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I guess I just want to start by being a
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little bit inclusive and asking who here
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in the audience is not a human who's an
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alien at a human pride event tonight
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it's a couple of down the front thank
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you who feels like an alien in today's
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technological world on occasion ok a
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little bit more so I want to start with
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this slide because this is what we're
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talking about we're talking about this
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idea of how we as human beings create
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technology but how technology creates us
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in return
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so that's the kind of key message that I
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want to hammer on as to be honored as
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the opening speaker for TEDx Carew's and
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in particular I want you to kind of
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think in the different ways in which you
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are creating technology and your
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identities have changed because for
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those of you who are alien in the
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audience if you visited a thousand years
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ago the human beings you would have
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encountered would have been completely
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different
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to those who you're going to meet
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tonight and if you come back in ten
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years will be completely different again
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and the process of how that happens
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and what control we have about this
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process is I think one of the essential
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questions of our rage today so this is
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the main question that I'd like to pose
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how can we ensure not that we stay human
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human beings are always in flux but that
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we can retain and deepen our sense of
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what it means to be human over time and
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there's a really interesting question
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here about why I proudly human right now
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if this is a process that's been
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happening over millennia what are we
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worried about
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so tell me if you've seen this video
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around a robot doing a back flip Boston
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Dynamics latest robot it's called the
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Atlas it's absolutely phenomenal when I
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watch these kinds of videos I have four
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or three or four really really
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contrasting emotions going on at each
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point in time one of them is
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embarrassment that I can't
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do a backflip another one is absolute
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amazement at the ingenuity of the lab in
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Boston that manages to combine biologic
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and biological physics with materials
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with artificial intelligence to do this
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a third is fear fear that someday I
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could be out there protesting and rather
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than dehumanize people with riot shields
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these could be on the other side in a
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security or military context and the
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fourth fourth concern offer forth
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emotion I have is a curious sense of
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connection particularly when you watch
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the robot fall this empathy with again
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the fal ability of this completely
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created thing and I guess as I want you
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to keep in mind this idea of when we
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look at technology we're looking at
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ourselves in different ways and this is
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happening more and more every day so
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what do we want to see and how can we
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understand it if we ask ourselves what
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it means to be human
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this is not a new question right not
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only can you find many Ted videos on
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this topic but philosophers have been
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asking this question for thousands of
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years human beings have been asking and
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one philosophical answer to this
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question is humans of humans because we
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can ask the question we can reflect on
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ourselves we have self-awareness in
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different ways another one is that
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humans are humans because we have
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culture because we are positioned in
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different ways because we are bodily
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beings we have a certain biology or
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because we create institutions and we
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engage in the world in a very particular
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way but this is probably one of the
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closest things we can think about when
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we say what it means to be human
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when archaeologists look in the fossil
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record for when a human existed they
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look for this and by the way this idea
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of humans as technological beings as
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being created this is something that we
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in might the work that I do every day
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talk about constantly and the ideas here
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of framing the technological human have
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really been inspired by someone who's in
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the audience tonight Tom Philbeck but
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also many colleagues who are starting to
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bring to bear in the public
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consciousness ideas that have been in
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social science for many years but were
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only just realizing how important they
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to our daily lives there are three ways
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in which technology really affects us at
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least let me just give you these first
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three the first one will be familiar to
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any of you who have ever heard the
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phrase to a person with a hammer
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everything looks like a nail the objects
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we create focus our attention they give
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us power and we use that power as
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Langdon winner said artifacts have
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politics that may not look super
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political to you replace it with a gun
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or an atom bomb and it immediately
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becomes incredibly political tools and
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Technology affects us because we use it
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to shape the world around us look at
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this space we're in or think of the
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Gothic cathedral to people entering a
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Gothic cathedral a thousand years ago or
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800 years ago they could not speak the
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language of the institution they were
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entering but they were nevertheless
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immediately informed what it means to be
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a human in that space and modern
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technology today means we literally see
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through technology I see through
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technology I have contact lenses in
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today which means my experience of the
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world is dramatically different than it
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would be otherwise so I'm a cyborg in
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that respect but now we have the
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opportunity to envelop ourselves in
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different ways and the most annoying
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cyborgs today are these people okay the
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people who put their hands up and their
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mobile phones at concerts and record the
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concert so even if you're tall like me
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and you feel like you have a natural
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advantage in watching people it's now
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removed by the fact that everyone's
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looking through the screen don't do that
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please don't be that kind of cyborg it's
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not the best type of cyborg but this is
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happening more and more we're literally
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viewing the world through our devices
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why is this a problem
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let me give you three fears that we have
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today number one are we becoming
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redundant after millennia of using and
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creating tools and we had a turning
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point where we no longer needed in some
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sense or is it actually more about
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division are we scared of being
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separated from one another through
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technology or third are we being
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squashed flattened out are we being
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distributed and pulled too much in a way
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that means that we can't be
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the full rich people that we want to be
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or that we think we should be so let me
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just quickly delve into each of those
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the question of jobs the future of jobs
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I won't go in to the data except to say
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I don't believe most of it because it's
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up to us to decide today
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how we want humans and machines to
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relate but the scary figures are out
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there from my friend Mike Osborne 47
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percent of US jobs at risk from work
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from Bruegel up to 60 percent of
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European jobs are at risk
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let's just focus on the fact that in all
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of history
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this has always been happening and it's
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actually not the jobs that disappear
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it's the tasks within occupations that
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change dramatically and the second thing
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to say here is there's great evidence
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from Australian studies recently that
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automation normally act takes away that
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the work you don't want to do and
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Australian workers in the last 15 years
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alone have gained more than two hours a
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week a substantial amount of time in
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interpersonal work in creative work in
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information synthesis work which is all
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highly correlated with increasing job
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satisfaction so the question is what
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kind of stories can we tell each other
00:07:51
to make that keep going as opposed to a
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CEO announcing they're laying off 20
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percent of their workforce in advance of
00:07:59
automation just because they're worried
00:08:01
and we need to get the story straight
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because just in May this year these are
00:08:06
three different takes on the same set of
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data robots are going to take all our
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jobs actually robots are not going to
00:08:13
take all of our jobs or my favorite The
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Wall Street Journal robots aren't taking
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enough of their jobs
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the second big issue here is really
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around this question of division it's
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this idea that somehow the world is not
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only becoming more unequal but the
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technology is driving it this is turqu
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Avera a fantastic Brazilian photographer
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famous photo of his of a slum in New
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Buenos Aires quit Paris operas it really
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illustrates this idea that the built
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environment is already dividing us but
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what about the point when we talk about
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emerging technologies that we have 4.1
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billion people around the world that
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don't have access to the inter
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yet 2.4 billion without access to water
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and sanitation 1.2 billion without
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access to energy to electricity and
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almost 600 million smallholder farmers
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who haven't even gone through the first
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Industrial Revolution the greatest
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social injustice of any technological
00:09:12
revolution is those who are left out so
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let's keep that in mind as we move
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forward and understanding where what the
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system is where we want them to take us
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and this galaxy image also in honor of
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Tom in the audience is to show that
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we're being flattened and if you're
00:09:28
interested in this topic look at sherry
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turkle's videos on Ted or the books that
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she's written but there are three big
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concerns who's in control of our
00:09:37
attention today when we work through
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digital networks when we see the world
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through the devices we carry what
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happens when we lose the ability to be
00:09:45
bored or to have conversation and if we
00:09:47
don't understand each other how can we
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be like Confucius and the philosophical
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kind of history truly reflective and
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understanding ourselves as human beings
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what might we lose all of this is not
00:10:04
about individual technologies it's not
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going to be solved by saying platform
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designer why you should redesign your
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front page to look like this or robotics
00:10:16
designer X you should build a robot that
00:10:18
does y&z because all of this is part of
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a broader system and when we zoom out
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and think about the relationship of
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humans and technologies we have to pay
00:10:29
attention to these things who and how
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are we educating around technology and
00:10:34
more broadly what are the incentives for
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investment in different types of
00:10:38
technologies what are our priorities
00:10:40
what conversations do we do we want to
00:10:43
have should we be having so taking this
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systems view should it mean that we all
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sit here and say oh gosh this is a
00:10:50
really hard problem if we want to change
00:10:52
our relationship to technology to be
00:10:54
more inclusive we need to change
00:10:55
everything from tax from social
00:10:58
relationships it's true but it's also
00:11:02
incredibly empowering
00:11:03
because if we are really now as I
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believe on a cusp of an entirely new set
00:11:08
of
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amazing empowering technologies the
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question is what do we want to make what
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does this next system look like and
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what's our role so let me finish by
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giving you four roles for opportunities
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for you here in the city of courage in
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the canton of geneva
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in your organization's can grasp to
00:11:30
start to focus more on this topic and
00:11:32
make it very conscious but hopefully
00:11:34
also to take us all to a far better and
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more inclusive space number one be
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political
00:11:39
if technologies are political you cannot
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afford to not be political okay it
00:11:46
doesn't mean you have to go left or
00:11:48
right it means you have to engage with
00:11:51
the fact that we are being influenced by
00:11:54
the things that are created and if we
00:11:56
don't have power over those decisions at
00:11:59
the end of the day we are entirely at
00:12:00
the mercy of those designing and
00:12:03
investing in those systems so get
00:12:05
political like the revolutionaries here
00:12:07
in 1847 in Geneva and have the
00:12:11
conversations ask the questions what do
00:12:13
we really want and how do we influence
00:12:15
to get there the second question is at
00:12:18
the other end of the spectrum be human
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the anciently human stop as I am tempted
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to do stop taking photos of your kids
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and be with your kids think about the
00:12:29
fact that if you put a mobile phone on a
00:12:32
table between the two of you that
00:12:34
changes a conversation it changes your
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memory of a conversation and your sense
00:12:38
of connection with them be as human and
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find the points in time where technology
00:12:43
can bring that more to you the third
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option
00:12:47
our third opportunity is to empower
00:12:50
yourself and this is a World Economic
00:12:52
Forum young global leader called Jeremy
00:12:54
Howard jeremy has an online course in
00:12:57
deep learning where if you have about a
00:13:00
year's worth of coding experience in
00:13:02
some of the very accessible coding
00:13:04
languages like Python you can apply the
00:13:07
latest deep learning techniques
00:13:09
available open source today a were
00:13:13
literally a world-class level so if you
00:13:15
are privileged enough to sit in this
00:13:17
room have access to the Internet know
00:13:19
about Ted videos know about the way that
00:13:22
you can engage
00:13:22
in online learning taking this
00:13:25
opportunity to actually say right now
00:13:27
it's still the opportunity for me to be
00:13:30
on the frontier myself that's something
00:13:33
that I would urge all of us to do and
00:13:34
I'm a lawyer currently going through
00:13:36
this deep learning course and it is mind
00:13:38
blowing the final thing is if we live at
00:13:42
a point in time where the systems of
00:13:45
technology are changing so rapidly the
00:13:47
rules are being written we have an
00:13:50
absolute responsibility to engage in
00:13:53
empowering others our revolutionary is
00:13:56
not a revolutionary just for themselves
00:13:58
or for their family they're a
00:14:00
revolutionary for a broader sense of
00:14:03
community and ideal for future
00:14:05
generations and so to think about the
00:14:08
way that here in Geneva connecting with
00:14:10
others in Carew's connecting across the
00:14:13
international organizations the business
00:14:15
community civil society all the
00:14:17
different parts of the innovation
00:14:18
ecosystem here that make Geneva so
00:14:20
unique that means that you can then
00:14:23
connect with people all over the world
00:14:25
communities who are in a far less
00:14:28
privileged position than us to bring the
00:14:30
same sense of empowerment and the same
00:14:33
sense of opportunities over time and I
00:14:36
want to finish then with a quote from
00:14:39
the Smithsonian Institutes human origins
00:14:42
origins exhibit so starting in about
00:14:45
2011 the Smithsonian had this idea of
00:14:48
looking back in time and asking the
00:14:50
question what is human through the the
00:14:53
artifacts of that we've created over
00:14:55
time and more than 10,000 people put
00:14:59
ideas our answers to the question what
00:15:01
does it mean to be human I love this one
00:15:04
this is just a random from the first
00:15:05
page of about you know a thousand pages
00:15:07
but it says to love to share to express
00:15:11
ourselves to be curious and to wonder
00:15:13
the exact question what does it mean to
00:15:16
be human that's what makes us human so
00:15:20
if you're an alien today or you feel
00:15:23
like an alien this is what to look out
00:15:26
for with one another and also this is
00:15:30
what I really hope that we can do
00:15:31
together here in Courage here in part of
00:15:34
the the TEDx and Ted
00:15:36
and thank you so much for giving me the
00:15:38
chance to raise these issues raised
00:15:41
these questions I look forward to B to
00:15:43
being proudly human with all of you
00:15:45
thank you
00:15:52
you
