TEDx, Embrace Rapid Change. This is Our Destiny.

 Presented January 19, 2020 at TEDx Eustis

Watch it on Youtube: here

FINAL DRAFT

Thanks to technology, some people in this room may be among the first human beings to live for more than 1000 years[1].  Can you imagine a world in your lifetime where nobody dies. A world with no jobs.  A world with no money? If those ideas bother you, you are experiencing future shock.

PAUSE

The scientist John Von Neumann first predicted the idea of runaway rapid technical change in 1947. He called it the Technological Singularity.   Von Neumann said that it would take about 100 years to happen. 100 years from 1947 is 2047, only 27 years from now.  Even today, VonNeumann’s prediction sounds fantastic.

PAUSE

But singularity or not, we already experience change so rapid that it feels overwhelming.  Now I am saying that the rate of change will increase to runaway speeds.   When a century worth of progress happens every hour, we can say that we have reached the singularity.  How in the world can we transition from now to that fantastic future?

 

There is a rational basis for Von Neuman’s prediction.  The scenario is that machines: artificial intelligence, automation, and robotics will replace humans in nearly all jobs.   It is not that machines are smarter than humans, but rather that humans resist change.   People drag their feet, machines don’t.  Therefore, when machines do take over, progress can happen at inhuman speeds. 

PAUSE

I can guess what you want to ask about 2047.  Will the robots turn around and kill us? That’s science fiction.   I don’t know about that stuff. But anyhow my focus is not 2047.  My focus is now.  I want to talk about three specific near-term challenges.

PAUSE

But first, let’s slow down a bit.  Everyone, take a deep breath.

PAUSE

Will you feel better if I say we have been through something similar once before?  In colonial America[2], 98% of Americans worked on farms or producing food leaving only 2% free to do other things.  Today those numbers are reversed.  Only 2% of us work to supply food, leaving 98% of us free to do other things[3]. Things that could not be imagined in the year 1700.  So yes, we did it before, but we had 300 years to adapt.  This time we have less than 30 years; only 10% as much time.

PAUSE & TURN

- - -

Challenge #1 :money-and-jobs. 

I’m sure you noticed when I said earlier that machines will take all the jobs.  That means YOUR jobs.  That’s scary.  In today’s world, we need money to survive, and to provide for our families.

 

There is a proposed solution for that.  It is called the universal basic income.   The universal basic income will pay money to all adults regardless of need.  If we have the universal basic income, then the link between jobs and survival can be broken.

PAUSE

I think the  universal basic income could work.  But I also think that we may overestimate the importance of money.  Here’s why.  The same machines that on one hand take away our jobs, on the other hand will produce huge quantities of goods and services.  Throughout history demand exceeded supply.  We use money to make fair allocations of stuff.  But the instant that supply significantly exceeds demand, money becomes obsolete.   If that happens, the need for a universal basic income will only be temporary.

PAUSE

But it better happen fast, the singularity is only 27 years away.

PAUSE and TURN

- - -

Challenge #2. Social stigma.

 In today’s world, unemployment comes with terrible social stigma.   We are guided by the work ethic[4].  Our society considers work to be a virtue and a duty.  Lack of work is a disaster.  An able person who doesn’t do his or her share of the work is a disgrace.    Unfortunately, this social stigma contributes to America’s opioid crisis.  Millions of people who lost their jobs to automation feel worthless.  They lack hope.

PAUSE

What do you think the universal basic income will do about that?  Initially, it may make things worse.  But eventually as unemployment approaches 50% we will be forced to change like it or not.   Work will be a privilege, not a duty.   Money will no longer be a reward.  Let me say that another way.  People will have security and nice stuff as a right, not as a reward.  And those people who still do have jobs will be considered the privileged few.

PAUSE

What do you think?  Do you think that society can change its core principles in less than 27 years?   I do. I’m thinking of the civil rights decade of the 60s.  I’m thinking of the massive public flip flop on the issue of gay marriage in the year 2014.  Those show that society is learning how to do social change almost as fast as technology change. 

 

PAUSE AND TURN

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Challenge #3:  Researchers are making rapid progress on things that kill us, like cancer and heart disease.   Other researchers are looking at the aging process itself as a disease.  A disease they can cure, so that even old people can have healthy young bodies[5].  I’m not talking about some star trek movie in the distant future.  This is at our doorsteps right now.  If people can live for just 100 more years, science may improve so much that they could live for millions of years. People will become immortal. 

PAUSE

Immortal!!! Holy mackerel.  What will that do to religion?  Or to marriage? 

PAUSE

In the near term, I foresee an enormous social divide.  A divide between people on one hand who expect to die sometime, and those who don’t.    Let’s test that.  If you expect to die sometime, raise your hand     ….   Not much division in this room, that was just about everyone.  Some of you may be wrong.  You may have to revise your expectations. Or maybe not.  If I was offered an immortality pill today, I think I would say “No thank you.” What would you say?  Think about that when you go home tonight.

PAUSE

Now try to imagine your own family in the case where the children are immortal but the parents are not. So many of our life experiences that we pass from one generation to the next will no longer be shared.

PAUSE

While parents worry about jobs and money, the children need to worry about the population explosion that started when people stopped dying.   While parents worry about climate change and conserving Planet Earth’s finite resources, the children may be thinking of abandoning Planet Earth to populate the galaxy.  Man oh man, this immortality stuff is such a game changer, it makes jobs, money, and the work ethic, seem like unimportant trivia. 

PAUSE

But hang on. 

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Children will still be children.  Children still need our help to become adults. Children and parents will still love each other...I hope. That gives my confidence that our most important social structure, the family will survive.  

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Now, I don’t own a crystal ball.  I can’t predict the future in detail, any better than the weatherman can forecast next year’s weather.  My three examples may not come true.  2047 may not be the correct year.  But we can forecast climate, and the analogy of climate in this context is change.   John Von Neumann’s prediction of runaway rapid change is rock solid. 

 

Now I know that I threw a lot of new ideas at you in a short time.  It may have felt overwhelming.  That’s the point.  That is our destiny.  In our lifetimes, we will see changes coming at us faster and faster and faster.  It will feel overwhelming.

PAUSE

But in all three cases we looked at, we saw reasons to believe that we can handle rapid change.

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In 1933[6], President Roosevelt said, “The only thing to fear is … fear itself.”   Stop fearing change.  Instead, we should embrace rapid change as our new normal. 

PAUSE

We’re ready for the singularity. We can handle it.  Bring it on.

 

 

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