The technology of the future will make us better people
Imagine a future with intelligent robots that can not only drive our cars, wash our clothes and play with our children, but also perform many of our jobs much better than we can. It may sound like a horror scenario where we humans have lost the battle for the machines, but according to American technology guru Kevin Kelly, not only is it a desirable future, it is also inevitable.
In his latest book, "The Inevitable", Kevin Kelly points to 12 technological drivers that will shape our future, whether we like it or not.
But Kevin Kelly, who has been called one of the planet's most visionary thinkers, does not paint a dystopian picture of the future, the worst of all worlds in which we humans stand without influence. On the contrary, he believes that the unstoppable technological changes will make us better people by constantly challenging us.
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"I celebrate the many technological advances because they force us to ask ourselves: Who are we? What are people for some? Why are we here? What is our purpose? We do not know the answers to these questions, but I believe that technology helps us find those answers.
As we develop artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and new ways to share, interact and keep up in the coming years, we will create a lot of new opportunities. Those choices can help define who we are as individuals and what kind of species we are.
Every time we invent something new, we help to fulfill a person's potential. Imagine that Mozart or Beethoven had been born 1000 years earlier and had not had the musical instruments available to create their works. All the talent that would be wasted. The enjoyment that neither they nor we would have experienced through their music.
I think somewhere in the world sits a young girl who is the Shakespeare of our time, but she's waiting for us to invent the technology she needs to share her talent with us. So I think we have a moral obligation to continue to increase the opportunities that technology offers us. Such a person - both we who are born and the generations to come - has an opportunity to unfold their talent. "
You say we have a moral obligation to push for this development. What about the many ethical issues it raises when new technologies become part of our everyday lives?
"We already use all kinds of artificial intelligence to make decisions for us. Decisions on everything from mortgages to diagnoses when taking x-rays. As artificial intelligence is used to make decisions that affect our lives, it becomes important for us to make those decisions by our values.
Fortunately, it is not difficult to program technological systems so that they conform to our moral principles. The problem is rather that our moral principles and our ethical foundations often turn out to be poor and full of inconsistencies.
So we face the huge challenge that we have to work our way through our value systems so that they become coherent, deeper, and more robust. To do that, we must find consensus on what we humans perceive as morally right and wrong. Therefore, I believe that artificial intelligence and robots will make us better people because they confront us with ethical issues and force us to develop our moral views. ”
Sounds like a giant mouthful in a world where we humans are still engaged in a fierce value struggle?
"It is part of the process to reach a kind of consensus, and I would argue that in large parts of the world we have already created an overall consensus in many areas. Take an example like climate change. No matter what happens in the United States here and now, we have seen that the majority of the world has reached some kind of agreement. It's a huge step.
Now we are then challenged by, for example, artificial intelligence to be more precise when we express what we mean. It helps us realize that we have no control over what we understand by morality and ethics. For example, is it best for a self-driving car to avoid hitting the grandchildren or the grandmother if an accident can not be avoided? We only find the answer to that question by looking further into ourselves, digging deeper, and daring to take on the difficult debates about what our priorities are.
To me, that is precisely the epitome of progress. That we humans ask questions and continue to push the boundaries of our compassion for others. By that standard, I believe we have seen a gradual increase in morale over the last 200 years, not least thanks to technological advances. ”
You do not fear a future where artificial intelligence and robots will be abused by terrorists, extremists, or fundamentalists?
"I am by no means a utopian. I am certain that new technological advances will lead to disasters and open up a lot of other problems. The future will not be conflict-free, because we humans rarely hit the spot in the first place when we adopt new technology.
It's going to take a long time - maybe a generation or more - to figure out how new technology can benefit. Take social media as an example. We quickly forget that they are less than 3000 days old. It's a technology we're just getting to know. Social media and other new technologies likely require us to train certain competencies to, among other things, find balance in the level of distraction and maintain our ability to focus. ”
Artificial intelligence and virtual reality are just some of the 12 technological driving forces you believe will shape our future. Driving forces you call inevitable. It can easily sound like a deterministic view of technology - one that turns on the warning lights in many people?
"It's a red cloth I wave at that makes many people uncomfortable because it suggests that we as humans are buying into our ability to make choices for ourselves.
The technological drivers I point to as inevitable will certainly be voluminous. But how they more specifically make themselves known and the circumstances around them is not something that I or others can predict, for it is something we can all greatly influence and have control over.
When we first discovered electricity and wires, for example, it was only a matter of time before the telephone was invented. That invention was, so to speak, inevitable, but no one could predict that an iPhone would come.
So when I try to predict the future, I extrapolate from some trends that are already present today. I state that the proliferation of technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality is inevitable. But which companies will be responsible for the development, I can not predict. The specific type of products that are developed when we add artificial intelligence to all sorts of things, for example, is by no means predetermined. It makes a huge difference and gives us humans a lot of leeways to make our own choices and shape the future. ”
So there are many paths we can move down, driven by these technological forces. And you say that we humans can help choose which path we take. But can we choose to stop? To slow down what you call the nature of technology?
"The fact is that this technological development is underway and we have to accept it. Instead of working against development, we must work with it. You can see today how difficult it is for certain countries to ban Internet access or the use of social media. Even if you exclude some people from being part of the development, it does not stop for that reason.
It is important to emphasize that when I talk about the nature of technology, it does not mean that these technological tendencies have a consciousness. This means that the enormously large and complex technological systems we have built show certain inclinations, certain tendencies in technology, and repeat specific patterns.
These trends and patterns are inevitable, and they shape the future. On the other hand, we humans have a lot to say about how technology is evolving more specifically. Our society, for example, decided that the Internet should be commercial, transnational, and open. ”
So how do we control the technological forces?
"The only way we can influence the way technology takes us is by using it. When we try to block the technology or ban it or turn it off, it gets out of our control.
Wikipedia is a good example. It is a platform that anyone and everyone can go in and change, whether you are an ignorant teenager or a fundamentalist who wants to spread propaganda. But because it's just as easy for all of us to go in and edit Wikipedia, it's become a valuable and widespread platform nonetheless.
In the same way, I think we will invent technological tools that can help us deal with so-called fake news. An example could be a kind of truth barometer, which assigns a probability of whether the claims people make are true, based on how many other people think the same thing.
So my message is that the solution to the many challenges created by the new technology drivers is not a showdown with technology, but more and better technology. ”
What is your optimistic view of the future?
"My optimism is rooted in our history. Over the past 200 years, we humans have experienced demonstrable global improvements in virtually every area - security, longevity, health, rights. The progress has been gradual, so we only notice it when we look in the rearview mirror.
When you journalists write your daily news stories, I perceive them as distractions. For me, the most important thing is everything that does not happen on a given day. All those people who do not die of infections or starvation or burn to death because with the help of technology we have invented vaccines, agricultural machinery, and smoke alarms. That's the real news, ”said Kevin Kelly.
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