LESSON 8 Technology vs.

Humanity

Introduction

Technology is still developed by humans and, in turn, is re-defining what we can and will do. Every
single technological development is now having a much deeper effect on humanity than ever before,
because technology will soon have an effect on our own genetics, especially through the emergence of
genome editing and artificial intelligence. Technology is no longer just a tool that we use to do
something-we are now becoming machines (i.e. technology) ourselves. Let’s examine what a futurist can
say about the coming clash between man and machine.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this lesson, the students must have:

1. Described what is meant by exponential technologies.
2. Illustrated the 10 megashifts in technology that transformed the society.
3. Cite the darktrends or negative impacts of modern technology use.
4. Examined human rights in the digital age in order to uphold such rights in technological ethical
dilemmas.
5. Examined the value and impact of modern technologies by asking the 7 questions proposed by
Gerd Leonhard.
6. Practiced negotiation in the world of technology

Vocabularies
• Technology. A human activity involved with the making and using of material artifacts.
• Humanity. The quality or state of being human.
• Artificial intelligence (AI). An area of computer science that emphasizes the creation of intelligent
machines that work and react like humans (Techopedia.com).
• Internet of Things (IoT). A network of devices such as vehicles, and home appliances that contain
electronics, software, actuators, and connectivity which allows these things to connect, interact and
exchange data.
• Intelligent digital assistant (IDA). A software service which offers some interesting set of the
abilities of a traditional, human assistant, most notably answering questions and performing tasks
using voice and natural language processing (NLP) backed by artificial intelligence (AI)
(Krupansky, 2017).
• Algorithm. A process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving
operations, especially by a computer.
• Big data. Extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends,
and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions.
• Bot, web robot (chatbot, socbot). A software application that runs automated tasks over the
internet.
• Cloud or cloud computing. The practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the
Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer.

I. Take off/Motivation
 Look at the images below. Can you explain what do these companies have in common? What do each
company as shown below offer to their customers? I need you to write your answers and submit it
together with your other outputs.

II. Content Focus

Gerd Leonhard
Gerd Leonhard is a European futurist, humanist, speaker, author and CEO
of The Futures Agency. He specializes in the debate between humanity and
technology. Leonhard was born in Bonn, Germany in 1961. He studied
theology at the University of Bonn and Music at the Berklee College of
Music. A professional musician, arranger and composer. He is considered
as “one of the leading media-futurists in the world”.

Brightside.me

The 10 Megashifts in Technology

1. Digitization: Everything that can be digitized will be, from music (think Spotify) to travel
(think Uber and Airbnb).
2. Mobilization: Computing is no longer tied to a computer, and soon next-to-limitless
connectivity will become the new normal.
3. Screenification: Interfaces are increasingly moving to screens, whether supplanting buttons
and dials on your car dashboard or replacing the print version of your morning newspaper.
4. Disintermediation: This is “disruption by going direct” – cutting out the middle man and
adopting peer-to-peer models (such as PayPal).
5. Transformation: Digital transformation is already the core of almost everyone’s business
model today – requiring massive amounts of foresight and courage.
6. Intelligization: Things are becoming intelligent –we’re moving toward giving them
processing power, access to data, a set of rules and a simple command, and then letting them
work.
7. Automation: The key to hyper-efficiency is automation, and with AI and machine learning
becoming more effective, it will soon be integral to business.
8. Virtualization: From desktops and servers to software-defined networking, virtualization is,
by some estimates, capable of delivering savings of up to 90 percent.
9. Anticipation: As digital assistants and sensor-driven technologies get more intelligent,
they’ll be able to start anticipating our needs more effectively.
10. Robotization: Robots that are becoming increasingly useful, likeable and accessible.
Digital Hiroshimas

AI, IoT, big data, social media, cloud, ICT,

genome editing are like modern digital nuclear
bombs. They might explode before we realize
what we have gotten ourselves into.

Exponential technology could soon trigger a

chain of “A-bomb challenges” or “digital
Hiroshimas”.

Why do you think Leonhard call them as digital

Hiroshimas?
Figure 7.1. Genome editing using CRISPR. (Inhapress.com)

Dark Trends on Modern Technologies

1. Dependency. Relying on software and algorithms because it’s just so much more convenient
and fast.
2. Confusion. Not knowing if it was the intended human who replied to my emails, or her AI
assistant. Or even not knowing if I made my own decision or if I was manipulated by my
IDA.
3. Loss of control. To trust or not to trust the technology e.g AI.
4. Abdication. Leaving more tasks to systems (cloud/bot/AI) to perform routinely tasks (e.g.
making appointments, or answering simple emails) and blame them if something went wrong.
5. Social autism (we love our screen more than we love people).
6. Addiction to technology (“mobile devices are the new cigarettes”).
7. Digital obesity. Craving and addiction as tech’s business model.
8. Digital feudalism (winners, i.e. platform winning it all).
9. Security, because with virtualization comes decentralizing with many fewer points of
physical control.

10. Software soon eating biology,” and the increasing temptation to virtualize humans via brain-
uploading or cyborgism.
11. Forgetting ourselves exponentially and sleepwalking through digital life, opening the door to
a kind of global digital feudalism.
12. Treating people in a social security environment just by the numbers, as disembodied data
sources.
13. The development of digital egos as a true copy of ourselves.
14. What we see and hear about each other is determined purely by algorithms that are designed
to make you stay and view ads as long as possible.
15. Software no longer just “eating the world” but increasingly “cheat the world.”
16. Everyone and everything becomes a data beacon.
17. Low-cost, ubiquitous digital technologies have made it possible for us to outsource our
thinking, our decisions, and our memories to ever-cheaper mobile devices and the intelligent
clouds behind them.
18. The IoT (Internet of things) could be the climax of machine thinking—the most perfect
spying operating system (OS) ever devised.
Bridging the Gap
• What technology can do, and what it should do to result in overall human happiness.
• We must invest as much energy in furthering humanity as we do in developing
technology.
• Algorithms can measure or even simulate everything except for what really matters to
humans.
• Mis-defining what human flourishing means, will only empower machines.

Humanity is at risk
Automation is exploding because it’s abundantly clear that humans are expensive, slow, and often
inefficient, whereas machines are cheap, fast, ultra-efficient, and becoming exponentially more
so.

Figure 7.2. Amazon robots running the company’s warehouse. (QZ.com)

Debugging Humanity
• Debugging mystery, mistakes, and serendipity, and debugging slow, tedious human behaviors
like discussion, pondering, and emotions.
• Technology: Algorithms
• Humanity: Androrithms
• In the next 20 years, we are likely 95% automated, hyperconnected, virtualized, uber-
efficient, and much less human than we could ever imagine today

How do we achieve Happiness?

Humans seem happiest when they have:

• Pleasure (tasty food, warm baths)
• Engagement (or flow, the absorption within an enjoyed yet challenging activity)
• Relationships (social ties have turned out to be an extremely reliable indicator of happiness)
• Meaning (a perceived quest or belonging to something bigger)
• Accomplishments (having realized tangible goals).

Compassion
• Compassion - a unique trait connected to happiness.
• Can you imagine a computer, an app, a robot, or a software product that has compassion?

Can we hack happiness?

 • Happiness cannot be acquired or purchased, and therefore would be impossible to stuff
into an app, a bot, or some other machine.
• Evidence suggests that experiences have a much longer impact on our overall happiness
than possessions.
• Experiences are personal, contextual, timely, and embodied.

Manipulation by Technology
• In the future, computers will try to make us feel happy. They will try to be our friends. And
they’ll want us to love them.
• We will unravel the genetic determinants of key neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine,
and oxytocin, and be able to manipulate happiness genes with precise nanoscale technologies
that marry robotics and traditional pharmacology.
• Mood bots, once ingested, will travel directly to specific areas of the brain, flip on genes, and
manually turn up or down our happiness set point, coloring the way we experience
circumstances around us.

In an interview with Ray Kurweil, a known Futurist, with Playboy Magazine in 2016, he explains
what humans will be in the future, he said: “By the 2030’s we will have we will have nanobots that
can go into a brain non-invasively through the capillaries, connect to our neocortex and basically
connect it to a synthetic neocortex that worls the same way in the cloud. So we'll have an additional
neocortex, just like we developed an additional neocortex 2 million years ago."

Can we program happiness?

• Happiness cannot be programmed into machines, automated, or sold nor copied, codified, or
deep-learned.
• It needs to emanate from and grow within us, and in between us, and technology is here to
help us—as a tool.
• We are a species that uses technology, not a species that is destined to be(come)
technology.

Human rights in the Digital Age

Leonhard (2016) suggests five new human rights for the Digital Age:
1. The right to remain natural, i.e. biological – We must have the choice to exist in an un-
augmented state.
2. The right to be inefficient if and where it defines our basic humanness
3. We must have the choice to be slower than technology.
4. The right to disconnect – We must retain the right to switch off connectivity, to “go dark”
on the network, and to pause communications, tracking, and monitoring.
5. The right to be anonymous – In this coming hyperconnected world, we should still have the
option of not being identified and tracked.

Rules for Digital Age

1. We shall not empower machines to empower themselves, and thereby circumvent human
control.
2. We shall not seek to minimize human flaws just to make a better fit with technology.
3. We shall not attempt to abolish mistakes, mystery, accidents, and chance by using
technology to predict or prevent them
4.
Humans as Stewards of Humanity
 • Every single business leader, technology pioneer, and public official needs to accept and act
upon his/her responsibility for shaping the future of humanity.
• Technology has no ethics, yet a society without ethics is doomed.
• Exponential technologies often morph rapidly from magic to manic to toxic—achieving a
balance is essential.

How do we become stewards of humanity?

• We need to teach both STEM and CORE (compassion, originality, reciprocity, and
empathy) skills.

• We need to retain a clear distinction between what is real and what is a copy or a
simulation.
• We need to start asking why and who, not just if or how.
• We should not let tech giants, technologists, the military, or investors become mission
control for humanity—no matter what country they are in.

When we evaluate exponential technologies, we should ask seven essential questions.

The Seven Questions: Technology Checkpoint

1. Will this technology inadvertently or by design diminish humanity?
2. Will this technology further true human happiness?
3. Does this technology have any unintended and potentially disastrous side effects?
4. Will this technology give too much authority to itself or to other algorithms, bots, and
machines?
5. Will this technology enable us to transcend it, i.e. go beyond itself, or will it make us
dependent on it?
6. Will humans need to be materially changed or augmented to actually use this technology?
7. Will this technology be openly available, or will it be proprietary?

III. References
1. Immink, Ron. "Technology Vs Humanity: The Coming Clash Between Man And Machine".
Medium, 2018, https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/technology-vs-humanity-the-coming-
clash-between-man-and-machine-da074eee067f. Accessed 20 Oct 2020.
2. Leonhard, Gerd. Technology vs. humanity. London: Fast Future Publishing, 2016.
3. Swearengen, Jack. "TECHNOLOGY VS. HUMANITY: The Coming Clash between Man and
Machine." Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 69.2 (2017): 125-128.