Translator: Michele Gianella Reviewer: Nicoletta Pedrana
Today I'm going to talk to you about second identity.
Second identity, second me, second myself.
I will try to cover this, and I'll first consider
the impact of technological innovations
that are totally disrupting our personal life,
economic life, political life, education, social relationships,
interpersonal ones - everything.
What is the second identity?
It has never existed before, this is the real deal.
We have never had a second identity before.
Today, if I have to compare
my generation and the youngsters,
kids who are 15, 20, 25 years old today,
I think that the real difference is the impact of technology.
It's negative for me, for us:
we are not very good, you are much smarter at it than I am.
But we had an advantage:
every stupid thing we did left basically no trace.
Every stupid thing you do now, instead, leaves a trace somewhere.
you may lose your job today for a stupid thing you posted years ago,
unbeknownst of future consequences.
When I did, as a young boy, my first job interviews,
I had my face, my nice chatting gab,
three lines in a resume
that accounted for my past experience.
And that was it.
I could bamboozle my counterpart without any problems.
When you talk now to your potential employer,
he will be able to inspect, in depth, everything about you.
So thanks to new technologies,
we have a second identity now, a second ourself.
And our whole life has been traced back
in an unprecedented way.
So what does it mean to have a second identity?
First of all it means this.
It means that this,
our smartphone, that has sticked around us
for many years now,
but in the last few years,
a smartphone has become much more than it used to.
A few years ago,
we could have defined it a fairly neutral tool,
it was like air conditioning, even like a car, maybe.
We could even compare it
to any other household appliance.
This is a second identity today.
It is my second identity, it is your second identity,
in the phone you hold in your pocket.
Why am I saying this?
Because this smartphone encompasses everything about me.
All the people I've talked to, all the web sites I've visited.
Here you have a complete toolset to understand who I am,
if I drive properly or not.
where I currently am, where I've been in a given moment.
Every single information about myself is contained in this smartphone.
So those who control the smartphone
will control my actions, thoughts, taste.
So much so that sometimes one goes here
and find out, it knows you better than you know yourself.
And ultimately, this stores everything.
This is both fascinating and terrifying: there has never been, in the past,
that could enshrine my full identity, individuality.
In the past, I was just me;
now it's me and this second identity,
because this thing recapitulates and stores everything about me.
It is outside of my body, and other people can sneek into it
much more than one can enter into
my flesh and blood person, my first real identity.
What does "someone can enter here" mean?
It means that these smartphones used to be produced in Europe:
most of us had a Nokia phone, there used to be a EU-driven technology.
That's no longer the case.
Essentially, the phones you have in your pocket now
are either made in the United States, in China or Taiwan.
So it means
that all our data are stored far away from home.
And those who control these smartphones
can also control our second identity.
In my opinion, future wars won't be fought
for the same reasons we fough them in the past,
like oil, money, borders.
Wars will mostly be triggered, I think,
to decide who's going to use, exploit, own these data.
Ultimately, in fact, these data will allow you
to win electoral campaigns,
hijack markets,
run marketing campaigns that are much more effective,
monitor people's tastes,
blackmail companies, nations and individuals.
So our second identity, the second myself,
becomes the real question to spot lights on,
and tackle from an economic, social, philosophical point of view.
to design the rules and practises the future will run on.
And this second identity is in here,
and the technology that controls my second identity
has totally slipped from EU's hands.
Smartphones are now either American, or Chinese, or Korean.
We also had European phones, a few years ago;
now it's basically nothing.
So we have lost this technology game,
and my data - it's a U.S. phone -
will be stored somewhere in Cupertino, in California,
Who handles these data? Who owns them? Who takes advantage of them?
I don't know.
And quite honestly, I don't have any trust
that those who can access my data -
if they have to decide
whether to protect my personal identity or pull some profits from this data,
they'll strongly be tempted to opt for the second possibility.
There have already been many egregious cases:
like Cambridge Analytica and Facebook:
a case of unprecedented gravity
now almost completely silenced, media no longer cover it,
but clearly points out where this may lead to.
So, United States and Asia on one hand;
and us Europeans, who lost the game of this technology.
What does this mean?
How do United States approach this topic?
When we talk about US regulations in this field,
there's a strong feeling
that competitiveness in the hi-tech sector must come before everything else.
Things like the protection of privacy, the ownership of personal data -
seemingly count much less.
This is at least my impression,
and I don't like this approach at all.
If I have a look at Asia, at the other kind of model
championed by China,
they seem to have a totally different approach;
an almost opposite one:
the exploitation of data, of this second identity-related data
to quickly, easily seep into our first identity.
Which is - or at least is supposed to be - inviolable
but can be reached through this second one.
And the State can have a strong interest, through these data,
to control who I am, what my taste, my behaviour is.
And here we are at a fundamental jucture.
for our future life.
I think that governments have to be very clear.
They have to fine us if we do something wrong,
if we break one of it's rules:
but I don't think the State should interfere
regardless of my respect of the rules.
My person is inviolable,
even the second one now stored in my mobile phone.
If this is the case, then how can we win this war of influence
about who's going to impose rules that can protect us
from the rush, the frenzy activity
of these hi-tech giants?
Two old fashioned words come back to my mind now:
"Politics" and "European Union".
Why politics, and why European Union?
Because it is clear
that either politics will regulate this, or an unleashed market will.
Or, simply, the State will impose its will.
And I'm terrified, frankly.
I have goosebumps at the idea that the market regulates itself on this,
because our fundamental individual rights are at stake.
Politics has to call the shots.
Politics, which is us: not the market, not high tech companies.
And I think, it'd be even better for them to have unavoidable rules
so they're not tempted to do wrong.
And then we have the European Union.
Why European Union?
Because, as I said before,
it feels like the other world's giants are taking a different path.
We, the Europeans,
either Swdish, Portuguese, Italians, French or German,
share a consistent philosophy,
one that professes the inviolability of the individual identity.
And this should be ported,
in an ethical, democratic and philosophical transition,
on this new second identity too.
Because my person is there: classified, stored, recapitulated,
but it's there, and it is as inviolable as my real, true, first identity is.
And if we had 28 Brexits in Europe,
a disintegration of the continent -
we just could not influence the world with our philosophy,
which is exquisitely ours, as I said before,
These are our rules, this is our juridical civilization.
That's why a unified European Union has now another mission,
a different, much more committing one;
one that's also more important
than the typical mission we used to assign it.
The European Union has always been an engine for peace,
has been trying to tear down barriers, frontiers, borders,
to find new rules for living together
for development,
to represent Europe all across the world.
But now there's much more at stake: the future of our people.
And this is not science fiction:
when we talk about these things, it always sounds like science fiction.
But just a couple of years ago,
I would have never covered this topic.
Now, in my opinion, that's the key issue of our times.
And be careful: this second identity is the first second identity we know.
Perhaps, in a couple of years time, we might be tempted -
not me, maybe, I'm not an expert, but someone else -
to talk about another second identity,
which may be AI, machine intelligences,
what machines can replace human beings at.
Another second me.
What rules will this AI act upon?
Here, we can understand what this evolution leads to.
Again, politics has to call the shots, not the market.
Not even the technology, for that matter.
In the meanwhile, European Union has to impose itself, and the others,
with its rules of juridical civilization
centered around personal inviolability.
In short, and wrapping up,
if everything I've have said up to now makes sense, and it is true,
and has some relevance in this transition towards a hypertechnlogical future,
then politics has to play a decisive role.
and we can't dismiss it like we do now.
The European Union has to make a difference.
I mean, a united European Union, not a scattered one.
A united union.
I think of my future, I think of the future of my children,
and I think, we can all share the same line of thinking here.
I don't want to have a future where I am forced to decide
whether I am a Chinese or a US colony - I don't like it.
I like Americans, I like the Chinese,
but I want to be Italian and I want to be European.
We can't be forced into either a Chinese or a U.S. colonization.
I want to have the opportunity to believe in my values.
And when I say values, I say the inviolability of the person.
To me, this means to be Italian and European.
Only with a strong policy,
and a unified European Union,
we will deal with this topics
and be able to understand -myself and all of us-
that the inviolability of the person is at the center of everything that we do.