Futurist Keynote Speaker Gerd Leonhard at Sogeti Digital Happiness Event

Ghed Leonhard, the floor is yours.

Thank you. So it's a great pleasure to be back with Studetti. It's always great events, especially here in Brussels. So the best thing about my book is that it's available for free outside in the break, so you can get a free copy and I can sign it for you. You can sell it on eBay for €5, you know, with this Special signature, right? So the reason I wrote the book is because, you know, I'm a futurist. I've been speaking for roughly 15 years about the future, and the last 5 years, the most common question I get anywhere in the world is, "How are we going to remain human in the world that is becoming a giant machine?" Essentially, you know, technology is so powerful now and so good and convenient that it's very tempting that we become technology. It's not a debate. Americans think about this a little bit differently, Chinese as well. And here in Europe, we are very humanistic. That's our background. So it's a very big question. So the book is trying to answer some of this. And as I was listening to the previous presentation, I can't help but thinking that these machines that all of us now have are essentially our second brain. They are our external brain. We keep phone numbers and dating and stock reports and money, and very soon the health records, everything. But technology is actually, you know, if we see what we do today, it's very good at little happiness, hedonic happiness. I can call my son in Africa for free on WhatsApp. That's great, right? I can watch a great movie. I can read something interesting. But does that have anything to do with actual happiness? In the Buddhist sense, contentment, right? I mean, for us, you know, the most thing that makes people happy is engagement with others, relationships, experiences. And these things can provide experiences, right? Right now they're still pretty bad, you know, providing real experiences. But the future holds that basically these machines become so powerful that they can provide actual experience to our brain. That sounds a lot like a drug, doesn't it? So it's interesting, you know, that whole discussion about where we're going is essentially centered on various things. You know, the exponential curve that you've been probably aware of for a long time— Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law— didn't really matter very much until now, because we're now at the pivot point of this. We're at the point where all the stuff that was science fiction is becoming real. Not all, but language translation, autonomous vehicles, the shift to renewable energy, speech understanding, language shifting, all of these things. So basically we're at 4, and the next couple years, roughly 5, 6 years, it's 128. And if you go 30 times up the scale, a billion. 30 times up the scale, that would be like 40, 50 years? A billion. It's impossible to imagine what we would do then. I mean, as the previous speaker, you know, 2 seconds later. So now basically what we're seeing around us is this whole idea that we're essentially also in a world where it's not just about one thing. It's about a dozen things. Genome engineering, cloud computing, intelligent assistance. All of the things that we watch every day: robotics, artificial intelligence, smart cities, and so on. It's basically the combination of those things. So if you're in business today, your world is exponential. It is combinatorial, which means combining different things, and it's interdependent. So just 10 years ago, you could afford to take a view that says, let's wait and see, as we do in Switzerland. We're experts at wait and see. Of course, we want to minimize risk. Americans are experts at creating what you see. It's a cultural thing. We observe and then we slowly copy it, or we come in when it's safe. This strategy will not work here. I mean, our future is not linear. It's hard for us to understand. It is not just one thing, it's 50 things. And we have to think holistically. So that requires a lot of energy, a lot of thinking about where this could be going. And I think the bottom line really is for us, the challenge is this, right? We are just mere humans. We are linear. We do learn a few things occasionally. We do improve, we do get older. We get more healthy, all true. But we're never ever going to keep up with technology. And right now, tech is still at a place to where you can, if you speak to a computer, most of the time it doesn't get what you're saying. But then just a few years, game over. In 5, 7 years, moving towards what's called the singularity, we can forget competing with a machine on pretty much anything. Driving, flying an airplane, researching legal documents. The only thing a computer will never have is existence. What in the book I call the androrhythms, you know, the human things. For example, when we speak, or when I speak to a customer, most important things that the customer is saying, he's not actually saying. It's between the lines. I realize I talk to a customer that's unhappy, but he never told me, you know, I'm so unhappy. But I still get it. That's very hard for a computer. And that is what is our future. I mean, clearly, bookkeeping, accounting, financial records, combining information— that's computer territory. So we're moving into a world where machines are exponential, humans are not. And that is a good thing. And this is why I believe it's completely wrong to think about us becoming exponential, as we see presented in the singularity movement and transhumanism. When we become exponential, we become this: a machine. We can want that, and we can discuss it. I don't think it's a good idea, because when we become exponential, we would lose what makes us humans, which is inefficiency. Mistakes, lying, emotions, death. We kill 2 million people with cars a year. Doesn't mean we should not drive a car. Well, it would be efficient, right? And, you know, I don't care about driving a car, so I'm fine with that. But should we, for example, not give birth with human bodies? We should give birth outside of the body. Because it's safer. There are people proposing this, called the exogenesis. It sounds crazy, right? But if it's all about efficiency, we wouldn't exist. We have to keep that in mind because machines are really all about efficiency. Machines will never say, let's do this because there's some intrinsic value of some bizarre spiritual sort. I mean, computers would just have a laugh about this and say, what the hell, you know, let's just be optimize the process. So as I like to say, basically what's happening now is that we can see technology moving into us. And this is the really big difference. When I talk about the future, people say, well, you're overreacting. But this is not the same as building a steam engine or building a spaceship or building the internet. This is us we're talking about here. Machine technology is going inside of us. Nanotechnology, Artificial intelligence, the neural connection, genome editing. Fantastic if we can defeat cancer, right? But the very same thing that can defeat cancer can build super soldiers. And so is the European Commission going to decide on what is allowed and what is not? Or do we just say, well, you know, whatever, whatever makes money is fine. That's the American version. The Chinese version is whatever makes a state more powerful is fine. Either way, that doesn't strike me as a very good future. And so this is quite clearly, you know, in the next 20 years there's going to be more change than the previous 300 years. If you have kids, this is a tall order. I would say the future is 90% good and 10% bad, difficult, because This will allow us to fix climate change, to fix energy, to fix the water supply, to deal with food. Richard Branson and Bill Gates just invested in a company called Memphis Meats. It's a cultured meat in a lab that's grown from an animal that you can use as a food source. That's pretty visionary because right now it's €2,000 a pound. I tasted it last week. It's real meat, you know, it's not like eating a chicken bone. I mean, we can see clearly what is happening with technology. We can solve the food problem. But we're going to have to be pretty wise about it. And so the question I really have, you know, as technology is tempting us to become super smart, it's tempting us to do this. Because technology says to us, "You know what? Forget about the human limitations. It's just baggage." So if we buy this fancy thing, we can be omnipresent with holograms. We can be 5 people at the same time. We can finally multitask, right? We can make love to 350,000 women on the internet at the same time. Like the movie Her. My aspiration for my future is not to become smarter, even though that is a good benefit. It is to become more human. Smarter? We're at the end of the knowledge economy. The fact that you know things is a good thing, but in 10 years, nobody will give a damn because in 10 years, the machine will tell you anything you want to know at instant notice. The only thing the machines don't know is what is not a fact, what is not zeros and ones. And maybe eventually machines will understand that also, but that's pretty far away in overall terms, beyond our current scope of conversation. So, this idea of the future, omnipresence, omnipower, we would love that. Who wouldn't love this? It's the best drug ever invented, right? But should we have it? I mean, we do drugs every day. We smoke, we drink coffee, we, you know, but I don't see anybody here at the table drinking a bottle of wine for breakfast, even though it would be interesting, right? But we would say that's probably not a good thing. It's a bit too much of a good thing. So it's a simple question, though, as we are Looking at reality and what technology is offering us, this is what every single tech company wants, right? And I work 90% with tech companies here. So I have this constant debate with them. Really, what they're doing is they're replacing humanity with tech. We used to have real friendships. Now we just fake friendship on LinkedIn and Facebook. In fact, the most lonely people in the world are the power users of social networks. Because they're living in a perpetual similarity simulation. So this whole idea is transcending humanity, that is ridiculous. What we need to do is we need to use technology so we can stand on top of technology and be better humans, be exponentially human, so to speak. But exponentially human does not mean we're going to connect our neocortex to the internet. In that case, we just become machines, and then we're— maybe that's our destination. I don't think it's a good idea, but— So, in this world, you know, where we think of the power of machines and all the things they can do, you know, it's a key question for me is, you know, maybe we are just the last generation of un-augmented humans. Here in this room, maybe we are the last ones that still know what it means to be offline. I mean, when you're talking to a 15-year-old, they don't know what it means to be offline. It's just always there. And is this, you know, if using this device is a kind of an augmentation, right? But it's not that much of an augmentation. But wearing virtual reality or virtual helmets, right? Having a sort of a connection to the internet, that is really quite different. That's the difference between having a glass of wine and doing crack. I mean, it's extremely tempting. And the question is, do we follow that temptation? And do we declare it to be the new normal? This is kind of like legalizing marijuana or legalizing crack, right? Like, where do we cut the line? So in this world now, we're moving into a reality where basically everything around us is becoming smart. We jokingly call this a smart converter. So you stick an old business inside, and out comes a smart business. McKinsey says $62 trillion revenue streams. Smart cities, smart farming, smart energy, possibly even smart politics. There's a chance for that. So we have all those things, you know, this is our daily discussion, right? What's called digital transformation is, you know, big data, Internet of Things, and we have a huge list, right? And this is fantastic stuff. I mean, this is 90% good if we are able to manage the context of it. We should not have an Internet of Things if nobody is in charge. Nobody is accountable. Nobody is truly responsible. I mean, that is a very bad idea. We have to hold companies responsible that invent this stuff. If Facebook makes it possible to spend $75 million on enabling Russian influencers to seed dissent on the network, then they are responsible. That's at least my opinion. Otherwise, we end up with the gun lobby from the US, right, saying that guns don't kill people. People kill people. That is the most ridiculous turn of things that I've ever looked at. Come on, you know. Oppenheimer was responsible for building a nuclear bomb. And he did realize that after he actually used it. So as we're moving into this world of global brains, this is what every single tech company is building, right? Copying our brain in the cloud. That's really what Facebook is doing, right? Making a digital copy of you, of me. I'm a heavy Facebook user. I got to think about that though. So the question is, you know, who is in charge of this? Where is it going? Is that a bad thing? Oh, it's a good thing. I mean, if we have all the health records of 10 billion people in the cloud, we can fix most diseases. But somebody could go in the cloud and make a copy of you. At the same time. That is probably not such a good idea. So I think basically what is happening, and you've noticed all around you, is data is the new oil. I've been saying that for 10 years. It's finally true. Last year, $7.6 trillion were made in the data economy. Search, advertising, various sorts of surveillance. And on the other hand, we have artificial intelligence, and that is the new electricity. Andrew Ningyi, who's the former CTO of Baidu, keeps talking about this. We're moving into a world where data is everywhere and data is powerful. And the most powerful companies that are in data business are also investing in AI. And we should be very careful with artificial intelligence. It is not what the movies make it out to be. Most of the things that we see today with AI are really fancy software. You know, the Google auto return, the mapping, the self-driving car. I mean, a self-driving car is as dumb as a toaster when it's about other things than driving. And it's basically, if you use a self-driving car as an example, it'll be a long time before I go into the mountains of Switzerland with a huge semi-truck that doesn't have a driver. Or the German Autobahn. But it's still very useful. So moving into this future, really, you could say, as Marc Andreessen said for a long time, software is eating the world. It's so true. Everything has been eaten: music, films, television, books, banking, blockchain, Bitcoin. Eat, eat, eat. That is primarily a good thing, but All of these industries that have been eaten are completely disrupted. I mean, look at the media business. A site that's essentially an AI, Facebook— always have to keep on saying bad things about Facebook— but Facebook is essentially an algorithm. Is it news? But 40% of people use Facebook as a news source. So then we have to ask the question, Could too much software cheat the world? Not eat the world, but, you know, trick us? When we use too much technology, it could very easily be like this, to where we don't know what's real anymore. What is human? In fact, dating is a great example of this. In many major cities in the world now, if you're between 25 and 40, As a woman, you can't get a date because all the guys are Tindering. They use Tinder. That is a new way to meet, in parentheses. That's kind of a cheat in many ways because we stop actually using the dating as we used to. Amazon Echo. Sorry, I have to get used to this big format here. Amazon Echo. Alexa? That's literally our outside brain. We speak to the box and we say, "Hey, I want to read a new book," and the cloud knows everything about me and it gives me an opinion. That's extremely convenient to a certain degree, and then afterwards it becomes abdication. We give this machine control and we say, "Hey, I want to invest €10,000. Go off and find a good investment." So I end up investing in AI, of course. What else is there? But this is the key question. With these kinds of machines like Echo and Alexa, who do you really want to go deep dive in your brain? Who do you trust? I mean, this is an open microphone. It's just there listening to you the whole time. So we make this Faustian bargain that we say, OK, it's convenient because I can order sticky notes on Amazon without typing, right? Wow, that's amazing. At the same time, it's listening to everything I'm saying. So it's kind of an interesting deal how things are going in this direction where we're in a world where we're completely distracted by the machines. I think for a 12-year-old that is used to video games, it means nothing. But for most of us, we're like, oh God, you know, how can we get any work done because there's always a notification about somebody in Vladivostok being my friend. And then we have this. Living in a world that's completely engineered, basically. So we have to make those responsible that do this. We have to think about, you know, which way they go. Because basically, I quote John F. Kennedy, who talked about GDP. I pervert it to algorithms. Algorithms measure and simulate everything except what really matters to humans. He said that about GDP. Now we measure GDP and it doesn't measure what actually matters, which is happiness, of course. Can you measure happiness? I kind of doubt it. That's not bad to measure GDP, or it's not a bad thing, but we have to keep in mind that it's not the real thing, it's not the ultimate destination. Seligman talks about happiness a lot in his various books. I think he just published a new book. Martin Seligman is a great psychologist. He talks about PERMA. PERMA is positivity, engagement, relationships, meaning, accomplishment. None of these things a machine can do. It doesn't know what meaning is. It only means to be efficient. And that is a good thing. Let them be efficient. But efficiency isn't life. Life is the opposite of efficiency, in fact. I mean, when you meet a woman or a man, you're about to get married, you're going to say to her, "I really love you because you're so efficient." Yeah. That's what you know. You hate airlines, for example, right? Because they're so inefficient. That's true, but that's, you know, it's just the reverse isn't entirely the same thing. So we're moving into a world where, in terms of work and employment, everything that can be digitized or automated or virtualized or robotized will be. That's digital Darwinism, basically. That means all of the low-hanging fruits, you know, the repetitive work, bookkeeping, driving a car to some degree, simple things like fast food and so on, will be done by machines. And that is a huge societal shift. We have to embrace that because we are actually, we can do other things because the reverse is also true. Anything that cannot be digitized or automated becomes extremely valuable. That's why you're here. You could automate this whole conversation, say, let me just watch fast forward on YouTube. You know, rather than 30 minutes of Gerd, you have 14 seconds of, you know, It doesn't work that way. There are some things you can shortcut. If you want to be a serious musician, it takes 10,000 hours of work. You want to be an iPad musician? That's cool, right? 10 hours. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's a good thing, but it's not the same. You can have a relationship with a robot, that's becoming quite interesting, possible. It's convenient. You can have pilots that are robots also. Maybe that would solve the Lufthansa problem. So we're essentially moving into this world where that becomes a main consideration. In the circle I showed last, it's really important to keep in mind that the human things are the ones that really make a difference for us. So in this world, you know, where artificial intelligence is chiming in everywhere, where we are tempted to think of this, the biggest temptation is not that machines will kill us. That's not our big problem. That's Hollywood. The biggest thing is that we become too much like a machine. And I would contend in business, if you become an algorithm, you become a giant machine, an efficiency engine, you lose. Having said that, if you're inefficient and bad with tech, you also lose. And this is our challenge. I mean, most telecom companies, if there's any telecoms in the room, you're going to automate 80% of your network maintenance with drones and AI. So you're going to just save the money and have better returns and better dividends, or you're going to say, I'm going to invest in new ideas. I'm going to become a brand. I'm going to become more human. So in this world, quite clearly, people are talking about what's going to happen to humans. The question is, are we really going to become the horses of the digital age? You know, nice to have but useless. I doubt it. I think we have to give people more credit than this because, you know, the World Economic Forum talks about the new skills that we're acquiring that we already have. More the right brain, critical thinking, creativity, emotional intelligence. You know, when you talk to HR people, the number one thing they mention from the new candidate no matter what the job, is EQ, emotional quotient, emotional intelligence. Totally the opposite than 10 years ago. The number one skill was execution. And now the number one skill is to ask questions. And that is what we have to teach our kids. There is no plan. There is no normal. There is no linear. Well, in the human world there is. And we are competing with this, right? We're competing essentially, come on, we're competing with a machine that does this, right? The machine takes the left half of our brain easily. Right now it's hard to imagine, give it 10 years. Machines can do that. So coming to the end, basically what we're seeing, you know, it's like basically working as a robot is game over. For us to be like a robot, it doesn't make any sense. For your kids to learn programming? Come on, give me a break, right? Programming a website or an app? That's a robot job. Designing the app? That's different. But just executing things? That's robotic. This idea of creating hyper-efficiency, where we are essentially adoring the fact that we can shortcut and make things more have more margin and things like that. But the bottom line really is that this is a huge temptation in society, is to automate. And I would say right now the question is, what can you automate? Because you get better margins, you make more money. That's good. I'm always looking for that too. But in the end, the question is, what should not be automated? And clearly what that is: customer relationships, happiness. Can you automate happiness? Those are things that happen or they don't happen, but the bottom line really also with all this stuff is, you know, who is controlling it? Who is mission control? Well, we know where mission control is. I'm coming to the end. Yes, it's in Silicon Valley. So we have to think about where this will take us, what the future of that is. And these 4 principles I will share with you later because time is running out, but I have put together in my book the principles of that future. What we have to do, human values, shared benefits, prosperity. So that you can read later when I distribute the PDF. Let me finish by saying a basic thing. What we need to do with this is to figure out how we can keep the magic in technology and not move to the toxic, to the poisoning part. And that is a true challenge because in this future, it's basically, that's what it's all about, employing technology for happiness. And as I said earlier, it's not as simple as making an app because, you know, in the end, this is the challenge. Technology doesn't have ethics. We have to put the ethics in. We have to know how to make that difference. We have to think about whether we need this ethics council that has been suggested as a counterweight. So bottom line is, this is our future. Technology, algorithms, and then the opposite, the androrhythms. We have to invest in both. I think investing in humanity is obviously something that we know how to do. But then the question is, you know, if we do both, what would it do? Algorithms and androrhythms, humanity on top of technology. And as some famous philosophers have said, technology is not what we seek, but how we seek. We shouldn't confuse the two because we end up in a place where we need to put the human back inside. So let me summarize. Happiness isn't digital. Trust isn't digital. Happiness is not a machine. Relationships aren't code. Those are things that we use technology with and for, but we don't have a dial that dials up happiness. And just gets it done. So it's very important in my view to be on team human. That has been sort of a theme that I've developed with various other authors, to emphasize that we are actually human and that we're using it for human benefits. And finally, in my book, I have this key message that says basically, we need to embrace technology but not become technology. Thanks very much for listening.

That was extremely enjoyable. I enjoyed reading your book, but this was also very good.

Thank you.

I have one question— I have a couple of questions, but we don't have much time.

Let's speak fast.

So you're a musician, and you said so to become a musician it takes 10,000 hours. I'm not a musician, but I actually can fake it pretty well. I have Guitar Hero, and then within one hour I actually have the feeling that I'm in a rock band and doing pretty well. I mean, so software can help me fake humanity, right? So am I then not a musician when I'm playing my Guitar Hero?

Well, I think the difference really is to what you perceive yourself to be. You can swipe on Tinder and have a date, and you know, get what you want in 10 minutes. But as long as you know the difference, that this is actually not a relationship like a relationship that has grown otherwise, there's nothing against it. But what happens when we use it a lot, we think that that actually is the reality, or it's a parallel reality. Never get tempted into confusing the two, right? So it's not per se wrong, but if we do that all the time, you know, we do it with music, we do it with media, we do it with dating, you do it then that becomes a simulation.

And then we lose the real thing.

Well, then we're actually not happy at all, we're just always pretending to be happy.

Which is Facebook, basically.

Yeah, right. I wouldn't necessarily say that it's dangerous, like a drug is dangerous, that when you do too much of it, then you're getting into problems.

It's the wine versus the— what is it?

The crack. It's not an easy conversation to have because, you know, as a result we don't outlaw all the drugs.

I have another point. So you said this very interesting thing, you said the future is 90% good and 10% bad. That made me remember of this official study that the government of China did studying Chairman Mao, and then the conclusion of the report was that he was 70% good and 30% bad. And so in the end, he was good. But to me, it's like you have a murderous dictator, but he was nice to children. He killed millions of people, but he was nice to children.

He was a good cook too.

Yeah, and he was a good cook. So I mean, isn't that a dangerous way of looking at it? And at the same time, are companies, these four huge powerful companies, are they accepting this responsibility for the technology that they are creating?

Well, that is a complex question. But basically, I always like to say the future is better than we think. First of all, technology can solve most of the very large issues we're facing. Technology cannot solve terrorism or inequality. We have to do that. So what we need to do is to take technology, apply it to solve things and then build the ethical moral framework around it. And that is what we're currently not doing. And the big tech companies, you know, again, I work with most of them, so I know firsthand they want to, you know, and Zuckerberg, for example, always says he wants to, but they're basically saying, well, we'll never get around to it, we're so busy, right? So that is a very bad idea. We have to make them responsible or they have to become responsible themselves. Otherwise we end up with like 57 RIAs, you know, the gun lobby, problem. It's not that they're evil, but they make so much money with being who they are. It's very tempting. So the future is good, but if we fail to build this framework around it, the human framework, then it's not going to be so good. I think we will, but that debate is raging right now. It's basically humanizing technology, and this is why we need government. I think the future holds we're going to have professional politicians that are 30 years old knowing about these issues, that are aware of this, and that are truly understanding what we're up against, what we're up with. For example, when we invent a gene therapy to end cancer, it will have to be free, right? Because imagine the disparity if you're going to pay €1 million to not get cancer and everybody else dies. That's kind of like AIDS now in a way, but in a much bigger way. So those issues are facing us and we're going to have to find solutions together. That is quite clear.

Okay. Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Thank you.