Futurist Keynote Speaker Gerd Leonhard at Volvo Arts Session 2019, Cyborgs Hellven

Good evening. Gruzimo sera mosjo a tus. So I'm going to speak to you as a human. Slightly different story. Let's put the slides on, please. I want to talk to you about the future, what the future may hold as far as technology is concerned, and how we're going to go into a future that is maybe a little bit more human than we had in mind. So first, quite clearly, this is what's happening. If you have this device here, this is your external brain, this is your second brain. And for some of our kids, it's their only brain. But this device is going to move here. It's been tried before, it's coming back, and then it will move here. And the question is, really, how much of that do we want? Which way should we be going in this convergence of technology and humanity? I think really what's happening is that it could be both. It could be really amazing. It could be really bad. I call this Helven, you know, Himmelhoerle could be a little bit of both. I mean, imagine if we were able to change ourselves a lot, then would that be free, or would it be very expensive, or would it only be for the rich? I mean, these are questions that we have to come up with. Basically, when we're looking at the future, there's three kinds of changes that we can go through. First, we can have physical changes, as Neel has described to ourselves, becoming more cyborgs, using new equipment. Then, of course, we can change our thinking by using artificial intelligence thinking machines. So called thinking machines. They don't think like us. That's really a misnomer. But they will give us more horsepower, more brain power. And lastly, genetic engineering. This has already happened in China a couple months ago. When we can change all of those things, we can essentially reprogram ourselves, to which I would say, same thing could be heaven, could be hell. We're at the beginning of the exponential curve. Takeoff. The exponential curve means doubling every 12 to 18 months, twice as fast, twice as cheap. When we look at this curve. This is the new question. It's no longer going to be about if or how we can do something. That's the question today. But the really important question will be, why are we doing something? And who? In 10 years, technology will be virtually unlimited in power. 5G networks, quantum computers, cloud computing, the Internet of Things list goes on. That's going to change who we are. And the real question is going to be, why are we doing this? Why are we doing things like this? This is a quadriplegic who can walk controlling an exoskeleton with his brain. I mean, if you're quadriplegic, you can walk again a million dollars later and lots of practice. That's amazing. I would say solidly. That's great because you're obviously not able to walk by yourself. This is a medical condition. On the other hand, when we're thinking about other things, like this guy, you, her, who lost his legs on the minefield, he says that people should have the right to, to pick their legs. I know you find this strange, right? He basically says that it's no longer for people who have a problem, but it's for everybody who should have that right to change their legs. Self amputation. I mean, that is one crazy idea. So I wonder what Elon Musk is thinking when he talks about this. This is called the neuralase. You know, Elon has had some pretty good ideas. You know, there's some Teslas around in Zurich as well. But now he wants us to essentially connect our mind in a brain computer interface by essentially drilling a bunch of holes into our head and connecting directly with the Internet. I think the truth could be in 20 years. Maybe this is required so you can work for Credit Suisse. I'm just kidding. For a bank, right? Anyone? What a crazy question, right? I mean, this is a question. How far do we go with this? And I think really, ultimately this is the question. I'm sure you're aware of this. We are not exponential. Humans are just not. I mean, I'm not going to live faster or do without sleep or use no food. That's not what we are. We are linear. We're all getting older, but we're not like technology. So this is a real problem for us. Technology is exponential, but humans are not. And here's the key question that we have to ask ourselves. Should we upgrade ourselves with technology? I'm not talking about what Neil is doing. This is a different story. Upgrading in general using technology, AI, genetic engineering, or should we respect the difference? That question is going to arise in so many places. That question is going to be absolutely everywhere. Because this is the key theory, right? Who does not want to be superhuman? I mean, ask yourself, do you not want to be like Tom Cruise? A minority report, Going inside the data and working 100 times as fast? That would be amazing. I mean, imagine as a futurist, I could do this. I could touch God. I could become God basically, right? I mean, this whole. Yeah, that's the temptation, right? Omniscience, omnipotent. Omnipresence, omni everything. Like a total mental Viagra, you know? So that's a huge temptation for us. But I have to ask the question, what about our autonomy? Are we still able to function? I mean, this. When the battery is empty, I am still functioning. Believe it or not, I could do without it. But if it's here and I'm working on this all day, or here, I don't think I would be functioning if it wasn't working. I dread the day when we get up and we can't do anything without the Internet, we're, like, incapable to even moving and our free will. Marshall McLuhan, great philosopher, said, all intentions of man are also amputations. And that's so true. What has this amputated? Well, some people have more relationships with their screen than they have with real people. You know, the suicide rate on social networks is the highest rate of any user in the world. People who are power users on social networks kill themselves the most. I mean, these are some stats that should make us think about how far we want to go with this. So what about those things that make us human? Like mistakes, accidents, discovery, creativity, imagination, ethics. Machines don't know a thing about any of these things. That's because they're not binary, not zeros and ones. Machines don't understand what really matters to us. There is no download for happiness. There is no app for friendship. There is no data for relationships. Data that represents relationships. But you didn't marry your husband or your wife because they're efficient. Well, efficiency is a good thing, you know, But I may get divorced if it's not efficient, you know, but different question, but I think clearly this is a temptation. So my theory is that if you really want to become exponential, you have to become a bot. This is the GERD bot, by the way. This is like the Superman world, where we can do everything better than the machines. And then there's the question, how much do you believe in technology? You know, today, technology is a religion. It is actually the religion. And technology is now a place where we say, well, you know, we can change our brain to be faster. And, you know, technically speaking, it's possible. Not now, but somebody at et ha. At eth will figure it out in the next 10, 20 years. And Elon Musk is already working on this. How computable do you think you are? Are you a machine? You go to Silicon Valley, you hear this a lot. People are saying, who cares? We're only machines anyway. We are fancy machines, right? We don't Believe that here in Switzerland, we're humanists by and large. But this is a key question. Maybe this is Silicon Valley's future vision. I call this the AI politician. Maybe we didn't have to vote last week. We just let the AI run the country because it knows everything. We can download a happiness kip and we don't have to, you know, it's probably going to be sold by, you know, one of the big Internet firms. Guess which one? I'm not going to comment on that one, but. And this is the future of education, right? Minority report. Downloading the helicopter. I think this would be a very unhuman world and also very boring because you could just download anything you want. But here's the problem. Technology is money making as nothing ever before. Turning humans into tech is the biggest business ever. Taking our humanity and saying, if you get this fancy shoe, you can run better. If you cut your legs off, you can be Superman. And the story goes on. If you use this brain computer interface, then you can replace thousand people at work. The company only has 10 employees. So here's our challenge. Technology has no ethics. Technology doesn't know anything about anything. It's morally neutral. Until we use it, it doesn't care. Technology can do great things, but it does not want to do great things. It doesn't want anything. If we want something from technology, we have to make it be ethical. That includes all the modifications of our body and all the outmoding that we can do. Societies are driven by their tech, but defined by their humanity. You do not want to be defined by technology because then you become a robot. This is a question that we have to think about. This is constantly being debated. I don't know. Five years ago, nobody was saying much about dehumanization except for some social media users. Now everywhere you go, people are saying, oh, this is really dehumanizing. This HR test and this, all the tech that we have. And I think it's time for us to push the button towards what I call rehumanization. A new human renaissance here in the city of Zwingli. We have to become more human again on top of technology. Not without technology. There's no such thing than without technology. We can't go back on technology. We have to use it, but with a human angle. So I would say solidly, yes, I want my body to be scanned, my DNA, my biome, everything, so I can find out what issues I may have. Currently cost $11,000. And I can use that data to deal better with my health. That is called healthcare in the future. But I don't want this. I don't want to be in a place to where I'm going to be this. There is a difference. We can have one and not the other. That's a choice that we make. So I think instead of transcending our human limitations, that's always a good thought. Clearly. I think we need to reconnect with ourselves. We have to find our own qualifications before we can transcend them. Here's the biggest problem. The problem is not that tech will take over, that robots will kill us. It's not Black Mirror. It's not transcendent. It's not X Machine. The biggest problem we have today is that we become too much like the machines. We get lazy, we don't care anymore. We have fake relationships. We go into a world where technology is substituting what we are and that we shouldn't do because it won't make us happy. So my final word, riffing off. Steve Jobs said something very similar. Stay happy, stay human. Thanks very much.