Translator: peiju li Reviewer: Chryssa Takahashi
I want to talk to you today about the relationship
between technology and human dignity,
in the frame work of two important evolutionary processes.
The first, exponential technologies that are accelerating
and the second, how these support networks that are out competing hierarchical
and centralized organizations.
When a few thousand years ago, here, in Greece,
human civillization was experimenting with the first forms of democracy.
The way this was achieved was unavoidably necessarily
because based on muscular energy,
on slavery, universal slavery.
But today, we are in the point in our global civilisation
where we are not only are not basing our achievements on slavery any more
but we are at the point where we can aim for more,
for going beyond what our moral systems assume to be possible.
This is due to the power of exponential technologies
that start almost imperceptibly as the double.
It doesn't matter across what period of time
but until they reach a given threshold, they are almost invisible,
even to the experts,
because they're submersed in the noise of environment around them,
that hides the important signal.
And linear progressions at the beginning are more powerful than exponentials.
That is why people tend to more traditionally interpret the phenomenon
rather than espousing the new interpretation that is possible.
However, when that threshold is reached,
it becomes visible to everybody.
And they jump aboard and they say, "Yes, I knew it all along."
Ee are familiar with this through our computers,
the personal computer, mobile phones,
the super computers that we have in our pockets
the internet of things that is coming already.
And it is often remarked, that we are really talking about a curve
that is going to exaused
but what we are really referring to
is the sequence of technologies each of them
after the other keeping this exponential trend alive.
A good example of this,
that really lets you understand how powerful the trend is,
is the human genome project, started in 1985.
A 15-year old project was only at one percent of its goal
already half way through the 15 years, in the seventh year.
And the 3 billion dollars, even the experts were saying
we will never get to our goal, we have to stop.
They didn't realize that that one percent was reached with doublings
and progressively on time and on budget,
they reached 100 percent in the year 2000.
But technology didn't stop.
And today, you can have your genome sequenced for less than 2000 dollars,
and it will take not 15 years, but about a week.
But still technology doesn't stop,
and already there are projections
by those who design, manufacture and sell equipment for genome sequencing
that in another seven years,
each of our genomes will be sequenced in real time for a few cents.
When an enterprise thinks linearly
rather than understanding the power of exponentials,
it doesn't matter that it was dominating its industry for a hundred years.
If a researcher comes and says,
"I invented digital photography",
but the board of the directors rejects the opportunity of investing in that,
then it comes a year that you go bankrupt, laying off your last 10,000 workers
and it is the same year, when a team of merely a dozen kids
creates an app that is aquired for over a billion dollars.
That is the difference between understanding exponentional thinking
and not understanding it.
Overall this is very difficult and very complex.
If you were at the apex
of your enterpreneurial and organizational success
a hundred years ago, being included in the S&P 500 index,
more or less gives you
sixty years of statistically guaranteed permanence in the index itself.
Today the same results gives you little more than ten years.
This has been going gone for a long time.
Two hundred thousand years ago, when we decided to start using fire,
to predigest the food that we would eat,
so that we could dedicate time to other things,
rather than our cousins, other primates do,
we embarked on a journey that made us understand the world better and better.
Initially, we thought that it will be better to keep our knowledge secret.
This condemned the alchemists to repeat the errors of others
that maybe used poisonous or mortal methods
to try to transform metals into gold.
But now we are using science.
In a virtual circle of open information sharing
-- and that is the real difference between the dinosaurs and us --
they didn't have telescopes.
And we really have to use, both literally,
the telescope to watch out whether there is an asteroid coming
but also metaphorically, we have to rely on science and reason
to keep developing our globally connected civilazation.
Global connectedness, however, does not mean to be homogenous,
to have the same answers, and the same solutions imposed everywhere
by the same companies, the same institutions,
for every country and every possibility.
As very clearly demonstrated by even the most standardised enterprises
adapting and changing what they offer to the local needs.
This means that not only there must not be a local moral and economical dictatorship
it also means that there can not be.
And as we understand these differences
we are able to empathise with others
even if they are not similar or the same as we are.
We have to carefully understand
what are the limits of this tolerance that is growing.
For example we have to be careful
not to provide protection towards intolerance.
Our technology is creating incredible connections.
Robotic cars are now on the roads in California
and they are impacting other industries.
For example, we now have to be fast developing 3D printed organs,
because people will stop dying in car accidents.
And the artificial intelligence that is growing all around
with smarter and smarter systems
requires a huge challenge that we must face.
If you allow these smart systems to grow in an unsupervised manner,
what are the rules that will dictate their decisions,
and isn't it the right thing to require
for a supervision and an understanding of these rules
that will necessarily include moral and ethical decisions.
We have to face
the necessity of developing a science and an engineering of morality.
And these smart systems must take into account
what is the role of humans.
We cannot allow enterprises to automate
without understanding that laying thousands or tens of thousands people off
because they are not needed anymore,
is not the same as making their processes more efficient otherwise.
In the labor force, it is amazing what we can do.
One percent feeds everybody. One percent procures grow materials.
Six percent builds the houses and the office buildings we live in and work in.
Ten percent designs, creates, produces the objects
that we are surrounded with.
And in the remaining part of the service sector,
the most important one, intrestingly
is what concentrates on adding value to our relationships to each other
in the health and education sector.
But this is the work force.
Labor disengagement is increasing.
There are a lot of people who are not working
and even those who work, work fewer and fewer hours
in a given year statistically speaking all around the world.
What is very important, though, is that we start understanding
that the transformation that is required by individuals is huge
and if for no fault of their own,
somebody needs to develop a skill
that will be valuable to his or her community,
we cannot start the clock ticking
and say, "You have six months".
And if you didn't make it by then
society feels free to discard you.
Labelling somebody with this unemployed label must become a slur word.
During the phase transition which the next years and decades
will more strongly represent all around the world.
It is going to be important to develop a relationship with our smart systems
that support and help us that is non antagonistic.
They are those who fear artificial intelligence.
The symbiosis that we must develop cannot be from conflictual.
And these autonomous machines already are helping us.
They are surrounding and they are allowing our local and global communications.
The Nobel prize winning chemist, Paul Crutzen,
called our geological era the anthropocene
that in an eyeblink transforms the planet.
In certainly unsustainable ways,
that now that we have plenty in the world with our technology
we understand, is it self-unsustainble?
That is why we are now talking about sustainability,
not because we are morally superior to previous generations,
but because we do not have new continents to despoil.
There is an intrinsic uncertainty in this era.
It is not a question of measuring better what is going on.
It is not a question of acquiring more knowledge.
Nobody is superhuman, whether we are workers, students, educators, politicians.
We are all equally confused and frightened by what has happened.
That is why working together on decoding the future is so important.
Whether you are in New York, in Hong Kong or in Athens,
we have to work together to realize our dreams.
It can be too soon.
Leonardo, 500 years ago, dreamt of helicopters
and metallurgy was not ready.
But when the time is ready, exponentional change happens
even if there are those experts that object
that whatever we are dreaming of is never going to be possible.
Of course, the development of human civilization
is not based on a natural load that gives us any kind of guarantee.
That is one of the most important reasons
why we have to build an inclusive global civilization.
We don't know if seven billion people are enough to find the solution
to our next challenges.
The hierarchical systems that served us so well in the past,
few hundred years are now being substituted
by new networks of connected decentralized and distributed systems.
And whether these organizations are able to overcome the resistence
of established bureaucracies that are reacting with panic,
overreacting really, is an important question.
As we went from using muscle energy to chemical energy
and now the solar energy that is going to end the oil age,
we are looking at a fundamental economic shift.
Slavery ended, and now the political class has to understand
that through new tools we are going to achieve a very important change.
We were able to discuss, that for example, child labor should not exist,
and the bureaucracies have to understand
that emancipation and empowerment of people
is the one way road that we cannot turn back from.
There are no barriers.
It is not possible for people to stop others to seek
their opportunities on a worldwide basis.
And with the centralized reputation systems,
we will be able to overcome the limitations of an extremely poor proxy
for what is our desire and capability to aggregate resources.
The nation states are going to be measured
as well as supranational or planetary organizations
by their capacity to understand this
and to create conditions for people to live in dignity in communities
that are able to discover the power of these unstoppable pens.
And if it is unstoppable then there is no use for panic really,
or to try to stop what is happening.
What matters is to discard the cages of the old type of thinking.
And luckily, it really costs nothing.
There are zero barriers to entry for going from idea to action in today's world.
And as long as we understand that there is no failure,
because the outcome of our experiments matter regardless
and we can learn from them
and we can teach those learnings to our peers,
regardless of our perceived level of authority or reputation.
We will be able to build resilient communities
with increased degrees of freedoms,
with large numerous choices
and with unbounded opportunities.
That is why the question is about you,
whether you will join this.
Thank you.
(Applause)