What Technology Wants (hopefully)

I posted a picture of Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Linkedin. The post said: 

"On Vopak's 400th birthday, I was kindly invited to attend a reception to mark the occasion. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr Kofi Annan, was kind enough to offer some advice: Talking about the potential of AI, he said that technology is only as good as its ability to improve the world around us, to help to bring out the best in people. His advice was to focus on how our technology could contribute to a better world.

I think about that quite a lot these days."

Gabri van der Wagt asked for my thoughts. Here they are:

Hi Gabri, thanks for asking. I'd like to share 3 thoughts: 

(1) I think technology is turning the "good, cheap, sustainable, pick 2" into a false dilemma. When producing "stuff", technology enables "pick 3". For instance: AI is driving advances in materials science, creating new materials that are both incredibly strong and environmentally sustainable. Peter Diamandis has a good 5-minute primer on this: https://www.diamandis.com/materials-science The basic concept is that the behaviour of new materials can be predicted based on machine learning and vast datasets. This dramatically shortens the development cycles of these new materials, and enable materials science to rapidly develop new materials that have all of the good stuff, and none of the bad. In his video, from 2016, he provides examples of how this is benefitting healthcare and the environment. In this same category: Product design, where AI helps to design new structures that use far fewer raw materials without compromising on strength, for instance. 

(2) I believe that commercial success and doing good can and should go hand in hand. It is economically unsustainable and impossible as a society to thrive on doing good alone. Dan Palotta, in his Ted Talk "The Way We Think About Charity Is Dead Wrong" talks about how a lack of entrepreneurship is holding back charitable organisations.

Technology helps to develop business models where (for instance) entrepreneurship and environmental friendliness go hand in hand. PeelPioneers is an example. Or Houben Worstenbrood, run by my cousin, that employs retired bakers to make delicious worstenbroodjes - available for order. And I would humbly say that at Semiotic Labs, we improve the reliability of processes and production throughput (which provides first and foremost a financial benefit) - but we also offer insights and features that help to reduce energy waste and increase safety. 

(3) There is a parable which I believe comes from Buddhism, in which a boy walks on a beach where millions of starfish a have been washed ashore and are dying: An old man walked across a beach until he came across a young boy throwing something into the breaking waves.

Upon closer inspection, the old man could see that the boy was tossing stranded starfish from the sandy beach, back into the ocean.

"What are you doing young man?" He asked.

"If the starfish are still on the beach when the sun rises, they'll die." The boy answered.

"That is ridiculous. There are thousands of miles of beach and millions of starfish. It doesn't matter how many you through in; you can't make a difference." The old man said.

At this, the boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "It made a difference for that one."

The moral of the story: We can't carry the world on our shoulders, but we can make a difference within our own realm of influence, one step at a time. Even though there are many more problems in search of a technology solution, we need to focus on what we can do ourselves, because we can make a difference for that problem.