Month: August 2014

Whether you live to work or work to live, for the vast majority of people throughout the world having a job of some sort is central to the way our lives are structured. So what happens when the drones and the robots take over?

This is not a facetious question, nor a piece of science fiction. The impact of artificial intelligence and smart devices is clear: many jobs as we know them will be taken over by advances in automation, in particular those repetitive, lower skilled or less creative tasks where human skills such as negotiation and creativity are not needed.

Increasingly intelligent machines are simply more efficient and cost-effective. If you can have hundreds of tireless robots uncomplainingly picking grapes 24/7, it is obvious that human labour will become redundant in many areas. And if the value of work such as is this is nothing, if work is performed for free, the path to structural unemployment through technology is clear.

The impact on our economic systems of the future may be dramatic. Within thirty or forty years, the concept of work and working for a living as we know it now will be over: toast.

In addition, developments in artificial intelligence are increasingly producing self-learning machines that simply need more processing power to continue advancing exponentially – possibly, and in the worst of scenarios, to a point beyond our control, where we as humans are merely troublesome, inefficient concepts in a machine world.

These are some of the larger and longer-term effects of artificial intelligence on the world of work. For the near future, it is enough to consider that anything that can be automated, will be automated, creating a huge shift in the labour market. Whereas hundreds of factory workers are involved in assembling one tablet today, within five years the job will be performed by just ten. Automation will profoundly impact all areas of mass production – and the workers involved.

So what will people do? What jobs will be left? The answer is mixed. Many new areas will open up in new or unpredictable niches, with titles we can only guess at at present: privacy managers, data scientists, digital curators, prediction auditors. Jobs for a digital world and a big data economy. Then there are all those areas where human soft skills are essential, such as negotiating, communicating, story-telling, therapy, creative design. Many lower-paid but intricate jobs (think electricians or plumbers) with too many variables may be too expensive to automate. And there will surely always be a premium for the human touch in some areas that could be automated – cooking or teaching, for example.

The Leadership Summit on the Future at ITU Telecom World 2014 in Doha this December is a chance to re-evaluate where we are and where we might be heading in the world of digitalization, of automation, human-machine interfaces and artificial intelligence. The role of work in terms of the structure of our societies is one major element. The opportunities are tremendous, but we also need to understand the possible side-effects of development. Technology is moving fast, and so must we.

The ITU Telecom World Young Innovators Competition in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) is looking for innovative ideas on how information and communication technologies (ICTs) can help smart cities to slow down or mitigate the effects of climate change for the benefit of global health.

Extreme weather events, spread of epidemic and endemic diseases, threats to food and water security, air pollution increasing the burden of non-communicable diseases – climate disruption is compromising the health and well-being of people around the world.

Small island states, developing communities and those living around large cities are on the frontline, increasingly vulnerable to immediate and long term health risks as a direct result of global warming.  There’s an urgent need to reduce human impact on the environment, focusing on preventative public health and a coordinated, multi-disciplinary and creative approach to mitigating the effects of climate change.

That’s where smart cities – and our latest Young Innovators Competition Challenge – come in.

Smart cities are focused on investing in human and social capital, transportation and communications infrastructure, and good management of natural resources to drive sustainable economic growth and high quality of life.

ICTs are the cornerstone of smart cities. By reducing emissions, improving environmental sustainability and using green technologies in innovative ways, smart cities can lead the way in improving public services in areas such as transportation, public spaces, education and, crucially, health.

The ITU Telecom World Young Innovators Competition Challenge on Smart Cities and Climate Change is held in partnership with the World Health Organization, who have long provided evidence, information and calls to action on the link between health and climate change, the topic of their upcoming Conference on Health and Climate Change, to be held on 27 – 29 August.  Together we are looking for innovative ideas on using ICTs in smart cities to mitigate the effects of climate change and improve the health of the world’s citizens everywhere.

This might involve using cutting-edge technologies, or combining existing technologies, services and systems involved in smart cities. The focus may be on monitoring climate change or mitigating its impact on society; or on using technology to green our communities. Innovations may centre around physical devices such as smart grids, software such as big data analytics or services such as community education.

The scope of the challenge is wide. And the rewards are high – the chance to have your ideas presented at the WHO conference, and the opportunity for two winners to join us at ITU Telecom World 2014 in Doha, Qatar, from 7 – 10 December, where they’ll be able to pitch to industry andgovernment leaders, participate in development workshops and mentoring sessions, and win up to USD5 000 in seed funding.

We think the best way of working on concepts and ideas for new social start-ups which directly address climate change is by working together, through a process of co-creation. So this challenge comes in three parts, starting with the Ideation phase, where you can research, post ideas and discuss smart cities and climate change on our crowdsourcing platform, collaborating in a rich and multi-party creative process. Our expert-facilitators will guide your collaboration and provide direction and further ideas. In the Collaboration phase, the concepts identified as having the greatest potential will be refined and completed, ready for evaluation. And in the final Selection phase, the experts in our Selection Committee will determine the two winners joining us in Doha.

The challenge opens today, 8 August, and runs until 7 October. That’s two months to get thinking, discussing, creating and collaborating on concrete, innovative ways to reduce the negative impact of climate change on our health through smart city technologies.  For the good of us all.

Affordable prosthetic limbs for Sudanese soldiers manufactured on 3D printers, grandmothers bringing the know-how on running solar electricity generators back to their remote villages, electric light powered by a bag of earth and gravity alone, powerful yet cheap batteries to power drones used in disaster management. Projects such as these may not be the most visible face of the dramatic growth of new technologies – but their impact on local communities across the developing world is nothing short of revolutionary.

New technologies are not just about rampant commercialism and the spectacular success of a handful of internet moguls. There’s also the less recognized, and arguably far more important, aspect of social change: making technology affordable and accessible to all, using technology to make a difference, to improve lives blighted by poverty or disability and the social exclusion that ensues. It is a new way of thinking about the business of technology that moves beyond developing the next get-rich-quick app to emancipating, empowering, and encouraging individuals throughout the world.

This is the powerful message of this year’s Ars Electronica Festival, held annually in Linz, Austria, and its inaugural Future Innovators Summit, held in conjunction with ITU Telecom Young Innovators. The Festival itself has been mixing technology, engineering, social entrepreneurship and art for 35 years, using the city and its buildings as an open stage to engage and communicate with as many people as possible, bringing the ideas of change through technology into the public space.

The Future Innovators Summit focuses strongly on the younger generation who are innovating for the future, and developing projects and ideas to change the worlds of business, design, applied technology and the arts. It’s a trans-disciplinary melting pot of creative engineers, young entrepreneurs, scientists, artists, social start-ups, designers and artists. Such a broad approach, breaking out of the traditional narrow boundaries of each field, opens up tremendous potential for dialogue across generations, professional communities and disciplines.

And the presence of the ITU Telecom Young Innovators, young social entrepreneurs with technological innovations aimed at improving lives all round the world, adds a truly global aspect, extending the exchange of ideas even further beyond the Festival participants in Linz and its online followers. The Young Innovators will form part of the 24-strong Future Innovators Summit, actively presenting their projects and prototypes, taking part in mentoring sessions with technology and business professionals, and sparking creative discussions and co-created ideas on how to turn technology to positive social ends.

It was the highly successful collaboration between Ars Electronica and ITU Telecom at ITU Telecom World 2013 last November in Bangkok on The Lab, a future-in-action interactive exhibition space and workshop, which inspired the Future Innovators Summit. The Lab enabled delegates at the wider World 13 debates, showfloor and networking sessions to experience first-hand products and projects at the edge of technology, art and society – and brought Ars Electronica into direct contact with the winning Young Innovators and their commitment to social  innovation and responsibility in areas such as disaster management, health care and inclusive education.

It’s a collaboration set to continue at this year’s event, too, with the Future Innovators Summit presenting findings, innovative projects, applications and technologies at ITU Telecom World 2014 in Doha, Qatar, in December. Artists, entrepreneur, engineers and developers will not just present, but will provide practical demonstrations and hands-on experience of creativity and innovation. More than an exhibition of stationary objects, it is a chance to explore new technologies, meet the makers, connect with creative sources – and hopefully come away enriched and inspired.

Because it is precisely this hybrid approach that is so potent. Hybridization of technology is the defining feature of our future: no longer telecommunications and information technology, but ICTs, the meeting of IT and telecommunications; no longer just a phone but a smart phone, a computer in your hand. Hybridization brings strength and breeds creativity in new directions; it is the hybridization of disciplines in the Future Innovators Summit and, later, in The Lab that promises to be so exciting.

From that innovative mix of experts, entrepreneurs and technologies will come ideas to change our world in a multitude of small yet vital ways, to iron out inequalities, to empower the disadvantaged. To enable the blind to engage with life-enhancing technology through tactile interfaces, to provide affordable clean water purified via solar energy, to create missing limbs for the victims of war and open up the advantages of cheap electricity to the energy-poor. This is what technology should also be about, after all.

We live in exciting times. Times full of the promise of progress, where the exponential pace of technological development is both visible and beneficial to ever more of the world’s population.  From e-medicine to digital education, next-generation transport systems to smart grid solutions, the near future looks to be healthier, smarter, greener, less wasteful of natural and financial resources.

But in the overwhelming commercial and governmental drive towards ubiquitous connectivity, the rush to develop, implement and monetize new technologies, it’s important not to overlook the very real dangers of over-connectivity.

Our addiction to or dependence on mobile devices, social networks, the internet in general is already eroding the concept of personal privacy, even before the onslaught of wearable technology and augmented humanity. We are already knowingly or blindly sacrificing our privacy for the ease and enjoyment of always on, always available services and information. Services and information which are free of charge, but which come at a price: our personal data.

We’re trading our data for the convenience of connectivity, and as technology moves inside us, as users and devices become integrated – from smart watches to health monitors to iris implants – the dangers are growing alongside the potential for collective good and wealth creation.

The technology is already there to lead us to becoming information ciphers, constant victims of marketing and surveillance, via ATM machines and mobile phones to drones, face recognition, policemen equipped with Google Glass. From instant recognition to the dystopian reality of your every action and decision predicted and judged on the basis of complex algorithms – without freedom or recourse.

As a result, privacy is fast on the way to becoming a paid-for product, such as the hotels charging a premium to ensure guests are truly unavailable and unconnected; encrypted mail services; or the private networks arising outside of the mainstream telco operators.  It’s a growing and lucrative niche market. But how fair is this? Should the world be divided by default in into those who can afford privacy and the majority who are stripped digitally naked?

And as awareness of the failure of privacy – the disbenefit of big data – grows, there is a very real danger of a retrenchment, of people withdrawing from the internet and its advanced products, applications and services, destroying the enormous potential of universal good through lack of universal participation.

Add to that the deepening in the near future of the divide between the digital haves and have-nots. If you think not having access to a mobile phone is a major disadvantage, imagine how great the inequality when you can’t afford the technological implants your colleague or neighbour has, the immediate access to information, communication and contacts.  It’s a whole new slant on the class system: the digitally augmented human versus the limited human-only human.

Technology itself, of course, has no ethics. And it’s no good leaving regulation of technology and its unintended consequences to the commercial world. Connectivity is big business, a giant money-making machine of equipment, services, advertising, analysis, products, an integrated and potentially enormous business system. Good for consumers, good for business, good for GDP.

It’s a set of complex scenarios that we cannot help to solve at the level of the individual user. The use and abuse of data needs urgent collective action, at governmental and intergovernmental level. It is down to governments to look beyond the benefits of connectivity to the downside of digital obesity: protecting its people from dangers and threats as far as possible is the duty of government, implicit in its contract with the governed.  Technology, like nuclear power, has tremendous potential for good, yet can also cause harm on an enormous scale.  Dealing with technology in the near future also calls, like nuclear power, for international standards or consensus, a digital bill of rights or citizens’ agenda to protect us from being over-connected or digitally naked.

Beyond the money and the perpetual spiral of technological advancement, we need to cleave to the principle of collective good. We need to see the human purpose beyond and above the scramble for monetization. Just because we can produce it and make money from it does not make technology good for people.

Increasing awareness of these factors, building understanding of the great new world of opportunity technology is opening up for us – and the need to be careful, to consider the consequences, to act collectively, to regulate fairly, wisely and in a timely manner – this is what the Leadership Summit on the Future at ITU Telecom World 2014 in Doha this December is all about.

I look forward to seeing you there!