(Updated 11th March)
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In a digital and fully interconnected world (ETA 2030) it will not be our technology that differentiates us – it will be our HUMANITY. It will not be our efficiency, our productivity, our optimization or our smartness (brains?…logic?) and powerful intellects that will beat the machines – it will be our human-only skills. It will be everything that machines have a hard time with. Remember the Moravec Paradox: whatever is simply for a human, is hard for a machine (and vice versa).
So what is human-only? Imagination, intuition, emotions, ethics, values, compassion, empathy and consciousness. Machines are binary but humans are multinary. Organisms are NOT algorithms, and while we should try hard to build machines that have competence we should not strive for them to develop consciousness (see Stuart Russell).
If your job is 100% routine i.e. commodity work (and very very few jobs really are) the machines – software and hardware – will take your job. If your job is something like 50% routine you need to start adding values that are not routines or can be commoditised. Values that machines won't match anytime soon – what I call the Androrithms.
This future also entails a reboot of education and training – STEM education must be matched with what I call HECI – humanities, ethics, creativity, and imagination. Watch my 2020 film ‘How the future works'.
This was the topic for another episode of GerdTalks – a bi-weekly show where Futurist Gerd Leonhard starts by presenting from his professional studio in Zurich, Switzerland, which is set up to showcase his presentations, in HD quality, using some new live-streaming tricks and virtual background designs.
Gerd offered a 15 minute presentation on the future of work, showing some brand-new memes, and followed by a fun Q&A session, with the questions and comments from the audience using Youtube and LinkedIn comments.
Watch GerdTalks Episode 4, on the Future of Work below.
This bi-weekly event will live-stream on 7 platforms including Youtube and LinkedIn and Twitter @gleonhard – not on Facebook (sorry – and see why, here). URLs will be shared the day before the event.
Go to www.gerdtalks.com for more details on the show. Register for free, for the next GerdTalks show on the Future of Democracy, here – This will be an episode live-streaming earlier than the usual 2 weeks, due to the current world events.