South Africa has one of the world’s highest unemployment rates. The conventional response is straightforward: create more jobs.

But what if that assumption is too narrow?

As AI, robotics and machine intelligence become increasingly capable of performing work previously reserved for humans, societies will eventually have to confront a much bigger question: what happens when human employment is no longer the primary way people create economic value, participate in society or achieve financial security?

South Africa is often viewed primarily through the lens of its economic problems. But our difficult conditions may also give us an unusual opportunity: we are already confronting questions about unemployment, inequality, productivity and economic participation that more automated economies will increasingly have to answer.

This talk challenges technologists and policymakers to think beyond the conventional relationship between technology and employment. Perhaps the role of emerging technology is not simply to create more jobs, but to help us imagine entirely new economies.

South Africa may not have to wait for the post-work economy to arrive, we’re already in the midst of the crisis other economies will only understand a decade or two from now. We may be one of the places where it is possible to start responding seriously to what kind of global economy comes next.