Are you ready for the greatest changes in recent human history? Futurism meets humanism in Gerd Leonhard’s ground-breaking new work of critical observation, discussing the multiple Megashifts that will radically alter not just our society and economy but our values and our biology. Wherever you stand on the scale between technomania and nostalgia for a lost world, this is a book to challenge, provoke, warn and inspire.
One of the powerful key memes from the Technology vs Humanity book is the following quote from Gerd Leonhard, author of the forthcoming book (to be released on September 8, 2016):
Will software (machines, robots, AI…) soon start ’cheating the world’?
Riffing off Marc Andreessen’s theme of ‘software is eating the world’ (2011 WSJ) I worry about whether in the near future a) software or algorithms are promising us things they can’t ever really deliver, or b) whether we will anthropomorphise too much i.e. act like they are indeed ‘human’. In particular, the changing interfaces to technology such as the coming shift to voice control will mean that we can interact with tech as ‘with a friend’ which will only increase these issues. Software could very well end up cheating us i.e. offering something as great value that is actually not valuable at all, such as all the quantified self tools that are everywhere now not delivering on their promises at all – fitness is not a tech problem, it’s an attitude / human problem (which yes, tech can indeed influence but not solve).
Watch Gerd’s first episode on Technology vs Humanity of his new video series entitled ‘conversations with Gerd’ see www.conversationswithgerd.com. These are short films with interviews on key topics such as technology versus humanity, digital transformation, the future of the internet, exponential change, artificial intelligence, the future of work and much more.
Produced and directed by Jean Francois Cardella, TFA Studios see https://www.futuristgerd.com/film-studio/
