Future Capability and the World of Tomorrow

Society is not yet ready for the ‘near future’ of quantum-powered and artificially intelligent machines. 

Like the myth of Icarus there are passionate teams so caught up in the heady flight to technological singularity that they may not see the proverbial ‘Sun' just ahead.

We the people, in our own social groupings and under global leadership, have not yet had sufficiently difficult conversations to help civilization understand the potential implications of what is coming. Neither has our species exhibited the strategic foresight to plan for a world in which humankind is not the most intelligent entity.

Future shock

As predicted by Alvin Toffler back in 1970, in his prophetic tome ‘Future Shock’, continuous and rapid technological advancements are already enhancing and challenging our current model of life, potentially overwhelming us to the point of inaction.

In just three decades, we have seen the ubiquity of the Internet and personal information systems. We have willingly allowed ourselves to be ‘bugged’ with always-on technology in the form of our hand-held devices and the acceptance of a pervasive surveillance society (whether cameras, or cookies, or other). I do not suggest a conspiracy; rather that in exchange for our human and fundamental needs of convenience and connection we have gladly traded privacy and security.

Our minds, evolved over thousands of years, are not equipped for the rate of change we are soon to experience. 

Quantum computing is a game changer. Only a few truly understand the power of this technological opportunity. Suffice to say that it may soon be possible to process in minutes what once would take thousands of years. Forget Moore's law, there is a giant step-change coming in the very near future.

How then do we reliably determine the future capability we will need as individuals and organizations to adapt for success in this changing world? What are the core tenets of a data-driven and machine-intelligent world that will help us flourish and survive the disruption to come? What is your own role? Should you wait to see what is going to happen? Or should you take an active role in defining future capability? 

The past, the present, the future

On March 19, 2018, the house lights of a conference center in Rancho Mirage faded to black. Blaring through the sound system, an interlude from Janet Jackson’s ‘Rhythm Nation 1814’ social consciousness concept album primed the crowd with an audio soundscape of television samples from the 1980s. Whilst these tracks spoke to the impact of media and knowledge on society in the 1980s, the artists involved could not have conceived the world we live in today.

So begun a journey from the past to the present to the future for several hundred medical affairs and scientific communications professionals, from over 140 health companies around the world. The challenge: think about future capability and the world of tomorrow.

A number of interactive polls throughout the presentation helped to illustrate that for many of us there is uncertainty and ambiguity about the future, perhaps due to information fatigue or future shock. Very few people that I met knew what to expect or what to do in their own career to prepare for the future. For that particular audience, those who foresaw a utopia only narrowly exceeded those who suspected a dystopia might lie ahead.

Audience response to a live interactive poll: 'What can we expect from the future?'

Made in our image

Humanity is immensely capable and adaptable. We are extraordinary beings. Our bodies are fascinating bio-machines. We have a waterproof membrane. We have a number of senses. We have a wide range of movements. You can put energy into one end and waste comes out the other. The whole thing changes size and shape over time, and the processing unit running the whole system learns and grows to suit the environment. Incredible.

Yet we have, in recent decades, become increasingly committed to a path of replicating machines in our image, perhaps without questioning if we should be doing that. 

Image Source: https://pixabay.com/en/robot-woman-face-cry-sad-3010309/

Purpose and intent

A machine is usually designed for a purpose. Purpose first; suitable engineered machine to solve the problem that follows. So, if I want to build cars more accurately and efficiently without endangering human life – it would seem logical that a machine might do the job.

Whereas with humans it is more like we are a machine looking for a purpose. We find our way through life, informed by culture, history, philosophy, and our own existential yearning to find meaning. We have some basic programming around survival, procreation and community. We also seek out to discover what is good and what is bad – either for us, or for society. We learn a lot, about a lot. It creates a balance and a ‘holistic’ framework around which to process individual tasks, objectives, and purpose.

Image source: https://pixabay.com/en/chess-black-white-chess-pieces-king-2730034/

In the race to develop cognitive computing and to drive research in computer science, we set each software program or neural network specific challenges: Beat me at chess; Win the Chinese board game ‘Go'; Find the terrorist. Whatever we train our computers to do, that is what they could become to the exclusion of all else.

Machines Learning algorithms can train themselves on the entire canon of written text, which seems like a good idea. However within our literature are repetitive opportunities to learn from the non-obvious ideologies underpinning the text that are no longer necessarily representative of our modern way of thinking.

Our modern and accepted thinking, as represented in literature, is but a tiny percentage of all the data that a computer can learn from in history. Who therefore teaches a machine how to filter and process the quality from the quantity? To say, "...that is out of date" or, "...we don't say that anymore"?

Comparatively, our small children are exposed to a broad range of experiences and learning from which they can formulate a view of the world. They have teachers and mentors and role models. Machines, on the other hand, are given narrow objectives or task-oriented missions by technical specialists in unnatural situations. Perhaps worse, we want them to teach themselves.

Ethics and morality

To the more complex questions: Can computers be moral? What are their guiding values?

Not to say humans are always moral or driven by guiding values. Think of the greed, theft, exploitation, murder, and the worst of human-nature. Even in observing our failings, we would nonetheless in the majority aspire to truth, liberty and justice.

Image source: https://pixabay.com/en/justitia-goddess-goddess-of-justice-2597016/

Yet if we were to form an assessment of humanity by that which is reported in the news, it may be a bleak depiction of a depraved and destructive species. While we know that there are so many good and noble acts and aspects of humanity occurring every day, they are rarely recorded with equal footing into the pages of history.

Emerging artificial intelligence entities currently have only a limited perspective available to them, from which to learn.

The conversation

We need greater and deeper conversation about ethical machines and use of technology. Urgently.

If we teach machines to win, to acquire, to destroy… perhaps we should reasonably expect dystopia. If we teach machines to heal, to share, to build… is it just possible we would achieve a better outcome for humankind and the planet we live on?

So much of technological progress is driven by curiosity, profit, the waging of war, or other objectives which are known to lead us away from utopia, or at the very least balance. Our technology and defense organizations will not provide the leadership we are looking for.

It is up to us all. The end user. The consumer. The citizen of the world.

We need our minds to manipulate technology, rather than allowing ourselves to be manipulated by technology as it is 'discovered' or brought to market. So many aspects of our primordial brain have not evolved quickly enough for us to know that something is destructive. Consider our seeming inability to curb excessive sugar consumption, or our impulse to seek recognition in social media. Or the way our societal consciousness has become desensitized to sex, violence, and crime in the media. Or even that we can now participate in every kind of violent first-person-shooter game with no thought of what this may do to our own precious neural network. Can you imagine the men and women of the so-called ‘Great War’ or ‘War to end all wars’ returning home and suggesting to each other, “You know what we should do? We should seek to emulate the experience of war in the most realistic way we can, so that our teenage children can see what it is like to kill people or be killed?” I don’t think so.

Plan for the future. Shape it!

I implore us all to think carefully about where we are going with each small decision around technology in our lives and the future capability we want to support as a society.

If you have read this far, you may well be the catalyst that literally changes our path to the future. You may be one of the people that determines the strategy or the policy or the technology that sets us on a course for balance rather than insatiable growth and consumption to the point of destruction.

If you are at the cutting-edge of computer science: I know you know how to solve it; how to make it; how to engineer it. Do you also know whether it is beneficial, how it may be misused, what the impact is, how to mitigate the risk?

Let us not in hubris fly too close to the Sun.

For those who sense the burden of dystopia: Don’t worry about the future, plan for it. The future can be bright and light and positive - it literally depends on us all and what we individually and collectively do from this day onwards.

Don't let the future happen to you. Shape it!

Paul R. Grant is a digital strategy and innovation advisor. His #MASC18 technology keynote presentation is available for download here: https://www.slideshare.net/paulgrant/future-capability-and-the-world-of-tomorrow-92380074