Putting human beings at the center of the 4th Industrial Revolution | Nicholas Davis | TEDxCarouge
Summary
TLDRThe speaker at TEDx Carew's delves into the reciprocal relationship between humans and technology, emphasizing how we shape technology and how it, in turn, shapes us. They explore the emotional responses to advancements like Boston Dynamics' Atlas robot, discussing the potential for job displacement, societal division due to unequal access to technology, and the risk of losing human connection and depth. The talk concludes with a call to action, urging the audience to be politically engaged with technology, to remain authentically human, to empower themselves with tech knowledge, and to extend this empowerment to others, especially less privileged communities.
Takeaways
- 🤖 Technology shapes us as much as we shape it, creating a reciprocal relationship that influences our identities and societal structures.
- 🕊️ The speaker emphasizes the importance of retaining a sense of humanity amidst technological advancements, suggesting that our understanding of what it means to be human is in flux.
- 👽 There's a metaphorical 'alien' feeling for some in the audience, representing the feeling of being out of place in a rapidly advancing technological world.
- 🤹♂️ The speaker highlights the contrasting emotions elicited by technological feats, such as a robot performing a backflip, which include amazement, fear, and a sense of connection.
- 🧠 Self-awareness and the ability to reflect on our existence are presented as key characteristics that differentiate humans from other entities.
- 🏗️ Technology affects us in profound ways, from shaping our physical environments to altering our perceptions and experiences of the world.
- 📉 The fear of job redundancy due to automation is a significant concern, with studies suggesting a large percentage of jobs at risk, although the actual impact is up to us to decide.
- 🔄 The speaker discusses the potential for technology to divide society, with a focus on the digital divide and the social injustice of leaving people behind technologically.
- 🔍 There's an emphasis on the importance of understanding the broader systems that influence our relationship with technology, rather than focusing on individual technologies.
- 🗳️ Being politically engaged with technology is crucial, as it influences societal structures and our daily lives.
- 🌐 The speaker encourages empowerment through education and the opportunity to be on the technological frontier, as well as the responsibility to empower others, especially those less privileged.
Q & A
What is the central theme of the speaker's talk at TEDx Carew's?
-The central theme is the reciprocal relationship between humans and technology, and how technology shapes us as much as we shape it.
How does the speaker suggest technology influences our identities?
-The speaker suggests that technology influences our identities by focusing our attention, giving us power, and shaping the world around us.
What emotions does the speaker experience when watching a robot perform a backflip?
-The speaker experiences embarrassment, amazement, fear, and a sense of connection or empathy.
What are the three ways technology affects us according to the speaker?
-Technology affects us by focusing our attention, shaping the world around us, and enveloping ourselves in different ways through devices.
What are the three fears the speaker mentions regarding our relationship with technology?
-The fears are becoming redundant, being separated from one another, and being flattened or unable to be the full rich people we want to be.
What does the speaker suggest about the future of jobs in relation to automation?
-The speaker suggests that while automation may change tasks within occupations, it often removes undesirable work and can lead to increased job satisfaction.
How does the speaker address the issue of division caused by technology?
-The speaker points out the digital divide, where billions of people lack access to the internet, clean water, sanitation, and electricity, emphasizing the importance of inclusivity in technological advancement.
What is the speaker's view on the importance of being political in the context of technology?
-The speaker believes being political is crucial because technology has political implications, and we need to engage with how it influences us and the decisions shaping it.
What advice does the speaker give for individuals to empower themselves in the face of technological change?
-The speaker advises individuals to educate themselves, particularly through online courses and learning coding languages like Python, to be on the frontier of technological advancements.
What role does the speaker see for the audience in the city of Geneva and the canton in relation to technology?
-The speaker sees the audience as having the opportunity to be political, human, empowered, and as agents of empowerment for others, especially those less privileged, in the face of rapid technological change.
What does the speaker conclude about the essence of being human?
-The speaker concludes that the essence of being human is our ability to love, share, express ourselves, be curious, and wonder, which is what makes us human.
Outlines
🤖 The Co-Creation of Humanity and Technology
The speaker initiates the discussion by addressing the audience, humorously identifying non-humans among them to highlight the theme of human-technology co-evolution. They emphasize the reciprocal influence between humans and technology, posing the central question of retaining our humanity amidst technological advancements. The speaker reflects on the rapid changes in human identity over time and the need to understand and control this process. The introduction of the Atlas robot by Boston Dynamics serves to illustrate the complex emotions technology can evoke, including amazement, fear, and a sense of connection. The philosophical underpinnings of what it means to be human are touched upon, suggesting that our humanity is defined by our self-awareness, culture, and our ability to create and use technology.
🌐 Technology's Impact on Human Identity and Society
This paragraph delves into the ways technology shapes our world and identities. The speaker discusses the concept of humans as cyborgs, enhanced by technology such as contact lenses, and criticizes the behavior of people who record concerts through their phone screens, suggesting it diminishes the shared experience. The paragraph outlines three societal fears related to technology: redundancy of human labor, division among people due to unequal access, and the flattening of human experience and potential. The speaker challenges common narratives around job displacement due to automation, citing studies that show increased job satisfaction and creative work as a result of technological advancements. The digital divide and the exclusion of billions from basic technological amenities underscore the need for inclusive technological development.
🔍 Navigating the Broader Implications of Technology
The speaker transitions to a broader systems perspective on technology, emphasizing the importance of understanding and influencing the direction of technological progress. They argue that technology is inherently political and that being apolitical is not an option if one wishes to have agency over the impact of technology on society. The paragraph calls for a reevaluation of educational priorities, investment incentives, and societal conversations around technology. The speaker encourages the audience to consider their roles in shaping the future of technology and to embrace the potential for positive change.
🌟 Empowerment and Responsibility in the Technological Age
In the final paragraph, the speaker outlines four roles or opportunities for the audience to engage with technology more consciously. They advocate for political engagement to influence technological development, for maintaining authentic human connections despite technological mediation, for self-empowerment through learning cutting-edge skills, and for the responsibility to empower others, especially those less privileged. The speaker concludes with a quote from the Smithsonian Institute's human origins exhibit, highlighting the essence of humanity as love, sharing, expression, curiosity, and wonder, and calls for a collective effort to preserve these qualities in our technologically evolving world.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Inclusive
💡Technology
💡Human beings
💡Identity
💡Alien
💡Backflip
💡Cyborg
💡Empathy
💡Humanity
💡Philosophical
💡Technology Politics
💡Jobs
💡Division
💡Empowering
💡Systems View
Highlights
The speaker starts with an inclusive question about who in the audience feels like an alien in today's technological world.
The central theme is the reciprocal relationship between humans and technology: how we create technology and how it shapes us in return.
The speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding the evolution of human identity in the context of technological advancements.
The question of how to retain and deepen our sense of humanity in the face of technological change is posed.
The speaker discusses the emotional reactions to advanced robotics, such as the Boston Dynamics Atlas robot doing a backflip.
The idea that technology reflects different aspects of ourselves and our society is explored.
Philosophical definitions of what it means to be human are mentioned, including self-awareness and culture.
The impact of technology on our daily lives, such as how it shapes our perception and interactions, is highlighted.
The speaker critiques the behavior of 'cyborgs' who use technology to disconnect from the present moment, such as recording concerts on their phones.
Three fears related to technology are presented: redundancy, division, and being flattened out.
The potential for technology to create job redundancy is discussed, with a focus on the importance of the tasks within occupations rather than the jobs themselves.
The issue of technological division and inequality is addressed, pointing out those left out of technological advancements.
The concern of being flattened by technology, losing the ability to be bored or have authentic conversations, is raised.
The speaker calls for a systems view of technology, focusing on education, investment incentives, and priorities.
Four opportunities for action are suggested: being political, being human, empowering oneself, and empowering others.
The speaker concludes with a quote from the Smithsonian Institute's human origins exhibit, emphasizing the essence of being human.
Transcripts
I guess I just want to start by being a
little bit inclusive and asking who here
in the audience is not a human who's an
alien at a human pride event tonight
it's a couple of down the front thank
you who feels like an alien in today's
technological world on occasion ok a
little bit more so I want to start with
this slide because this is what we're
talking about we're talking about this
idea of how we as human beings create
technology but how technology creates us
in return
so that's the kind of key message that I
want to hammer on as to be honored as
the opening speaker for TEDx Carew's and
in particular I want you to kind of
think in the different ways in which you
are creating technology and your
identities have changed because for
those of you who are alien in the
audience if you visited a thousand years
ago the human beings you would have
encountered would have been completely
different
to those who you're going to meet
tonight and if you come back in ten
years will be completely different again
and the process of how that happens
and what control we have about this
process is I think one of the essential
questions of our rage today so this is
the main question that I'd like to pose
how can we ensure not that we stay human
human beings are always in flux but that
we can retain and deepen our sense of
what it means to be human over time and
there's a really interesting question
here about why I proudly human right now
if this is a process that's been
happening over millennia what are we
worried about
so tell me if you've seen this video
around a robot doing a back flip Boston
Dynamics latest robot it's called the
Atlas it's absolutely phenomenal when I
watch these kinds of videos I have four
or three or four really really
contrasting emotions going on at each
point in time one of them is
embarrassment that I can't
do a backflip another one is absolute
amazement at the ingenuity of the lab in
Boston that manages to combine biologic
and biological physics with materials
with artificial intelligence to do this
a third is fear fear that someday I
could be out there protesting and rather
than dehumanize people with riot shields
these could be on the other side in a
security or military context and the
fourth fourth concern offer forth
emotion I have is a curious sense of
connection particularly when you watch
the robot fall this empathy with again
the fal ability of this completely
created thing and I guess as I want you
to keep in mind this idea of when we
look at technology we're looking at
ourselves in different ways and this is
happening more and more every day so
what do we want to see and how can we
understand it if we ask ourselves what
it means to be human
this is not a new question right not
only can you find many Ted videos on
this topic but philosophers have been
asking this question for thousands of
years human beings have been asking and
one philosophical answer to this
question is humans of humans because we
can ask the question we can reflect on
ourselves we have self-awareness in
different ways another one is that
humans are humans because we have
culture because we are positioned in
different ways because we are bodily
beings we have a certain biology or
because we create institutions and we
engage in the world in a very particular
way but this is probably one of the
closest things we can think about when
we say what it means to be human
when archaeologists look in the fossil
record for when a human existed they
look for this and by the way this idea
of humans as technological beings as
being created this is something that we
in might the work that I do every day
talk about constantly and the ideas here
of framing the technological human have
really been inspired by someone who's in
the audience tonight Tom Philbeck but
also many colleagues who are starting to
bring to bear in the public
consciousness ideas that have been in
social science for many years but were
only just realizing how important they
to our daily lives there are three ways
in which technology really affects us at
least let me just give you these first
three the first one will be familiar to
any of you who have ever heard the
phrase to a person with a hammer
everything looks like a nail the objects
we create focus our attention they give
us power and we use that power as
Langdon winner said artifacts have
politics that may not look super
political to you replace it with a gun
or an atom bomb and it immediately
becomes incredibly political tools and
Technology affects us because we use it
to shape the world around us look at
this space we're in or think of the
Gothic cathedral to people entering a
Gothic cathedral a thousand years ago or
800 years ago they could not speak the
language of the institution they were
entering but they were nevertheless
immediately informed what it means to be
a human in that space and modern
technology today means we literally see
through technology I see through
technology I have contact lenses in
today which means my experience of the
world is dramatically different than it
would be otherwise so I'm a cyborg in
that respect but now we have the
opportunity to envelop ourselves in
different ways and the most annoying
cyborgs today are these people okay the
people who put their hands up and their
mobile phones at concerts and record the
concert so even if you're tall like me
and you feel like you have a natural
advantage in watching people it's now
removed by the fact that everyone's
looking through the screen don't do that
please don't be that kind of cyborg it's
not the best type of cyborg but this is
happening more and more we're literally
viewing the world through our devices
why is this a problem
let me give you three fears that we have
today number one are we becoming
redundant after millennia of using and
creating tools and we had a turning
point where we no longer needed in some
sense or is it actually more about
division are we scared of being
separated from one another through
technology or third are we being
squashed flattened out are we being
distributed and pulled too much in a way
that means that we can't be
the full rich people that we want to be
or that we think we should be so let me
just quickly delve into each of those
the question of jobs the future of jobs
I won't go in to the data except to say
I don't believe most of it because it's
up to us to decide today
how we want humans and machines to
relate but the scary figures are out
there from my friend Mike Osborne 47
percent of US jobs at risk from work
from Bruegel up to 60 percent of
European jobs are at risk
let's just focus on the fact that in all
of history
this has always been happening and it's
actually not the jobs that disappear
it's the tasks within occupations that
change dramatically and the second thing
to say here is there's great evidence
from Australian studies recently that
automation normally act takes away that
the work you don't want to do and
Australian workers in the last 15 years
alone have gained more than two hours a
week a substantial amount of time in
interpersonal work in creative work in
information synthesis work which is all
highly correlated with increasing job
satisfaction so the question is what
kind of stories can we tell each other
to make that keep going as opposed to a
CEO announcing they're laying off 20
percent of their workforce in advance of
automation just because they're worried
and we need to get the story straight
because just in May this year these are
three different takes on the same set of
data robots are going to take all our
jobs actually robots are not going to
take all of our jobs or my favorite The
Wall Street Journal robots aren't taking
enough of their jobs
the second big issue here is really
around this question of division it's
this idea that somehow the world is not
only becoming more unequal but the
technology is driving it this is turqu
Avera a fantastic Brazilian photographer
famous photo of his of a slum in New
Buenos Aires quit Paris operas it really
illustrates this idea that the built
environment is already dividing us but
what about the point when we talk about
emerging technologies that we have 4.1
billion people around the world that
don't have access to the inter
yet 2.4 billion without access to water
and sanitation 1.2 billion without
access to energy to electricity and
almost 600 million smallholder farmers
who haven't even gone through the first
Industrial Revolution the greatest
social injustice of any technological
revolution is those who are left out so
let's keep that in mind as we move
forward and understanding where what the
system is where we want them to take us
and this galaxy image also in honor of
Tom in the audience is to show that
we're being flattened and if you're
interested in this topic look at sherry
turkle's videos on Ted or the books that
she's written but there are three big
concerns who's in control of our
attention today when we work through
digital networks when we see the world
through the devices we carry what
happens when we lose the ability to be
bored or to have conversation and if we
don't understand each other how can we
be like Confucius and the philosophical
kind of history truly reflective and
understanding ourselves as human beings
what might we lose all of this is not
about individual technologies it's not
going to be solved by saying platform
designer why you should redesign your
front page to look like this or robotics
designer X you should build a robot that
does y&z because all of this is part of
a broader system and when we zoom out
and think about the relationship of
humans and technologies we have to pay
attention to these things who and how
are we educating around technology and
more broadly what are the incentives for
investment in different types of
technologies what are our priorities
what conversations do we do we want to
have should we be having so taking this
systems view should it mean that we all
sit here and say oh gosh this is a
really hard problem if we want to change
our relationship to technology to be
more inclusive we need to change
everything from tax from social
relationships it's true but it's also
incredibly empowering
because if we are really now as I
believe on a cusp of an entirely new set
of
amazing empowering technologies the
question is what do we want to make what
does this next system look like and
what's our role so let me finish by
giving you four roles for opportunities
for you here in the city of courage in
the canton of geneva
in your organization's can grasp to
start to focus more on this topic and
make it very conscious but hopefully
also to take us all to a far better and
more inclusive space number one be
political
if technologies are political you cannot
afford to not be political okay it
doesn't mean you have to go left or
right it means you have to engage with
the fact that we are being influenced by
the things that are created and if we
don't have power over those decisions at
the end of the day we are entirely at
the mercy of those designing and
investing in those systems so get
political like the revolutionaries here
in 1847 in Geneva and have the
conversations ask the questions what do
we really want and how do we influence
to get there the second question is at
the other end of the spectrum be human
the anciently human stop as I am tempted
to do stop taking photos of your kids
and be with your kids think about the
fact that if you put a mobile phone on a
table between the two of you that
changes a conversation it changes your
memory of a conversation and your sense
of connection with them be as human and
find the points in time where technology
can bring that more to you the third
option
our third opportunity is to empower
yourself and this is a World Economic
Forum young global leader called Jeremy
Howard jeremy has an online course in
deep learning where if you have about a
year's worth of coding experience in
some of the very accessible coding
languages like Python you can apply the
latest deep learning techniques
available open source today a were
literally a world-class level so if you
are privileged enough to sit in this
room have access to the Internet know
about Ted videos know about the way that
you can engage
in online learning taking this
opportunity to actually say right now
it's still the opportunity for me to be
on the frontier myself that's something
that I would urge all of us to do and
I'm a lawyer currently going through
this deep learning course and it is mind
blowing the final thing is if we live at
a point in time where the systems of
technology are changing so rapidly the
rules are being written we have an
absolute responsibility to engage in
empowering others our revolutionary is
not a revolutionary just for themselves
or for their family they're a
revolutionary for a broader sense of
community and ideal for future
generations and so to think about the
way that here in Geneva connecting with
others in Carew's connecting across the
international organizations the business
community civil society all the
different parts of the innovation
ecosystem here that make Geneva so
unique that means that you can then
connect with people all over the world
communities who are in a far less
privileged position than us to bring the
same sense of empowerment and the same
sense of opportunities over time and I
want to finish then with a quote from
the Smithsonian Institutes human origins
origins exhibit so starting in about
2011 the Smithsonian had this idea of
looking back in time and asking the
question what is human through the the
artifacts of that we've created over
time and more than 10,000 people put
ideas our answers to the question what
does it mean to be human I love this one
this is just a random from the first
page of about you know a thousand pages
but it says to love to share to express
ourselves to be curious and to wonder
the exact question what does it mean to
be human that's what makes us human so
if you're an alien today or you feel
like an alien this is what to look out
for with one another and also this is
what I really hope that we can do
together here in Courage here in part of
the the TEDx and Ted
and thank you so much for giving me the
chance to raise these issues raised
these questions I look forward to B to
being proudly human with all of you
thank you
you
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