The American magazine The Atlantic hosted its first Future of Work Summit on October 26 in Chicago, Illinois.

This day-long conference included sessions on automation and technological unemployment (e.g. “Are Robots Taking Our Jobs?” with McKinsey Institute Partner Michael Chui); the rise of the sharing and gig economies (e.g. “The Sharing Economy” with Freelancers Union’s Sara Horowitz, Lyft’s Joseph Okpaku, and New York University Professor Arun Sundararajan); and the nature and importance of work (e.g. “Do We Need Work to Be Happy?” with Emeritus Professor of Psychology Barry Schwartz)–among others.

While many of the topics explored at the Future of Work Summit are relevant to the current movement for basic income, it is particularly noteworthy that one session was specifically focused on the topic: Atlantic editor Steve Clemons interviewed prominent BI advocate Scott Santens about his personal experience crowdfunding his own basic income, as well as the potential for a basic income in the United States.

A video of the entire Future of Work Summit is also available:

Read more about the conference here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/live/events/future-of-work-summit/2016/

N.B. Around 9:03, Clemons asks Santens if he has pressure-tested the idea of basic income against someone “dark and cynical and skeptical of good things”. The author would like to submit herself as someone who considers herself such a person but who nonetheless supports basic income as a utopian ideal, and who was influenced by Santens’ work. She is reported to have reacted to the question by pounding the desk and declaring, “Cynicism and utopianism are not inconsistent!”