A Digital Future - And A Human Future with Gerd Leonhard at Modena Smart Life Sept 27, 2020

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Hi guys, please. Hello everybody. I am Daniele Biagioni and I work in the Communication and Participation office of Modena Municipality. The municipality has got today the pleasure to have Gerd Leonard once again this year as our special speaker for the Festival of Digital Culture in Modena. Modena Smart Life, which actually ends today after all week of events. So I want to thank on behalf of municipality Gerd, of course, for his availability also this year and B Perbanca for the fundamental support to this event. Modena Smart Life is an initiative of Modena Municipality, but with strong commitment of many partners which are Fondazione Collegio San Carlo, Fondazione di Modena, Universitadli Sturdi di Modena, Reggio Emilia Fondazione Demo center and Camera di Comercio di Modena. The festival this year is at its fifth edition and actually it is a very special edition, the first one in an old digital version. The festival would like to analyze through concrete experiences and also scientific debates, the role of technology and digital transformation into all the aspects of human society. In particular, this year we have decided to dedicate the edition to the theme network Living Connected. Actually, this choice was made before the pandemic period at the end of the previous edition of 2019. And of course it has become now even more effective after what we lived during the lockdown period when we were really connected only thanks to the digital technology. Modern Smart Life is also an essential part of the city's strategy to promote digital culture and to increase the awareness of the great changes brought by digital transformation in people's lives. The festival has got the ambition to consider these important changes from different points of view. This year in this edition we have identified eight thematic areas that try to show how the world is changed after the pandemic events. And first of all, how the digital transformation has undergone a great acceleration during this period. The so called big jump. So, eight areas which are technological infrastructures, data and cybersecurity, remote teaching and online learning, the pandemic storytelling. So how communication counted. The pandemic period. The public administration as a new virtual space, the concept of being on life, the comparison between the real, the so called real economy and the virtual economy. And last but not the least, the digital fruition of culture. Okay, last year we had Gerd Leonard as the closing speaker of our festival with his remarks about the future. And this year, after all, what happened. We need these glimpses about the future even more. Much more. And this is the reason why we ask again to the futurist Gerd Lewner to be with us this year too. So thanks again, Gerd, and I'll let you speak. Thank you.

Buenos Sierra. It's a great pleasure to be back in Modena, albeit virtually. Thanks, Daniela, for the nice opening words. The biggest thing I will regret of not actually being in Modena with all of you is that we won't be able to have a nice dinner together, which is of course always the crowning part of the gig in Italy. So I'm speaking to you virtually today about the digital future. I want to start with saying one thing. I think right now things are really, really pretty tough, I think for anybody, especially in Italy. And yet my opening statement will be that the future is better than we think. And I will explain it to you why that is and why it could be if we make the right decisions. You can use right here, if you're watching on YouTube or LinkedIn or Twitch or wherever you're watching, you can use the comment bar. There's my dear fellow futurist, Soha Rashid. She's going to answer the comments and I will take some questions at the end. And I do have a special surprise for you at the end, a gift. You know, it's Sunday after all. Right. Got to have gifts on Sunday. So that's coming right up and let's dive right in. Right. First, I think, you know, it's quite clear we are currently on a bit of a Corona coaster. And don't be afraid, when I fade out, I will come back. It's basically the emotional stress of going up and down and things are constantly changing. I mean, I'm in the same position than many of you. It's like we don't know what's going to happen next week. We have to turn around. We have to find strength with each other. And the other day I had a great conversation with other futurists about how we are feeling about our speaking, where it's going. The Corona coaster is here to stay and we need to support each other. We need to figure out, I think at least for the next year and a half as to what is happening and where we are going. And here's a short forecast on this. This is from McKinsey analysis saying no matter how you look at this chart, it's really quite clear it's going to be until the end of 21, maybe 22 in the eurozone, until we have some semblance, not of normal, but of the next Normal. And it's really quite clear that this, we're in for the long haul. This is an L shape, regardless of the vaccine. And the economic recession will be felt in the next years. I think if you're a millennial, around 25 years old, some of you may be online watching this. This is a very big event. It's not like the financial crash. It's not like Fukushima. It's not even like September 11th. I think it's a huge cut and also a huge opportunity as we go into this future. I mean, basically, COVID 19 has been a giant accelerator for technology. And most of that is good. Not all of it is good, but take a look. Right? Remote working. Yeah. All of you know what that is? Telemedicine. That has exploded. You know, people go in the Dr. Virtually e commerce, online entertainment, remote learning. I mean, basically, technology is the winner of this whole crisis where we're meeting through here. But does it mean because technology is everywhere, that we're going to stop thinking about actually coming together, hugging each other, having food together? I don't think so. I think these are hybrid approaches that we're going to see in the future. Very, very important that we don't give up on this. This is probably going to come back in some way or the other. But as CEO of Microsoft said the other day, so such an idea. You know, we have seen three months, in three months, the innovation of the last. In six months, the innovation of the last six, three years. Right. I mean, the amount of transformation. Consumers have changed everything in their life. Work, shopping, learning, live at home, the list goes on. You can see it here, right? It's basically when we look back, we probably have never changed as much as the last six months as to how we do things. You know, I have a neighbor who's 75 years old. He didn't even know what Uber was. You know, the, the taxi service, the on demand service. And the other day he keeps telling me that all he eats now is Uber eats. It's like, oh, yes, okay, this is how we're changing it. It's a different narrative, different story. And this is the header, right? Teller, Anything remote everything. And remote everything is really practical. It's cost efficient. It's starting to work. But is it human? I think it's heaven and hell at the same time. If you do a lot of zoom calls, you know what hell looks like when you're sitting on that all day, looking at the green light, you're trying to come up with a fancy hat that you can put on, which you can now do on Zoom, but I'll spare you on that one. But on the one hand, it's a great thing, we all love it, but on the other hand, we're saying I couldn't actually meet with real people. And this may also be a question of age. Of course, I think if you're 15 and a gamer, this is what you do. But yes, we have to be a little bit careful about this. And the world is, to an extent, upside down. Things that used to matter are impossible now. If you like cruise ships, that's over. You know, if you live in Venice, they're not coming back. Sorry to tell you that there is no normal. We're not going back to normal and we don't want to go back to normal. There were many things about normal that weren't so good. Inequality, economic distress. And of course, Italy has many normals that in the end we all agree that probably need fixing. I live in Switzerland and we can say, yeah, we had a good normal, but the future isn't going back to this, I'm sorry to tell you, but there will be new normals and we're going to live in a world of pivoting. Great American word. We're turning around the ship. Tourism, agriculture, everything is turning around. I mean, this is basically a time for us to reinvent ourselves. Tourism is the hardest one, clearly. I think Italy has great cards here. However, I'll talk more about that later. But the same goes for live events, conferences, rock concerts, movie theaters, airlines. You don't want to be in the shoes of airlines. Now, automotive sector, that's right around Modena, that whole area north of Modena and between Milano and Modena is of course where all the big brands are, the manufacturers, and last, not least, the fashion industry. We have to think about how we can do things differently. Because a year and a half of adaptation and then a different consumer, a different mindset. And how are we going to go virtual without losing our soul, our reality, what we are and what we stand for? I mean, you can't eat on the Internet, right? That's a very big deal, Italy. But here's some examples of adaptation, invention pivoting. Here's the DJ that plays a concert, basically a drive in concert, very popular in Denmark, also the us. Here is how people eat now. I hope not in Italy. I would find that pretty strange, but people do that. The Tour de Fonds went virtual. Here's a hotel that is renting out their rooms on a day rate, not for getting together. But for working from home, so to speak. Right? Very smart idea. Here's myself now going virtual. This is what I do now. I show up on the screen. I, I think I look better in reality than that. And here's something really interesting. I want to actually play a short video for the fashion show from Giacomus. It's called the Fashion Brand. And this fashion show is happening in a cornfield in a field of wheat, so people can keep their distance. Check it out. I mean, ingenious idea about pivoting and making something new out of this. So here's a short trek with this. I mean, it's mind boggling, but the inventiveness of this industry sector, you may have seen this and you can see it on the FF channel on YouTube. So people are sitting there and enjoying the cornfield and of course the models. But hey, what a great idea of pivoting, right? We're going to have to do more of that. What is your cornfield that you can go into in the future? If you make cars, if you're a manufacturer, if you're in tourism, if you're a city. City of Modena is looking at the right approach here. I really appreciate you putting me up here for this virtual conversation. So here's the hard part, right? Everybody's seen this, this is not new. But yeah, tourism is going to really suffer through this. Cutting back international tourists, of course, but there are solutions. Here in Switzerland, we're localizing tourism, we're coming up with interesting packages, we're reaching out to neighboring countries. There's many, many things that we can do. Of course, I don't have a ready made solution for this, but I think Italian people are ingenious. Of course, people in general tend to be ingenious in the tourism business and in restaurants. And I think we'll find a way forward here. So generally speaking, we are in a world of Vuca. You may have heard this before. Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity is used in the military a lot, which I don't usually quote, but hey, makes sense here. That's our future. And how are we going to do that? Well, I think we have to, what I call flip the Vuca, turn it around. We have to be fast, velocity, unorthodox. Hey, that's something Italian. We can think about that. Co creation and the good old American word awesomeness come up with great ideas. Now there's companies inventing things that work only because of this crisis. I mean, Airbnb is now doing virtual experiences. I don't know how that would feel. But think of that idea as sort of a flipping the VUCA exercise. So this is something just to take home as a way of approaching this crisis. Whatever you do, try to co create, come up with ideas, do new things. Three headers here, unorthodoxy. The most important new ideas, things that you haven't thought of before. Ingenuity, inventing stuff on the fly. I think Leonardo da Vinci, you invented what, 5,000 things. Courage. And that's what we have to give each other. We have to encourage each other to get through this. Because eventually something better future will emerge. Not back to the normal. Let me talk about the key topic here of my presentation. The great transformation, Technology, humanity. What does it mean? I mean we're moving into transformation and hyper drive, right? The things that used to be on top, Cars, traveling, flying cruise ships. Right again, big deal. It's moving to the bottom and vice versa. The things that are on the top now, what are the important things on the top? Well, education, remote learning, energy, the state, of course, anything to do with health and wellness and food. That has all moved to the top. We're looking at a whole different world now. Our priorities have changed and this is very challenging. But it's also a giant opportunity to finally reset, for example, to a green economy. We have learned to cut back because of COVID and to make compromises. Are we going to do the same for climate change? And is that a ticket to our future? The World Economic Forum says there's hundreds of millions of new jobs in the green economy. I tend to agree. We have to make the right decisions. We have to use this transformation as a catalyst. There's four winners. Well, actually that's five, but I'm going to just list four here. Four winners of the current crisis that are going to continue to win on the stock market, probably, but also in general, Big tech, everything is about tech. So it's actually too big tech. I will talk about that shortly. What that means. Big Health. Hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars, euros are moving over into the healthcare space. The vaccine, bioengineering, biotechnology, convergence of biology and technology. And that's going to be a very fruitful place to work in. We're going to reallocate money there. We're going to drag the social sector into this and America will finally, maybe next year, really have a public health care system. Talk more about that in a minute. That's of course a hopeful angle. And Big State, well, lots of people don't like Big State because it feels overbearing but this is what we have now when we have to find the state politicians that we can trust. Now there's an oxymoron here in Switzerland. We trust the state, it's going really well. But think about Brazil. People don't trust the state. Americans, Italians, well, there is a debating point for later. But big state is everywhere and I think big green is the ticket. I mean if you're in the business of sustainability, renewable energy, sustainable vacations, tourism, ecotourism, I think this is where we headed, like really quick. And in Europe we're using the COVID crisis to think about this, how we can actually address climate change. Many countries, it's the opposite. Brazil or India, they're saying basically, okay, let's we have bigger things to do now than to also think about climate change. But think about this logic. If you can make sacrifices because of a pandemic, if you can be told by the state what to do and by the police because there's an emergency, would you do the same for climate change? Are you willing to pay a carbon tax on airline flights, not take your car into the city? I mean these are things that we're going to have to do. Basically. Sacrifices, compromises and they will generate a huge amount of new business and new work if we get our agenda right. So as a Star Trek fan, of course we're going basically warp drive into the future. I mean we are in a situation where it's not just fast anymore, it's mind boggling fast. And we have to get used to this. Basically my kids will live in a world that's going to be so exponentially different. They will live to be 100 on average. The kids of my kids may live to be 120. We think about this for a second. Exponential change. 4, 8, 16, 32 every 12 months, a leap. I mean the world in 10 years will be more different than the world. If we go back 100 years compared to today, the changes we're going to see that we have to be aware of them. And we need people with wisdom to be our guides. We need every politician, every public official and every CEO and every futurist of course, to have a driver's license for the future to understand where this is going. And I think this is becoming crucial now because we have to make decisions every single day. Look at healthcare, I mean the combination of data and science and analytics and maybe AI. Can we do better with health care? Can we actually make it healthcare, not sick care? Can we prevent diseases? Can we customize and personalize Medicare medical devices? Can we use better diagnostics, cloud biology, better food? Yeah, of course we can. And I have great hope that the convergence of technology and biology will create a healthcare system that is affordable and that is accessible and that will also deal with the digital dividend. Now that's of course going up. Telemedicine, telehealth. I foresee a time in the future where 80 to 90% of doctor visits that we have today are no longer needed because we can do it through devices like the Apple Watch. But you know, there are many other devices apart from the Apple Watch. But we're going to see a huge explosion here in the next couple years. Working from home, same thing. This is going to explode. Not everybody has a fancy setup like this. I think the reality is probably more like this. We're saying, oh my God, I have to like do double duty. And this is, I'm sure quite familiar with you. But here's the good news, right? We're going hybrid as far as work is concerned. Work from home, work from home, work from the cafe, work from the beach. What I've always done, really, maybe not work too much, maybe work less, but human relationships, H2H human to human, in the flesh, in the meat space, as some people call it. I have a good laugh about that one. Are becoming more valuable. Just because we use these devices doesn't mean we are going to forget what it's like. These are tools, we're going to use the tools and we're going to go hybrid. If you don't know how to do that, you'll be in deep trouble. But things like education, yeah, we can learn things online, but really the learning happens between people when we get together. Why people go to mit. Why do they go to MIT when they can watch all the courses online? Because of the experience. Keep in mind, when we think about working from home, the way that the human brain is wired, experiences, relationships, engagement. As long as we're human, we're going to look for that. And that's, by the way, a great ticket for tourism, the future of tourism. Just to lean back to this. So we are in an amazing time, the largest technological transformation in human history. All this stuff being invented at the same time. I think this is really exciting. Possibly overbearing, but talk about overbearing, take a Look at this one. 2050. Many of my colleagues, like Ray Kra say we're going to reach a point to where machines have potentially the same power possibilities than us, whatever that means. I don't think machines will ever have emotional intelligence or exist and that sentience or sapiens wisdom. But they will be pretty damn smart. They will do many things for us. And in 2050 we have to be ready. We have to think about what that means and what we want them to do and what they should not do. Probably that's a much more important question as to what they should not do. So here's my key point on technology. In the future, I think we will have all the tools we need to solve practical problems. Water, food, energy, disease. But will we have the wisdom? Will we make the right decisions? That is the key point. We have the tools. But hey, you can use a hammer to kill somebody or can use it to build a house. I can use AI in the future. Not me, but people can use AI to kill people. And so what are the rules and social contracts governing all of this? We have to put a lot more energy into that and not just say, well, we're going to use this because it works. That will get us to the very same point that we're at right now with Facebook, just as an example. What used to be good has now become an AI driven marketing machine. A data engine where we are the content. I left Facebook two years ago for that very reason. I'm not going back and I think it's becoming unethical just to actually, you know, be part of it. So anyway, different discussion. We'll take more questions on that later. Yeah, here's important point. Putting the human inside. We should always have humans in the loop. We should always make sure that it's the human benefit that counts, not the monetary benefit. That's not the same thing. There are other human benefits that are not about money. We should make sure the combination of people, planet, purpose, prosperity, purpose being the key word here. That is becoming the future of technology. So exponential technological progress brings up an important question. That question is, well, yeah, it's great, but is there such a thing as too much of a good thing? So enter my friend Elon Musk, parenthesis, Elon has invented a thing called the neuralink, which he tried, he demoed the other day with pigs. Basically an implant in the brain that sends out signals where the pig can be communicating and so to speak, also control their limbs. You know, it's meant to help paraplegics and so on, but it's a long story. Let me play this short clip for you. I think you'll find it quite entertaining. And then after that, a short quote from Elon Musk himself. Three little piggies. Gotta check it out on YouTube. But here is a question from the audience. I think you'll find this revealing. Another question from Twitter. Will you be able to save and replay memories in the future? Yes, I think in the future you'll be able to save and replay memories. I mean, this is obviously sounding increasingly like a Black Mirror episode, but, well, I guess they're pretty good at predicting. So here kind of shows, you know, what is the business model. Yeah, it's backing up the human brain. I mean, we see lots of TV shows about this. Yeah. Too much of a good thing, you know. That's okay, Elon. Keep going. And good luck with all the stuff that you're doing. But this is really, really far out, in my view. Possibly the idea of being a superhuman or living forever. I mean, let's be real about this for a second. The other thing that's really interesting is something that Facebook has just launched with Oculus. We've called the Infinite Office. And of course, there's good timing for this when you think about the current COVID isolation and not going out. And this is probably going to come back for most of next year. Now we can do this. We can virtually live at home, do all that stuff. And what good timing for this product. And I don't know whether to laugh or how to cry. I think this could be fantastic. It could, in fact, be so good that I would get totally hooked on it. And I think a lot of people feel that way about virtual reality. But where is it going to take us? And I think this is my hunch of where it's going to take us. It's going to take us to a place of constant evolution, where we are no longer capable of functioning without it, where we are so networked that we can't get out of bed without the connection. Then you're going to end up with a great show on Amazon called Upload, if you can watch it on Amazon prime, that does exactly this story. But we have to think about what that means. Marshall McLuhan, the famous media theorist and also futurist, of course great influence on my work. He said, we shape our tools, and thereafter they shape us. That was 60 years ago. I don't want these tools to shape me. I don't know about you, but I'm also going to put a second quote here from Marshall. It says, all extensions of man and woman are also amputations. When we add something that makes us more powerful, we also remove something. And what would we be removing when we use virtuality all day long? Well, it's kind of like what our world would be really boring afterwards. It's kind of like a giant expansion that amputates pretty much everything else. I think we need to be very careful about this. We need to use it for the benefits. Health, technology, medical. But how about the things that are too much of a good thing? Great show on Netflix, the Social Dilemma. It's available in Italian here. I'm going to play a short sample so you can see it. This is what every. Yeah, they sell certainty, right? Selling certainty. That's what technology does. Take a look at this movie. I think you'll be quite impressed. I really think we need to do this. We need to make sure that every person that is involved in making those decisions, especially in social media and other media, has a. What I call technocratic oath. Has to give us a technocratic oath. Like a doctor who gives us an oath to do the right thing and to always look out for the benefit of his patients, who's looking out for the benefit of the users. What is the oath? I mean, clearly we're going to need responsibility. We need a Hippocratic oath for technology. We need to think about something like a council of ethics that is beyond the business purposes. And I've suggested this in my book, which is available in Italian, but I've done that for years. And finally, we have some. We have one in Singapore, we have one in Denmark. Maybe we should have one in Modena and in Italy at large, what is ethical technology? This is going to be an important question because right now technology is so limited still by what it can actually do. Well, but 10 years, the sky is the limit. This is a big question. Not what we can do with technology, but what do we want to do? Great quote here from Tim Cooksey of Apple, who says technology can do great things, but it does not want to do great things. It doesn't want anything. Technology is neutral. It doesn't have an agenda, it has code. It doesn't live. If we want something with technology, if we want to have a good life in the future, if we want equality, if we want to live in an equal country, if you want to solve problems, we need to make our own decisions. We need to inject ethics. And what makes it worse is that technology is basically everything now. I mean, technology is eating up all the other industries. Telecom, banking, financial services, healthcare, pharma, transportation. Everything is becoming technology. So imagine what will happen in 10 years when technology is up the exponential scale and other 10 steps. We're talking basically in the neighborhood of 500x and 10g and 10 billion people on the Internet, we're going to need to think about what technology is supposed to do and what it's not, and what are its limits. And we have to ask why not just how. Today we're saying, well, you know, how does it work? How do I get my movie to stream properly? Or how does 5G work? Or any of those things. But the feature is going to be about why. Why are we doing this? Is it good for us and who's in charge? Is it the users in charge or is it the platforms in charge? We're moving into the future, what I call the mega shifts. It's a big topic in my book. You can actually download the third chapter of my book for free at Megashits Digital. Not to promote the book. This is a great resource and it's available in the Italian Megashits Digital. And so all of these things, automation, robotization, cognification, smart machines, the stuff that we talk about every day without getting too geeky and meme slinging here, this is going to explode. I mean, basically the world is going to change more in the next 10 years than the previous 100 years. And it's technology that drives it. But technology drives it and ethics defines it. It's the why question. The purpose is what defines it. That's what should define it. Today we also have this question a lot where we say, well, we're defined by the fact that it's just working. So it's working, I'm happy. But we have to go further. When we think about technology, like smart machines, so called thinking machines. There is no such thing as a thinking machine. Smart machines, yes. Read Stuart Russell's book, Benevolent AI, I think it's called, or human, whatever, AI. But just look at Stuart Russell, great book about AI. When he talks about what AI actually is. It is not like us. It is what we are. We are in a universe of many things that we do, like foresight, curiosity, purpose, passion. Can you imagine a passionate computer that will really take us into science fiction, critical thinking? I mean, a computer can't think about what may happen in the future. Apart from, of course, projecting and using numbers, but understanding, wisdom, context. I think maybe in 30 years we can get there. And that's the scary part. Until then, this is what your kids have to learn. Your kids have to learn, sorry, purpose. I mean, if you have kids, you got to teach them about passion, about imagination, about curiosity, about critical thinking. And this is the people that we should hire. That's our future. Our future is not to compete with the machines on facts and logic. Our future is clearly. This is about existence. It's about sapience, wisdom and a lot of. In my work I use this term called phronesis, which is practical wisdom, applying wisdom to what we can solve. I think humanity on top of technology. So I use this topic a lot when I speak about humans and machines. We have to get away from this concept that we need to gear up to compete with machines. I call that machine thinking or dataism. You know, everything is driven by data. We're not machines. I don't believe we are machines. Some people do. Hence I don't believe that we would be upgradable and that we should upgrade ourselves. Let's talk about as we move on to the final part of the presentation. Well, the next, you know, next two hours. Just kidding about geopolitics and what's happening here. And I mean to put it in a sort of very simplified way. We're living in three worlds now. The American world, which is extreme capitalism. You can see how far that has gotten them. Corporate capitalism right now edging towards civil war. I used to live in America for a long time. This is a tough one. I'm quite concerned about that. Europeans, history, culture, humanism, that's our blue flag here. I'm proud of that flag. But yeah, that also means that sometimes we're not the fastest. And of course China, right? What's China all about? State capitalism, surveillance, AI. Not to say that's all a bad thing, but yeah, these are world differences in opinion. And where are we going with this? I think Europe needs to be very strong on the philosophy that we have here in Europe, which is social capitalism. And I'm so glad that the commission is pushing this agenda, finding solidarity with Italy. Yes, I know many of the terms may not be to everybody's liking, but God, has the commission turned around? Has Europe turned around just in the last three months, has America turned around? I mean, I'm German, but I have to say that's pretty impressive. I think we're going to get somewhere with this. We're not perfect with Europe, but yeah, I think right now this is where I expect most of the change. I'm a proud European. I think we have solutions for many, many things. What we don't have is sometimes the vigorous enterprising spirit and the pioneering that you have in California and the huge amount of control that people have over data and populations in China. But this is the future, the United States of Europe. I know this sounds like A crazy idea right now when we have all of these issues. But what's going to happen if we don't collaborate the next couple of years? We're going to have to really figure out how to get together, how to become one in the sense of United States. But separate states, separate languages, cultures, but we could save trillions of euros for common defense. So the United States of Europe will emerge by 2030. And I'll talk to you again about that when it's time. Hopefully that part of it will be trackable. Talking about America, what a mess. But we're going to see a pivot in America this year, maybe next year. The ship is turning around. I wrote a story on this a couple days ago. You can find it at the Futureof Us Foretelling URL. But I have great hopes for that happening next year. Right now, it's a mess, but I think that we're going to see a pivoting of America coming back with a Democratic president, Democratic Congress even, and a woman as a leader. Well, second in command, but soon to be a leader. Have you noticed, by the way, that so many countries who are won by women are doing the best in this pandemic? New Zealand, Taiwan, Switzerland, to some degree, Germany, Finland, Iceland. Why is that? Well, we go for emotional intelligence. Let me talk about climate change and talk about why that is an opportunity, not just a challenge. You may have seen this. San Francisco was in the cloud of orange smoke just about three weeks ago, two weeks ago, and it was like apocalypse. I mean, this is some footage that was widely spread around the Internet. And so when we talk about climate change, it's quite clear COVID19 is just a trial run for climate change. You think that COVID 19 is a tough one? It is. But dealing with climate change and the consequences of climate change, it's a thousand X of what we have now. This is an existential issue. I'm not going to preach much about this with numbers. You. You've seen all the numbers. I just think that we have to reboot and say, well, if we want a world that we can live in, yes, maybe we do need more carbon taxes on airplanes, on meat, on cars. I know that sounds like a crazy idea, given that we already feel like we pay too much taxes and nobody wants to pay extra taxes. But think about this. If we are going to make a difference and change the way that we're doing things, how are we going to do this whole. Who wants to pay taxes voluntarily? I think the unthinkable is becoming the new Normal. And so let's unthink so we can discover what the new normal is. And this is happening all around us. I mean, the unthinkable is that the state is going to tell me that I have to wear a mask to go to a restaurant. That was like a year ago, that would have been Japan, but voluntarily. And today we're accepting it because it has to be done sooner. Things are going to happen right here with what's been called the circular economy. This whole concept of giving back and not just recycling generally speaking, but giving back materials and putting back what we have taken and taking the externalities and using those to replenish them. I mean clearly, I think the circular economy will be, the economy will be all of the economy in 2030. If your business model includes circular economy and sustainability, I think you're on the right way there. Now. Clearly we're looking at these three different tracks right now. The waves of change, public health and Covid, climate change falling right after that. And the third big wave is the rethinking of the economic logic, sustainable capitalism. And this is all shaping up right now. I mean these are giant opportunities for our well being, for our future and, and also for prosperity. They create jobs if we set our minds to it. These are challenges, these are opportunities. They're both at the same time. They are crisis that we can't waste to get our world going again. We have to step in the right direction and do this. We have to go to a new narrative and this is what's important. That new narrative is this one. By investing in food, land, infrastructure, into nature. What the World Economic Forum has researched is roughly the same money that we're spending globally on stimulus packages. 2.3 trillion. If we spend a little bit more than that, we can create 390 million new jobs by 2030 by putting the money in the right place, by making the green deal the center of everything. And I think this will be amazing for Italy. I mean there's so many amazing companies in Italy that are already falling in this direction, that are already pulling everybody in this direction as well. This new narrative is going to be crucial, I think, for our future. Two stories here on the left. Technology. Clearly that is going to be what we have to take as a landmark. Exponential, convergent, the power of technology right next to that, humanity, holistic business models, circular economy and human benefit. Not human centered in the Anthropocene kind of way, but human in terms of the benefit that we're receiving. I think if you write that on your flag for the future post with COVID We don't know when Post Covid is that would be the right direction. The landscape of money around us, of capitalism, has quite clearly failed to take care of many things that it should take care of. And I think we're moving into a world where we're going to see what I call the quadruple bottom line. And that's been written and talked about for 20 years, including of course, Al Gore and others. And there's even a book called People Planet Purpose, People Planet Profit. I think I call this People Planet Purpose and Prosperity. And this is what's shaping up on the agenda right now. This is kind of a beyond GDP thinking beyond gross Domestic product, or gnp, whatever you want to call it. Kennedy already said that. Bobby Kennedy, 1967. GDP measures everything except for that that makes life worthwhile. Life is beyond one thing. And this is really becoming obvious in the crisis right now. So as we're pivoting, as we're moving around and trying to figure out what the next step is, four central things that you can expect in the next 10 years, we're going to move towards equitable and just societies. And this is not just a wishful thinking, this is our survival program. This is something we need to do to get to the next level. A kind of sustainable capitalism. Boy, that's a lot to be defined that will take the next five days to explain. But real decisive action and sacrifices on climate change. I mean, I fly a lot. I used to fly a lot. If I ever fly again. Yeah, be happy to pay a carbon tax, the same price on the ticket if I have to. I think we need to think really dramatic and really not spare ideas here. And of course, a strong public health care system. Lots of money will go into this. Lots of new jobs will be generated there. So let me give you some final thoughts and then I will take some YouTube common questions. Unfortunately, we don't have a live feed here, but let's not ask this question anymore. What will the future bring? There is no such thing. The future isn't fixed. It's not falling down from the sky, from Silicon Valley or China. It's not made by Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook, whoever, Tencent. The future is created by us. We make the future. We decide what we want. We make choices. The key question that you should be asking for the future, especially in Italy, is this. What kind of future do we want? What choices do you want to make? Where do you want to put the money? Who's going to make those decisions? Who's going to take you to that future. That is the future, because we will literally have every possible choice. It's hard to imagine today because we're in dire straits right now. In 10 years, technology will give us the answer for everything. Upload your brain. If you find life boring, get a robot. Boyfriend, girlfriend. I mean, what kind of future do we want for ourselves and for our country and for the world? Leonardo da Vinci, the, the Vitruvian Man. I think it's Homo vitruviano, right? The Vitruvian man as a symbol of how we are connected to everything around us. And the symbol of the Renaissance, of course. And now we're having a new renaissance. And this is what's surrounding us now. Technology. Mind boggling AI, the Internet of things, 3D printing, mind boggling possibilities and solutions. The key to our future in so many ways. But technology will not fix social, cultural or political problems. That's up to us. That's us up to everybody. And I call this the Neoluvian man. Neoluvian woman. The Donna Neoluviana, I suppose. I think we're going into the future where we're going to see a new human renaissance, an awakening of people saying, you know what, this is great to have, but what does it do and what should it not do? I mean, let's be honest about this, you know, we all want to achieve combinations of people, planet, purpose and prosperity in different levels. We're going to have to come and come onto the same agenda here with 10 billion people connected to the Internet in probably less than 10 years. So as my final quote, I think right now is the time to shape your future or be shaped by it. And this is a great opportunity for reset, a great transformation that we're seeing around us right now. So thanks for your time. I know it's been a hairy ride, especially in English. We do hope to have the Italian translation up. I'm going to put this on my YouTube channel. You find this by just going to Gertube G e r d tube.com, i think that's where right now if you are streaming, you're on gerTube on my YouTube channel. And you'll be able to actually look at the Italian translation in a few days and of course the English original. I have a very special gift for you today. Can't give you the Italian book. You have to buy that. I'm sorry, technologia, whatever, sorry about that. But something along that line. Technology versus humanity. And here's my giveaway, if you Go to this web address, which is my website, futurewithsguard.com Modena the first 50 people before tomorrow morning. Only good for today. Get a free ebook version of my book. That's my gift from Modena. And now that I've had all your attention, I told you what I want to tell you. I am going to just talk about the question that you may be having. And of course it's not supposed to be that slide here. So let's put this back on. Anyway, so let's get some questions. We have about 10 more minutes left and comments here on. Okay, so, Elena, thanks. Was Karl Marx right? Socialism will follow after capitalism? Well, let's put it this way. I think there were many things in Karl Marx writing and theories that were right but applied wrong. I strongly believe that some of the ideas behind that whole movement that obviously failed are being pulled into the future, into the present in this shape of what I call social capitalism. And whatever we are going to end up calling is components of collective well being have been talked about for hundreds of years in all different systems. And the key question that I get a lot from people asking this question, do you believe that humans can actually do the right thing? Do you believe that we are actually good or are we actually bad? Do I have a utopian worldview or dystopian worldview? I think that humans are essentially good. I think we can achieve that, give them the chance. There's a great saying by Winston Churchill who applied it to Americans. He said, Americans will always do the right. You can count on Americans to do the right thing after they have exhausted all other possibilities. It's kind of like that with us. I really do believe that we can get there and that we have to make the right decisions and come together and find the common goal. So, Daniel, Peekaboo. Hey. Peekaboo. Wherever you're from, in this moment of uncertainty, which kind of factory or now you've moved up or economic activities would be right to invest in? Well, clearly I said that early on. Big tech, big health, big state. Well, that's not really a stock. That's more like something that's a result of technology also. And of course, big green, Absolutely. Divest from fossil fuel as quickly as you can. That is my advice. We're moving to a green world. Invest in healthcare, invest in biotechnology. I mean, there's so many interesting things happening. First of all, invest in yourself and the skills of the future. Ultimately, invest in your kids. Our ultimate job will be to be more human or to be human and that is an investment that we have to make. So I think many, many new things will happen. But we're seeing the end of all within 10 years. Oil as a fuel source is going away. And as a business, probably not in 10 years, but within that 10 years, you'll see it evaporate as a true driver of the world economy. We're leaving the fuel economy behind, the fossil fuel economy. We're moving to renewables. So lots and lots of really interesting opportunities here. So here's a question from Professor Julian Alberto Montes. Montes, how citizens in Colombia can contribute to shape the future for our country. Well, let me say this about Colombia. I was there last year and a few times before. I'm impressed how Colombia is already shaping its future in many more ways than some countries in Europe have. Especially I was in Medellin. I was really impressive how that turnaround has happened there. And I think this is a global agenda, not obviously not just a local agenda. But the main driver of this is going to be political representation of making sure that we design our future correctly. I think it's the primary driver of decision making our policy. If you have the wrong policy about technology, the wrong policy about energy, then you're stuck with what you see in America now. And that is not going to last. But I think it may get worse before it gets better. And so what I think we can do is to bring this forward, to have debates, to have events to drive this agenda, which these days, every future agenda is a political agenda, because everything that we talk about has to do with governance and with wisdom. So I think this is something that we can offer in this sort of movement towards a better future, not to go back to the old future, but to go back to a better future. Henrik Olson, has there been any advances in tech, in healthcare, like with neurological diseases and mental illness as well? There has been a mind boggling amount of advances in health care. I mean, artificial intelligence is now used for drug discovery. Rather than doing the experiment in the lab, we do it in the cloud. And the AI says, okay, we have 150 trillion responses on this. Possible if we simulate it. Right. A digital twin, it's called. I mean, and drug discovery is crucial. And why do you think we have this pandemic, the response to the pandemic in terms of the vaccine so quickly and hopefully we can hope to have it next year because of technology. And why don't we have 100 million dead people? We have about 2 million dead people now, which is very sorrowful. But other epidemics we had 100 million. That's because we already have these technologies and we have data and we can collaborate and science is coming back as meaningful. So, I mean, in terms of biotechnology. Yeah. Reading our data, analyzing it. Human Longevity, Inc. Check them out on YouTube. Not to endorse anything in that regard, but I think quite clearly the convergence of technology and biology is happening now. In 10 years, we're not going to take pills for cholesterol over statins or, you know, and not even diabetes. And we'll be able to prevent cancer, not to heal cancer. Those are giant steps forward. We're going to have to allocate the right money. We're going to take the money out of military in many countries and all the things that we're wasting money on and put them into health care, put them into green development, put them into new ways. And clearly that's going to be a giant boost for work. So I'm quite hopeful about the future of work. On that note, we just have to rise above the machines. The machines will do all the routines and we'll do everything. That's not a routine. And that's how it's always been, really. We have to adapt. We have to pivot, as I was saying earlier. So, Emily, thanks for your question. How do you think human relations will change because of the technological revolution? Well, that's a complicated question. Like I said earlier, relationships, engagement, experiences, we are existent. We are not mere machines. People would argue that. I. I argue that we're not. We have a spirit, whatever that is. I'm not religious, but I think there's something here that is beyond data. And I think as long as we are not going to modify ourselves to become superhuman and to become a machine, like Elon Musk seems to be suggesting, then I think that's going to prevail. Will human relationships change? Absolutely. They always have. I mean, when I get to live to be 120, that changes everything around me. But those basic things, valuing each other, solidarity, looking out for each other, wanting to be together, I don't think that will change. And when we look at all the possibilities of attempting to turn humanity into technology, like through virtual reality, or like telling us that our happiness is in the. In the cloud. Well, I'm here to tell you right now that happiness is not in the cloud. And you will not find it on the screen, you will not find it in the app. Those are tools. A carpenter takes his hammer and doesn't feel happy about the hammer, wants to marry the hammer or become A hammer, it's a tool. And I think it's going to be the same with technology. And we have to be very careful to safeguard ourselves. And I think we're going to need something like the Digital Ethics Council I proposed to safeguard humanity. I think the more that we connect, the more we must protect what makes us human. Seems like an oxymoron or, you know, seems like it doesn't fit together, but I think that's the mission. So. Yes. Hawaida Nadim, how do you envision the alleviation of poverty over the coming decades? Well, you really have some tough questions for me today. The alleviation, getting rid of poverty is not being driven by technology. Technology has driven some of it in the past by making it easier, for example, to go online or to use a mobile phone. And we have risen around the world. Poverty has declined. If you're looking at Max Roses numbers or Hans Rosling presentations, people don't talk about that. Poverty has declined, especially for example in Brazil. That's going back now. And the real alleviation of poverty is distribution of money, equality, it's tax systems. It's just as social capitalism, as I call it, it's finding a way to distribute our enormous resources and putting the money in the right place. Clearly poverty and inequality also drivers of crime and terrorism. So that is a huge thing that we have to solve. So what we need there is wise policy and using technology in the right way. There is no app for resolving poverty. That's something that we're going to have to do. And digital divide, the great example, if we're going to have healthcare devices that help us to stay alive longer and monetize, they shouldn't be $1,000 like the iPhone. Maybe some of them should even be free. When there's a vaccine, of course it should be free. So those are all big questions, I think, societal questions that we need to ponder and vent. So any more questions? Okay. Okay. Do you have any more questions? We are 56 minutes. I think we can ask more questions here when the stream is over, but in the meantime, get your ebook. Also, take a look at my films. I think you will enjoy my films. One of them is called how the Future Works. And you can find that on how the Future Works TV about how the future hangs together. Also, a movie made on AI. Yes, I know, I need to stop. It's called we need to Talk about AI. So you can go to we need to Talk about AI dot com. You'll see the movie. Thanks so much for tuning in. I'm going to publish this whole thing. It's been really a pleasure. Too bad I can't be in beautiful Modena to have some nice dinner with you guys. And thanks for inviting me back. At this point, I think I'm going to just kind of tune out here. Daniela is gone, I think. Thanks so much for being here and it's been a great pleasure and I look forward to seeing in the future. And best of luck. Live long and prosperity.