The Rise of the Humans starts NOW!
Hi, my name is Dave Coplin and I love technology.
When I say I love technology I don’t mean that I lust after the latest gadgets (although I do enjoy using them) no, what I love is the amazing potential that technology offers to make all aspects of our lives and our society better.
I have more or less dedicated my entire adult life to try and understand the potential that new technology offers all of us in our everyday lives and over the past 3 decades I have chosen to work with some of the world’s largest technology companies, their customers, governments and consumers to see the amazing developments that will change our world. Hell, I’ve even gone to the extremes of personal grooming to grow a beard and a pony tail, that’s how much I love technology. It all started when I was a kid, growing up on a healthy diet of Star Trek and comic books. Star Trek in particular taught me a really important life lesson about technology in that it is supposed to be a force for good in our lives, something that enables us humans to achieve more than we could on our own. I think this is the purpose of technology, it exists to make our lives better and richer, not worse. |
But my problem is that in all of my years immersed in a hi-tech world, I have yet to see this potential truly emerge. Instead, at work we behave like we’re digital Victorians, using new technology to repeat old business models and ways of working rather than using the potential of technology to change what we do and how we do it. It’s just as bad at home and in our personal relationship with technology, instead of great opportunity, I see a prison, technology that constrains how we work, changes how we think and disrupts our relationships. We don’t think about this enough but we walk around with a device in our pockets that has access to every fact, every opinion, every bit of the knowledge our society has collected over the past couple of millennia and it’s right there at our fingertips. But how often do we think of it in those terms? And what do we do with all that knowledge? Two words, “Cat videos”.
And it’s about to get a lot, lot worse. With the arrival of artificial intelligence and robots, a new wave of automation is going to sweep through our lives and with it will be a tsunami of disruption the like of which we have rarely ever seen in the entire history of the human race. I don’t think there is an industry or part of our society that won’t be touched by this change and as a result I think we need to prepare ourselves in order to maximise the good it can do in our lives and to minimise the bad.
As a technologist, and an optimist, I am convinced that our future success as individuals will hinge on our ability to be able to use technology to help make whatever we do better. Regardless of the career they choose, your children’s lives will be better, more successful, happier and more rewarding if they are confident in how they can use technology to help them achieve more at work, in their relationships and in how they enjoy themselves.
But even this debate is nothing new, we’ve been having a similar debate for decades (if not forever) and as technology continues to evolve I think we’ll have it again in the future. We had it when I was a kid, doing my maths exams at school at a time where we were debating the role of pocket calculators in the education of our children. As a result of that debate I did my maths O’level with a log-book and a slide rule. But the thing is I’m actually a better mathematician with a calculator than I am with a tabulated bit of paper and a slidy bit of plastic. Yes I need to know the basics of arithmetic, but once I do the technology fundamentally lifts my ability to be able to do more than I could do on my own.
It’s exactly the same debate that we are having today. If we want to help everyone get the most from the amazing things technology can bring to all aspects of our lives, we have to equip every member of our society with the skills that can make that possible. We shouldn’t be teaching people about the “tools” because they will change, but instead if we can help people be curious to want more from technology, to be creative to see it as an amazing opportunity to create beautiful and meaningful things and finally if we can be accountable for our actions in how we use it and what we choose to do with the information and experiences it offers us, then and only then can we as humans, rise up and live up to all of the potential technology has to offer.
The rise of the humans starts now!
Dave Coplin
Chief Envisioning Officer
You can find out more about Dave at his on-line home - www.theenvisioners.com
And it’s about to get a lot, lot worse. With the arrival of artificial intelligence and robots, a new wave of automation is going to sweep through our lives and with it will be a tsunami of disruption the like of which we have rarely ever seen in the entire history of the human race. I don’t think there is an industry or part of our society that won’t be touched by this change and as a result I think we need to prepare ourselves in order to maximise the good it can do in our lives and to minimise the bad.
As a technologist, and an optimist, I am convinced that our future success as individuals will hinge on our ability to be able to use technology to help make whatever we do better. Regardless of the career they choose, your children’s lives will be better, more successful, happier and more rewarding if they are confident in how they can use technology to help them achieve more at work, in their relationships and in how they enjoy themselves.
But even this debate is nothing new, we’ve been having a similar debate for decades (if not forever) and as technology continues to evolve I think we’ll have it again in the future. We had it when I was a kid, doing my maths exams at school at a time where we were debating the role of pocket calculators in the education of our children. As a result of that debate I did my maths O’level with a log-book and a slide rule. But the thing is I’m actually a better mathematician with a calculator than I am with a tabulated bit of paper and a slidy bit of plastic. Yes I need to know the basics of arithmetic, but once I do the technology fundamentally lifts my ability to be able to do more than I could do on my own.
It’s exactly the same debate that we are having today. If we want to help everyone get the most from the amazing things technology can bring to all aspects of our lives, we have to equip every member of our society with the skills that can make that possible. We shouldn’t be teaching people about the “tools” because they will change, but instead if we can help people be curious to want more from technology, to be creative to see it as an amazing opportunity to create beautiful and meaningful things and finally if we can be accountable for our actions in how we use it and what we choose to do with the information and experiences it offers us, then and only then can we as humans, rise up and live up to all of the potential technology has to offer.
The rise of the humans starts now!
Dave Coplin
Chief Envisioning Officer
You can find out more about Dave at his on-line home - www.theenvisioners.com
Rise of the Humans
The Rise of the Humans is led by Dave Coplin, author of
The Rise of the Humans: How to outsmart the digital deluge and Business Reimagined: Why work isn't working and what you can do about it |