the right place in someone's life so the interface

wouldn't have to be pull out your phone tab over three screens click on the app but instead you recline in the chair and place relaxing music or you open the cabinet until the kid sees the grandmother. trying to find ways that these apps can become more elegantly embedded in everything and hopefully that will be a more humane way to live. we won't be monopolized by phones. >> neck i want to talk about what you describe is the intangible waltzes when computers take away many skills. there's this wonderful documentary called 30 feet from stardom about backup singers. often time we hear these famous songs and we forget there's this distinctive woman's voice. you never think of the backup singer. as a reference that there's less skill needed by backup singers because if you can't get that out right arterton can fi fix i. there's something lost in that

in terms of human pleasure of learning to do something. you say for example architectures in a state of crisis. can you tell us what we are losing that intangible? >> computers are extremely valuable for architecture and construction but what happens is because they make things so easy and fix mistakes before they happen as the case with auto tune a lot of folks use them at the outset of a project. instead of sketching by hand and building models by hand they just go right to the screen. he plug-ins and dimensions and the computer will build your well for you and all the installation of windows and everything. what is lost by the architects i talked to say is this is the sense of experimentation that can only come when you are physically engaged using manual skills to sketch things out and it turns out that studies show we expand our memory.

we get more in touch with the physical nature of architecture. when you do this and it's very easy to overlook those types of stout -- subtle skills that come with engaging physically as well as mentally with the world and begin to see all of these things as activities that computers can be used really fast so let's let the computer do it. i think there is great loss as i say we only recognize after we say the computer can do this and we realize there's creativity and a sense of the humane scale of things that only come when we at least start on our own with their own resources and engage with the world and then bring in the computer a little later to challenge us and bring information to bear and to automate things together. again it comes to the right balance but unfortunately i think we are too quick to say if the computer can do it than the computer should do it.

>> we want to get a chance to ask questions as well. we will try to get as many questions as we can in the time that we have left. >> this is a question for david about enchanted objects the internet of things and home innovation. most of these embedded devices have little operating systems and little networking stacks and so forth but it has already been shown that devices from belkin corporation for home automation can be compromised and attacked and be used as a trojan horse within a network as a platform to attack all the other computing devices. in the very corrosive security environment that is standard set -- internet today with governments flexing their muscles and other playings -- players arming themselves in

toughening up, isn't the internet of things kind of a nonstarter with security problems? >> i do think we have to take security seriously. a part of security that i'm concerned about is this permanent memory that your phone has about every place you have been. i'm less concerned about a government for google knowing when my lights are on or off for the temperature of my house is but i do think the security presented, the security threat presented by the data that your phone is gathering is a much bigger threat and is an industry we need some policy around lobotomized singer devices. we need a big reset button to be more evidence on our nest and our thermostat order fitbit so we can have forgiveness, so we can have no memory. we can become of solved and say that cloud should no longer

remember anything about my whereabouts from her exercise and that should be a more apparent feature of the services. >> i think a lot of technology enthusiasts are excited about it because they use it as a tool and it allows them to do difficult things and challenges their skills. for technology consumers there's a danger that you are losing skills so i wonder there's a way to use technology to make it harder for us to have that sense of achievement that normally comes with learning a difficult task? >> can you think of an example? >> let's go back to airline automation. you can design software that you can during the course of the flight and control back to the pilot during the flight. that makes the edits job harder but also keeps the pilot alert. >> if you take out the electrical system at random. [laughter] of the plane just to make it

really hard. >> you could. [laughter] that has been done. it's not so much, and you can see a lot of educational software that makes things hard for kids. and video games make things hard for players. in those types of software they can be good models for those types of applications we use in all aspects of our lives. once that aren't eager to take over everything but provide room for human analysis and challenges with new information that we have to analyze for a thinker lots of ways you can design software that would push us to think more and act more and work more while still getting a lot of benefits from the computers. >> i would just say in the example of a commercial air flight what is our goal ... our goal to make that a safe and

cheap and efficient as possible for as many people as possible or is our goal to keep pilots engage? i have a clear preference for the first. >> whether the faa say we should have computers fly manually? of the safety issue. >> the way to get safe is to get the pilot out of the cockpit. >> that's a very utopian idea. look what happened to sully sullenberger a few years ago. [applause] takes off from laguardia both engines fail, land safely on the hudson. you get the pilot out of there and all those people are dead. it's going to be a long time. >> what would happen to the air france flight over priscilla wear when the autopilot went out and handed control to the human pilot the first thing the pilot did was to back the yoakam put the plane into a stall. the stall warning went off

continuously for three minutes while they took the plane into the ocean. >> if the pilot had been more engaged. >> they weren't. >> would be impossible to be in a more engaging for these people. >> this is why it's referred to as an automation error. the pilot falls into automation complacency and when they take over they are more likely to make mistakes. you can design the systems differently with respect for the pilot rather than say listed could just get rid of the pilot because human beings are flawed. we may be flawed that we should take those flaws into account in designing the systems. we won't have airliners flying without pilots for a long time so we had better make sure it's well designed. >> and because of our over fondness for humans and their

portable sorts because it's the safest way to fly the plane is with a pilot. >> i think it's worth mentioning something that i mention the beginning which is backstage when andy do you a nick know each other and they say we have been disagreeing for a decade and you have seen that play out here. >> my question is frenetic. i read one of your earlier books that i thought was great, the big switch and you are a lot more optimistic at that time. i'm a technology enthusiast and i believe in all of the things that all of you are saying but i do tend to agree with nick that i don't think you are saying the overall we are better off without technology. i think you are saying we are definitely better off with technology but technology has taken a little bit out of each one of us. i think we see it every day. we depend too much on

calculators and we can't adders tracked. if we are sending text and not calling each other personal contact is missing. the airplane pilot is a perfect example. i would rather fly a plane with a pilot than without a pilot at this stage. i think the challenge is computers as we all know are designed to handle things that we program in them. they're not very good at handling exceptions to the world unless we define the role and that's what happened but the air france pilot which i totally agree with. it was pilot error. the computer did not know how to handle the exception when the plane stalled. so my question to you is other than saying get more engaged what do we need to do as a society to solve that problem so we are not solely dependent on machines to the point where when exceptions happen we run into problems? >> the first thing to do is

respect our own talents more than we tend to do right now. realize that only human beings have common sense. that is what enables us to deal with exceptions in most cases very fluently whereas computers have a great deal of trouble dealing with exceptions particularly when weird stuff happens and unfortunately we are in a world where words stuff happens. common sense skeptical thinking critical thinking creativity and ingenuity all the things we are good at but that may not be as efficient as possible. all of those things require us to grapple with hard things, to figure things out. if we can start from map and we have these unique skills that are crucially important for ourselves and our own well-being and the well-being of society and move from what i would call a technology centric view of automation or first figure out

what computer can do and say let's give that to the computer and what's left over give that to those unreliable human beings. move away from that to what's called human centered design where you start to say how can we design the systems and software to make sure we capture that skill and encourage it to get better and better while also bringing in the computer to challenge as to counter our flaws, to provide new information, i think that would be a much better approach. i have to say it's a slightly less efficient approach and as long as a society we say we want to give highest precedence in all cases to efficiency gains than i think we are going to short-circuit our own skills in our own well-being. >> let's unpack that were efficiency a little bit because that includes things like variety like low prices and

safety. these are silly things that i value. i don't want that reduced to one trivial word like efficiency. >> or first astronauts were all pilots. when they look to the spacecraft the question was where the controls? i we fly this thing? how does the evolution of the space endeavor fit into today's world? >> i'm not sure but the mercury astronauts have exactly that reaction and in fact they wouldn't fly without having some control so if nasa retrofitted the capsule to let them, to give them control. air jets or something.

i think it underscores that we have been struggling with this kind of issue, this challenge for a long time. >> i think that's a nice challenge to bring up. i'm with nick, there's a trade-off we struggle with constantly. the way i frame the trade-off is we can preserve the status quo in the interest of people who are currently holding today's jobs and those of the benefits we are reserving or we can change the status quo and take out all the benefits not only to the holders of jobs of the future but everybody also benefits from poor example faster and cheaper and safer flights. when i think about that trade-off i find it it easy trade-off to make and i find it immoral to reserve the status quo. >> i would like to frame the two sides. one side is looking at technology which is the conventional wisdom and what it's doing for us whereas nick

says it does things for us but it also does things to us. i would like to ask this of david. a favorite word you have seen in your talk is easier. this is easier, this is easier. what happens to our brains and what happens to our bodies when more and more we allow technology to substitute for the mental physical and social efforts that we use today? i think next book is examining the side that we are losing a lot and it's really important because we have this instinct hey this technology does is great stuff for us but we are not looking at what it's doing to us. >> that's a last wish we could take because we have three minutes. why don't minutes. whatley answered in a memo call it quits. >> i don't want our lives to be

trivially easy. i want interaction with technology itself to be easy. i don't want like the whole notion of going to school to learn about how to operate a computer. i think it's ridiculous because the interface itself given the availability of being able to embed a little bit of artificial intelligence and a lot of things will mean our technology will be a lot easier to use so we can focus on human interaction and solving difficult problems for doctors but we won't have the byzantine, speaking about hard interfaces like the mercury interface of having to type in 12 ascii characters to tell a machine to do anything. today we laugh at that that we use a mouse and buttons. i'm saying let's move beyond mice and buttons so it's easier so that we get a little bit of

interaction and pans and tables and jewelry and our apartments in everything so that the interaction itself can become embedded in these here. >> my favorite recent example of someone using technology to push themselves really hard and do extraordinary things was the google executive who now holds the record for highest jump out of the balloon through the stratosphere to earth. he broke baumgartner's record using an amazing amount of technology. i think that's fantastic. >> day that your last comment reminds me of another bishop had. many of us up and save say what do we do before the internet? david two of this is isn't it annoying we have to type in a search term for google and shouldn't there be a better way to let them know what they want? to me it's fascinating. andrew mcafee "enchanted

objects" nicholas carr "the glass cage" and thanks to all three of you. [applause] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ more now from the 2014 boston book festival with a discussion on how mayors can affect national politics. this is what benjamin barber author of if mayors ruled the world and the mayors of boston, lawrence and fitchburg massachusetts.

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>> >> which is just across the palladium atrium directly across from the back of salt. this is how it will work. we will make a presentation and then we will talk about it here then you will get a chance to ask few questions of the members of the panel and if you notice there is a microphone in the center aisle since this event is

recorded by c-span you need to go to the microphone to ask your questions we want to hear you well as opposed to where you are seated. thank you in advance for that. now we begin. good afternoon. welcome to the boston book festival. very happy to be here this afternoon and pleased to with the boston book festival again this year. given what we witnessed just this week in ottawa and what we have experienced and boston in terms of terrorism with guns and drugs and climate change the nation's seem unable to solve this says that mayors are better

problem solvers. here today to help us discuss the topic is the martin walsh from boston. [applause] the honorable dan rivera from lawrence. [applause] and the honorable lisa wong from pittsburgh. [applause] but first to outline this book "if mayors ruled the world" dysfunctional nations, rising cities" dr. benjamin barber. from the graduate center o. >> 84 inviting me and the

people who i have come to be fond i'd like lisa wong and dan rivera end martin walsh but to talk about cities and mayors is a particular pleasure because for a change i can say something about people who say are you crazy? but let me just back up for a minute to talk about the era that we're living and why this city mayors and the city council have become so important. in the era of ebola and terrorism and ices and a national grid lock l over

the world as a result democracy is in crisis also half of those able to vote to do in those the most in need to you don't and it is a political system that is the great preponderance are ruled by a minority so there is the feeling of a political system rainout. and with the economy if the last 400 years but have become increasingly dysfunctional.

two-seat not just in england or china but other parts of the world with the european union that great experiment to find to attract attention from the populist reaction from the notable european experiment. and as a result democracy is in trouble because nation states are the guardians and then turn out the votes and find ways to bring europe back from the brink. stop focusing on those

nations states and start looking at cities stop talking about obama and mr. cameron. and start thinking about people like mayor rivera, mayor wong and mayor walsh and those around the world even as b.c. dysfunctional. but to solve problems pragmatically. but twice in the last couple of years to close the doors the most powerful government in the world closed its doors and how many people noticed? but imagine for a minute mayor walsh has a problem i am sorry next week boston is close.

the subways. we are closed until we get it right. you cannot close cities. but to have our children to be educated where we create and procreate and play and pray where we live and die. it is a very fundamental sense and the people we choose to govern the city's are pragmatists problem solvers and above all, and neighbors. ed cox used to wander around in new york hall of my doing? not something president bush or obama was likely want to do if the secret service would let them. that is not how works.

but here when i walked into mayor walsh city people stop and say what is up? and there are guards pushing them off -- not pushing them off because they are neighbors and members of the town. and that the very meaning of the word where problems are solved and as a result is a different kind of politician or a political animal. they have to be more pragmatic. i am a progressive democrat that he had to learn.

so he passed to build coalitions and reach out and he knows he has to reach out to the unions. the mayors have to build coalitions they cannot give orders they don't have national executive authority so they have to find ways to get people to work with them to solve problems and that is how it does work in cities and why despite the crisis of democracy keep functioning also as a result of through the world have levels of trust with respect to the citizens you don't find with any other level of government president is 38% the supreme court used to me 65 or 70 is now below the majority about 45 percent.

congress about 8% the directly elected democratic body that you and i vote for one that of 10 americans trusted. that is a disaster for urd democracy but if you come down to the mayor's the trust level shoots up not just here in the united states to europe and south america issued sep. he may not be my guy who i voted for but i trust her because she is my mayor and my neighbor before that she is working hard and she shares are disasters and catastrophes as this mayor rivera had to recently because the neighbor takes on a government so we trust them and that factor is essential to the success of

government and democracy without trust no democracy you don't have to trust the dictator he does what he does. but democracy depends on trust that trust level is powerfully present so that leads me to the title of my book "if mayors ruled the world" why in a world at the global level there is no governments or corporate monopolies or private interest or their representatives of the people are there or global terrorist organizations like al qaeda and isis that i call the malevolent ngos. [laughter] we don't elect them but they're extremely effective

the only forces out there is a monopoly and anarchy why not let cities the networks working together why not give them the opportunity to come together to work together there are many networks few people have heard of as the initiative couple of years ago but if you dig deeper to say how many of you know, what that is? nine cities and local governments a 100 year-old institution most that men have heard of it is most important institution nobody has heard of. most college professors will

not know what it is because the network of inner-city associations but they crossed the globe already encompass the network that the mayors are recognizing when they worked together they get the best practices. and to go back and forth with the commissioners city's working together to create an informal government structure. what i want to suggest we take that powerful capacity of mayors and city councilors that work on the pragmatic way and those to

build an arch the web of ventures in the association's. and i want to propose working together to put it keystone into the inner city associations. to take it to another level to do some things you know, california a couple years ago the city's with rays from the west government. as u.s. standards were. but they had a decision in to make. and in california to say it

had to me 35 miles per gallon but then they make 17% or simply make that the standard. so in effect using the market they leave the i'd marketplace to make fundamental changes. as the new mayor in jersey city the largest city in new jersey he had used the market's what if every city in the country that buys weapons any meet emissions got together to say we will only buy them from gun companies that don't sell date magazine assault rifles or paillettes whose only job is to kill cops? seventeen%.

by the way the federal government by 40 percent of the arms and demo in the marketplace forget that nra everytime you want to make though law just lose the market to make it work when the mayors work together and cities to work together they can lead and powerful ways so imagine making global decisions not to make of law that this is how it has to be in the marketplace. so the proposal is your that take the problem solver the trust levels where by the way 52% of the global population was cities in the developed world asia is 75

to 80 percent of the population and resources 82% of global gdp comes from cities don't believe it the next time you hear ed t. party guy in kentucky saying the influence of the cities are stealing our taxes saree. if you want to use that kind of language it is the other way around 65% voting for the tea party with the issues and the money comes from the city's because over 80 percent of resources of the tax base from the national government is in the cities and it is a crime that city's do so much but it is a crime that the city's put out 80 percent of the wealth of tax revenue and gdp than have to pay a

national government for some of that. they have a right to those revenues and to demand it they cannot do that one by one that together they can say don't give to us money from your treasury just give us more money that we put into the treasury to choose a job you're not doing it is a radical statement that the cities are aware and more a morass to solve them from what is called the unfunded mandate. musec that is your problem the you have to do it so we will find ways to have a way that politically that's

where i sat last year in brussels and they said we decided to raise your appropriations and they literally said thank you so much of a sitting on the podium as a speaker is an excuse me please say you're going to raise the revenue of appropriations where does appropriations come from? from the tax coffers and revenues merger they come from from their regions but primarily from the city's so you mean your offering to give them back from what you took an easing that is a gift? to cities have the majority of the population the capacity to have wealth in gdp to face most devastating consequences of comet --

climate change and though any city's seven cisco or new york with his own planning with the reality and national political parties refuse to recognize as science that is not something the great majority of americans because it is not an abstract argument and is the science we have to take action and the mayors noted in the cities know it so they are aware they have the kind of government that works that 19th century property owners hearses workers is just as so little to do with actually have to

do in government so to sarah not deal with a capitalist the programmers the service economy and the knowledge economy? in the city's work by consensus and a coalition to have a civil society that is why public-private partnerships are so much more productive and all over the world the mayors say of course, in the private sector says we have a flourishing help the city to provide services to its rotation infrastructure health and education.

is a two-way street and it is collaborative someone i want to suggest this we are in a world looking at presidents and prime ministers and asian states look at the city you're town they lived in. democracy is still working young people say i believe the local talent works for me where today they have hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers and their kin say they are here their driving cars in moderate going to do?

they are here e. willet knowledge of them and register those to the police. my own prediction is a road to citizenship because they cannot pretend so cities not states bears not presidents what i love most importantly is the citizens of cities of why city's work it wasn't his mares ruled the world but a citizens ruled the world that is the optimistic positive solution that can

rekindle that spirit from the democratic institutions. thank you very much. [applause] >> dr. barbara thank you very much a few questions then we will discuss this with the mayor's you talk about the theory but there is a practical application in just ahead because mayors from around the world are about to meet. >> and really do want to get to the discussion but since that time i was invited to seoul korea them by a mayor bloomberg can assure the four major mayors of the netherlands and invited me

in a group of mayors to discuss the plan we had that meeting one month ago and the 32 nations and to set that meeting the decision was made to launch the pilot project people from london that had a sitting next october so the adn already in cities have said we need more cooperation and to experiment with is not command-and-control but when

several hundred thousand degree this is what is needed that is the template that the world cannot ignore >> if the parliament does mayors would not govern i don't mean to imply anything that would egest tackle global issues locally is that the extent of its powers or does it have more power than that? >> it is up to what happens but initially it would be bottom-up opted not command-and-control but here's what the world will deal with but if they come up with a solution for local citizenship for registration

allover though world to a climate that involves congestion for them to go beyond everything if this city's come up with intercity protocols and they are recognizing in the face of terrorism you also have to deal city to city with those intelligence services that the police in moscow new about the chechens and knew they were dangerous but that information was given to that fbi but the boston police had valuable intel said even in areas as

security and intelligence city cooperation and sharing becomes very possible -- necessary but we will do more in the united nations or the world bank. >> let me bring in the mayor's. this is kind of heavy or it could be. do you want your merrill colleagues from around the world to weigh in to help solve some of the most vexing problems or global problems? >> 84 being here today and for the presentation. i just came back from a trip to ireland up that the belfast area and the concern is the same thing talking about the growing economy to stabilize our city so we're

talking about the same variations how we are preparing for it and we talked about ebola and the steps we're taking and there is then the opportunity for best practices and that was asked the question in this morning the stepsisters he is taking to set up a quarantine for those folks coming in from west africa. that i want to educate the medical facilities and public health and the fire department and the public to understand what the crisis is about. it is an opportunity to have a conference like this to share best practices. we meet fairly regularly and

we had had a meeting last week but that affects the people in our city. and then to share best practices to the cities around the world. >> i think about this one example and governor patrick talks about helping the immigrants with the kids on the border coming to massachusetts. but is a whisper campaign. but the mayor walsh said the whispering went away and i think about that power to

get through the craziness at the national global of those budgets that is crazy to a us. if the balanced budget you cannot make up that feeling prepare for betty says that is bad. so to clear the air to do something i would welcome that because that helps us to get to work mayor wong? >> i have respect for my colleagues but believe better idea of the senior mayor on the panel i am in my fourth term. [applause]

i would not have made it if it was not for the help of my fellow mayors. i'd never met one who doesn't have a vision i came in because i want to tackle the quality. right after i was sworn in let's talk about how i will tackle inequality as my vision. we have to tackle the six and a half billion dollar budget deficit and a can tell you what to do her the charter but you have to articulate your vision to drive that vision so we're tackling inequality zero lot of these suburbs if we want to figure out what best practices to tackle inequality we have to reach

out sometimes across oceans. as of right now i am hosting the mayor of germany they are our sister city a wealthy country side period near amsterdam and i am central massachusetts with is the urban area this week we talk about trying to bring advanced manufacturing as part of the city and country agenda how to bring that back and talking directly to each other. i am sure obama is that they're not communicating the we can get on the plane or on the phone or on skied exchanging real ideas and most recently to build a whole university is manufacturing how to utilize that skill set of work force trading. this happens every single day with mayors.

>> almost though one word answer, what is the most vexing problem you deal with every day? >> the inequality issue. >> any quality education. >> one issue crime, education, they are tied together the you cannot pull them apart criminals are bad people or minorities or funding for education but the mayors know that. vitter the u.s. conference of mayors and mayor bosnia and myself were to have a task force around the country and it is a problem every urban area in the country. pittsburgh or boston or anywhere around the country it goes back to what is it

addressing? with that number one topic we're policy driven and there has been a disconnect between the legislatures and the city's. the mayor spoke about the agenda and if we're not talking about the same agenda with the tools then there is a disconnect. but the piece of legislation i could not get through. it is the late-night task force. but to extend. we were not given that.

and not blaming the legislature but we have a vision and the legislature around the country didn't have a vision of what the country should look like and that is a problem. >> but they fear their kid is nine getting education. it is important for us to have this conversation. and this tour generations of high school kids. it is tied together but it manifest itself so when i talk about it even if that

amount of money in your pocket to do those things and talk about it. with the bigger opportunity but i have 120 police officers. but to have that anti-crime benefits to help the average stuff around that in the quality. >> so explain to us how you think that collective power of the world parliament of mayors standing behind you to fight this local problem would help you do that so much it would trickle down to real benefits to the citizens to live in any of particular neighborhood

where there is a problem with broken windows or stolen cars? >> in massachusetts than percent of cities and towns have mayors the majority of towns have a city or town manager there is major differences. first of all, managers are paid a lot more than mayors. that is number one. [laughter] number two when we say with these meetings or groups city and town managers talk about how to deliver services but it is a people who can afford to live in those communities. there are two choices we can have. we can mimic suburbs to try to push out crime and poverty. but we pledged that out to areas that are not interested that become more expensive.

in cities and towns to not get to gather -- -- together they cannot act alone. to be national or global in nature we have to come together to solve those root problems for all of humanity >> a couple things. i am so glad that mayor wong but presidents they have these managers and get things done but i found just the opposite i worked for bill clinton he had a vision there is no vision at the national level but it starts with the vision in this city

about what will life be like here for our neighbors. so let's say de blasio and walsh that they give this to every resident. in a very short time how can you do that? is a problem. see really -- we will take these kids with the market cities doing it together for you have got to do these things in conjunction. but what about the suburbs?

are you really just talking about cities? so start thinking of the old inner-city is. we have to think about the metro regions which incorporate and if you think that is utopian. i sat from florence italy that said it is from the provinces that have nothing to do with it. i have a plan out like to see it govern that way. and then said i am the prime

minister's wife became prime minister though today they have a conference that now there are nine natural regions which encompass all of italy there now represented by forcing them to say twice a cities are great what about the trade? everybody has the say. is that what you talk about? crack addicts. [laughter] so i say yes. but not the way it was defined 200 years ago. because that teach right had

2 million citizens which had all of the auto industry today has 5% with the schools and parks are closed that detroit but all those areas around the metro region area is their population got about three-quarters of that companies that left downtown to other regions that is the fourth most prosperous area in the united states if detroit metro region it would not be bankrupt as on the most successful cities in america but then you have the resources to deal with but that metro region to find ways to incorporate in terms of real population of economies goes way beyond

into them to take a vantage of that transportation that we don't pay revenues year we're not a part of the city of boston and needs to be changed we cannot change that one at a time but we need a revolution for what we can do together. >> i avenue mayor but we talked about the center of the suburbs but it makes sense so then if you look at the statistics of unemployment because then to

see the issues in the city and then talk about the supply chain though we set up for those opportunities and we're happy to have this discussion but nobody talked about that transit authority even though there are numbers that could help us to have a conversation so the rooster going to those meetings but this is the thing about being mayor. i became the chair the regional authority it was by mistake. [laughter] i know nothing about buses.

[laughter] but the mayor comes to the meetings and then to say we will data bus for them. >> just make sure you don't have chris christie working with you. [laughter] >> though we will definitely take the approach to those questions that alitalia will be accepted and there are two points talk about the power in california that 17 percent of the auto industry and the second point was the ratings of congress versus the legislators curse is the mayor and i think if the repairs would get together to have a conversation did help the nci is of a lot of

people they're the most popular people in the region and what are they talking about? and by having that idea it changes the conversation and the discussion but governor patrick has put together a transportation plan nobody had that plan but now there is more coordination going on with the city's with other modes of mass transit so that conversation past have been to come from cambridge to boston it was a loss for cambridge right after i got elected at the end of the day the region did not win taxpayers did

not win so how you create opportunities together so if one industry leaves this create new industries to reach and grow together they reach right to use our brainpower. >> addition to creating opportunities don't you need to flex your muscles a little bit? silicon all three of you i cannot remember any time of the last tender 15 years i read a news story that says something to the fact the mayors of the 10 largest cities in massachusetts are the 15 largest cities got together to say they want the state government to do x for the national government to do why? you are not flexing your muscle right now.

>> is the politics you're working for cities and towns but that can change i have been here 10 months but i see a change of that meeting on friday with mayors showing up also the mayors' conference and we feed off of each other. and with education funding that we have a plan that if we go for this together there maybe something smaller in your area but it is said changing the mindset >> we have been able to build the machine to rise up and defend our vision we need to do that with collective mayors.

imagine he wants to do education and crime so i became mayor 2007 and in 2008 similar cities around massachusetts came together to signed the first ever compact the gateway cities compact should we be called the forgotten cities? we decided not gateway cities because gave way to immigrants so what we decided to you do was work together which meant we and our expertise sat - - staff debated behind the scenes a common agenda very similar to the legislature but proactively coming from us to create a strong mechanism with changes of

public safety now in education whenever could have done that unless working with the sixers seven solid years as a compact they had to talk -- adopted the term keyways city to provide policies to help us so without that everybody will say something different so that parliament is the mechanics where we come together so that nra have you heard against mayors against illegal guns? when it brings together funding to change that national conversation whenever your believes are it is mayer's against illegal guns you'll hear about that more and more because these organizations

are getting more money and bears are realizing to becoming universally recognized by the press and the public we don't have anything on the global scale >> will say i am a little concerned it does seem that all politics are local and part of that is that i feel i did see as a good positive view but if anybody calls talk about that. i'd and even know that existed and that was a deadline in my town or city. >> it will be now.

[laughter] you will see that with education reform of lot of towns were heard and cities were not. >> but as local mayors cannot tackle climate change that parliament could and they are affected by that. >> the done thing is genius i would sign off there is no policy at my level. >> they once said all politics is local the not any more will live in the interdependent world whether talking about any quality your jobs or terrorism you talk about cross border global problems mayors are the problem solvers but it is an interdependent world and local politics won't do that they were given the

opportunity in ways that a major job base your edges the altruistic act to amend spending the money this is the pairing you're solving problems more effectively but the world this interdependent with politics just being local is not true anymore. >> there is an article and one of the guys said the rock star mayor and then they did research round the impact to say you can be a rock star and you can be a mayor but you cannot be both so i worry like the gun issue is important but we can leverage that gun buying

power. >>. >> 80 presented carbon emissions, from cities. >> it bet he was a rock star before. [laughter] >> i'll let to remind you if you'd like to ask a question please come to the microphone here in the center. how independents to see these need to be from their governing authorities from their states or national government? are we talking about weaning cities from state and national government dependence? >> co like to be national

government of the dependence of this city's that is where they get their tax revenues and try to retain jurisdiction in cities need more autonomy in their own resources to do the things they need to do. but that message to cory booker no major mayor of the united states of america has said for issued as ever become president of the united states and there is a reason for that. not that they are not affected if the jazz problem solvers they have of problem when they tried to go up the ladder and they don't spend there three branches of government you need to have a relationship but that relationship of the last 20 years 30 years many to focus the country back to do this sick to gather. >> i worry about national identity i'd done all valley

in the mayor but the elected congressmen. >> work to do to other guess what we have to work together with the federal government to get the resources that we as a nation and have. >> i am sorry i took them so much time. >> i heard the word climate come up several times. i just appreciate dr.. your inspiration on this. we'll disagree with you slightly mayor wong because bears in boston could help but the climate crisis issues. i'll ask you all to think outside the box to convene a massachusetts mayor conference on climate change specifically and invites out of the boxing careers to work on it from a five-year

olds through 95 heralds across the board. tried to get quick and cheap solar from buildings to public transportation and number three entertain the idea to have massachusetts be the first follow our friends to be the first city from fossil fuel companies. >> okay. >> but getting the marriage together to put some policies together a lot of towns don't have the ability with said chief and fireman's working on that plan and sustainability all

these important issues but to have up plan that was up 1.a lot of mayors have done a lot in the cities on their own ideas think there is an opportunity here that one can make a difference one can start it so doing it to this point statewide it is an open door opportunity and we're all like-minded in many ways democrat or republican it does not matter how what is the agenda to move this city's forward? >> i do work on these issues that i do know what i do as a bear the next mayor could change so i and trying to get stuff happening on the state level.

>> we don't have time for that. i am so sorry. we have one more question. >> i have a question for everybody bet especially mayor walsh because i go to high school that he graduated from. if the cities of pittsburgh and boston all have unlimited profits and assuming revenue is the only problem what is one policy to help america in schools become competitive on of global scale? . .