Futurist Keynote Speaker Gerd Leonhard's Keynote at Digital #Workplace Summit (Economic Times India)

Hello, this is futurist Gerd Leonhardt. These are my keynote speeches as podcasts. Looking at last year, what has happened quite clearly, we can see it here on the numbers. The research shows that we've changed the most because of the COVID crisis. Digital transformation has been jet fueled and warp drive, so to speak, by the COVID crisis. And the adoption of things that were unthinkable before is the new normal pretty much around the world, working from home, working in the cloud, working remotely, learning remotely. And some of that has not been easy for us. Let's say that is the least we can say about that. But we're putting our world together in a new way. And the next decade, I believe will bring more change than the previous 100 years. Products like these that used to cost thousands of dollars, they, they'll be had for a couple hundred dollars and eventually for the price of a cheap mobile phone. Augmented reality, virtual reality, Microsoft mesh. This was HoloLens before Oculus Rift actually. And if we put this together, it's quite clear that we're going to enter the world of virtual reality, mixed reality, holograms. We're going to enter a world where it's possible to administer everything through an app. And this is already happening right now. The total integration of our work tools, like you see here, with Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, we're moving to a world where all that stuff is coming together and we can literally live and work and create in the cloud. I call this sometimes the Megashifts. This is chapter three in my book. You can download it for free in 12 languages at Megashifts Digital. But basically it's all the impact of technology that's going on around us that is coming together. So first, cognification, which means that systems are becoming smart and that machines are no longer stupid, that machines can understand my language and they can translate it and they can make sense out of it. Natural language processing is only slightly behind image recognition, which is pretty far along now. And maybe just in a couple of years, you can speak in any language and come out in 34 other languages in real time on any video or audio feed. Things are becoming virtual. So what we used to do in real life, like a call center or others, are being virtualized in the cloud. And we're going to be able to use machines to take care of the heavy lifting, the routines. And that's basically robotization, of course. That's the sort of software robotization that we're going to see everywhere. And I think that is going to impact what we do in the office and what office we're going to be in in the first place. We're going to see a lot of trends of augmentation, virtualization, and of course, automation really change our world in a very, very material way. Have a look at megashifts digital. So what used to be unthinkable in terms of working from home, working in the cloud, not everybody has an office like this. Of course, that's not me, but it sure looks like a nice office. What used to be unthinkable has now become the new normal. There's possibilities that we've never thought were actually working remote, everything working from home, office in the cloud, traveling virtually, but yet we're still saying, you know, this is great, we can use all these tools and zoom is great, but hugs are greater. What about us? What about the human connection? I don't think we're going to go without that. I think the human connection is coming back and it's coming back in a completely different way, probably more than ever before. Like in this world that we're putting together that is driven by the mega shifts and what I call the game changers, which are all of these things here on the left, I'm sure, you know, we're going to think about what it means for us and how we can use that to a positive effect. For example, artificial intelligence, the blockchain, 3D printing, virtual reality, and of course, natural language processing. And all these things, they're all coming together, driving us through a vast acceleration in the next 10 years. We're going to change more in the next 10 years than the previous 100 years. And that is not an overstatement. So if you're thinking about the future, you have kids, you got to think about what they are going to be doing in this future where everything is about technology, everything is done with technology. Where data is the new oil well, that's about 20 years old, right? But now data is also kind of a plutonium potential weapon. Look at social media. Artificial intelligence is the new electricity, and the cloud is the new office, it's the new living room, it's the new bar, it's the new restaurant, it's the new dating. It's basically everything that can be moved to the cloud will be right. Virtual reality, augmented reality, our new senses. And that's going to be amazing for a lot of reasons, but at the same time, I would say, and yet we are not technology, we are still human. Social, intellectual, kinesthetic, emotional intelligence is extremely difficult for Machines, whatever is easy for humans is hard for machines and vice versa. The Moravec paradox. And so yet we're going to need this in our workplace as well. And this is why we're going to need to get together and actually have real physical contact and communicate face to face. Because we are a lot more than just data. We may see the end of analog, like paper, the paperless office that's kind of coming. You can see that happening everywhere. And this curve is really the toughest challenge for us. You know, we are down here learning linearly and you know, going step by step while machines are exponential. Moore's law, Metcalfe's law, Wright's law, exploding in power and at the same time, yet we don't want to end up here. We don't want to live in a world where customers are an algorithm. Trust is being calculated and everything is being manipulated. That is not going to be a future that we will enjoy, I think most of us. And that's going to be true at the workplace as well. The digital workplace will have to have things like human in the loop policies and data protection and privacy. I mean, it's going to be a tall challenge to figure out how to use the benefits of technology without having the disadvantage. Because we're going to live in this world that everything is available as a data feed. Everything is smart, intelligent, quick, connected, super fluent. I mean, we're going to live in a world where we have to be sure that we can keep this balance between humans, algorithms and what I call andro rhythms, the human only things, mystery, values, consciousness. And that's going to be truly important for our work because those are the human jobs that we're going to be doing in the future ourselves. Those are the jobs that machines can't do, at least for the foreseeable future, until we reach the so called Singularity 2050. These are going to be the jobs that our kids have to learn. Not just engineering, not just technology, not just stem, but compassion, ethics, emotion, imagination. That's going to be super important in the workplace, right next to the connected technology. And I really believe that this temptation is going to be everywhere to think of things that we can automate. But maybe there's a few things that we shouldn't automate because algorithms know the logic of everything, but the feeling of nothing. And what is important to us is the feeling of how we connect with others and the reason and the purpose and the why question. Otherwise we really can be considered useless. Humans, as soon as machines would know how to do Our routines. But let's face it, automation and virtualization is going to be everywhere. And everything that can be will be. That's the law of digital Darwinism. And anything that can be automated will be automated. Take the flip side of this. You get to this result, anything that cannot be digitized or automated becomes extremely valuable. And that's what we have to build in our workplace. On the one hand, digital. On the other, one human. Only the things that can't be. Creativity, imagination, emotions, mystery. That's why I'm not worried about things like GPT3, the artificial intelligence that can from a voice command or tap command, create a fake answer of anybody like Elon Musk. You should try out this application, check it out on YouTube. It's called Learn from anyone. That includes dead and the live people. Where you can ask real time questions by just dredging up the web and putting answers together. Extremely powerful demo just like this one where we can see this AI GPT3 again puts together a spreadsheet on demand, just by typing a type command. Mind boggling, but yes, routine work. So here's the bottom line on our future of work and how we're going to collaborate and what we're going to do. If you work like a robot, a robot will take your job. And furthermore, if you learn like a robot, you'll never have a job. So we have to move up the food chain and to this pyramid into a different place to where we're no longer at the bottom about data and information. Basically commodity or intellectual knowledge. We have to move up a little bit to more deeper knowledge. Moving up the Maslow pyramid, so to speak, towards tacit knowledge, understanding, wisdom, purpose. That's going to be the future. And regardless of what technology is promising us, we are still going to need to remember what it's like for humans. What is the best thing for us. Well, that's not data and information and technology. It's the stuff that happens between us. Experiences, engagement, relationships. And that is where the future of work is going to be. Hybrid. It's going to be all about awesome humans on top of amazing technology. While we are surrounded by technology, the game changes, the mega shifts. We're clearly going to have to figure out how this human renaissance is going to help us in the future. I believe it's coming. I believe we're going to see a world to where we're going to become more important again, not less because of technology. Awesome humans on top of amazing technology. And as you go forward into this world, one final word is going to be about embracing technology but not becoming it. Thanks very much for your time and I'll see you in the future. Thanks so much for listening to my podcast. Find out more about my work at techvsushuman. Com, Techvshuman. Com, and at featuristgirt. Com.