Towards 2017: "Childhood's End." Now is the time to build the Tower of Babel" (Part 1)
1)
2017 has begun. January 9th marks the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. The smartphone has changed our lives the most in the last ten years.
2)
The smartphone is probably the device and infrastructure that has changed people's lives the most in the 21st century, making them faster and more dynamic.
The combination of the "iconic hardware called the smartphone" and the "software distribution platform" and "communications infrastructure" that enables it has easily surpassed what previous touch-screen PDAs could not. In just ten years, it has dramatically changed the world.
3)
The technological revolution brought about by the IoT has irreversibly changed our lifestyle and culture. We can now contact anyone, meet people without committing to a meeting place and time, no longer get lost, and access content to kill time anywhere.
4)
People have created a second discourse and audiovisual space on the Inaudiovisualy, which has addressed and is reborn in the digital space. What we see and hear and the state of the day can now be shared instantly. Everyone on the planet has become a communicator and an expressed.
What digital people needed was a second set of eyes and ears that could be connected to the Internet and audiovisual media. If we look at audiovisual imaging systems of the last century, we see devices that transmit the experiences of the eyes and ears to the masses via radio waves.
It is one of the significant shifts from "sharing experiences with the masses" to "extending the capabilities of individuals".
The century of imaging has been extended by the magic black box of the computer and the size of the individual's hand.
This dynamic change has taken place in just ten years.
5)
2016 was the year of the optimistic singularity. Advances in computing technology are giving the Internet intellectual functions comparable to the intellectual processing capabilities of humans, and their precision and range of applications are improving daily.
With the development of communications, robotics, manufacturing, bio, and audiovisual, all the material audiovisual surfaces of our daily lives have become the interface between the Internet and computers.
As I wrote in my article last year, we have been relatively fortunate in these headline-grabbing news stories if we limit ourselves to individual technological advances.
I think this year has been one in which we have been favourably received in terms of the "individual singularity," where individual technological developments outstrip human capabilities.
6)
I was excited to think that computers surpassing human technology could bring about cost reductions and diverse lifestyles. Everyone can travel abroad and speak the language, connect and communicate with people from their favourite countries on social media, and get help from apps to take photos or draw pictures.
Language barriers will be broken down, and expression will be democratised. We can dream of a rich and diverse life for everyone. People will acquire intellectual skills through specialised training. As a benefit, tasks they used to do exclusively will be "liberated" by the democratisation of computer technology and the Internet.
People without much-specialised training have welcomed the ability to get things they did not have before. They have welcomed the ability to get accurate translations without relying on translators and the ease of creating content using drawing and photo applications without asking someone to draw a picture.
7)
But these technological developments give rise to vague fears. Will I be next? Will my specialised training be swallowed up by internet-connected machines producing commodities? Will the "something I have gained as a privilege" also be "democratised?"
Anyone can feel this vague feeling of anxiety. For a few years now, experts have been fanning it.
The media sensationalises the fear by extracting only the fear from the unarticulated fear and not articulating the bright prospects that this technological innovation will bring. The final words are this: "People should spend their time doing creative things that only humans can do and thinking about happiness."
8)
I find this a little problematic. After all, many expert descriptions of artificial intelligence in the buzz-oriented news are designed to instil fear. Many lines use fear to get attention and views, and the conclusion is passed off as something elusive, like creativity.
This is an unconstructive way of attracting attention, sometimes appeasing and sometimes frightening the technophobia that hates change. Many experts and media have played the role of "wizards".
9)
It was not a machine that beat Lee Sedol at Go, and it was not an expert at Go, but an expert in engineering with high computer affinity.
What was the value of the vague vision that there would be no jobs in 2040? Many of them were similar to the apocalyptic theories of the last century.
People began to ask the same questions. "How should people live if artificial intelligence takes over jobs in the future?" "If a basic income is introduced and you don't have to work, can you just live and do what you want?" I got these questions every time I gave a talk. In response, I said the following.
10)
"Smartphones have changed our lifestyle in just ten years. People have created a second linguistic and audiovisual space on the Internet, have addresses and are reborn in the digital space. Everyone on the planet has become a transmitter and an expresser. So, what new gold mines have we stumbled upon due to this systemic change?
If we think about local issues, the answer is not good. The Internet has created many new industries with its anytime, anywhere connectivity. Still, most are cost-cutting through information and mechanisation and democratising unique skills and privileged values.
As a result, some industries have declined, and others have grown. However, if we think about Japan locally, we do not have a software platform that can dominate the world.
11)
The smartphone has created an empire on the Internet through its hardware and the operating system that connects the app store to the cloud.
The new imperial rule now hangs over us, takes 30% of the App Store's sales before taxes, and offers it to the apple-shaped empire and the empire protected by the green robot. This percentage is a tribute reminiscent of Britain's early East India Company.
In other words, an ideology centred on the West Coast completed the new imperial rule. And every place can face the same problem. The two-coloured America we saw in the US presidential election was a contrast between the 'blue America' brought about by the imperial domination of securities and IT and the local 'red America'.
12)
"So where in the world can there be a place where you can live on a basic income? It's in blue America. A world where people can live by doing what only people can do - killing their leisure time with creative activities, and a place where there is enough wealth to make that possible.
Elsewhere, people continue to work as cogs in the machine. To generate wealth, we must live by blending in with internet terminals.
13)
Furthermore, do people who belong to localities that don't have the means to spend their time vaguely imagining the world of 2040? At least we don't. All we can do is increase our affinity with machines and make them work well so that they are not eliminated as a cost or master the use of machines and take jobs from other people.
This composition is a battle between "humans" and "humans with high machine affinity", not machines against humans. It was not a machine that beat Lee Sedol at Go, nor was it an expert at Go, but an expert in engineering with high computer affinity. Such battles occur, whether chess, horse-drawn carriages versus automobiles, or scientific medicine versus witchcraft. Man has adapted to them.
14)
There is no vague conclusion about "spend your time doing creative things" here. All you can do is increase your affinity with the computer and achieve more than other people. It's a question of whether you are the one who uses the machine or is incorporated into the machine.
Those who oppose the machine can only provide niche entertainment or products (but now that the Internet has lowered distribution channels and communication costs, there is some value in that).
Before the era in which machines participate autonomously in society like humans, we must think about the never-ending battle between humans.
Before we think about the day after tomorrow, we need to think about tomorrow and today and, hopefully, what we can see from the present so they are continuous. A bright dystopia will not come, even if we wish it to. On the contrary, our daily lives will only get worse.
15)
Protopia, through the fluidity of technology
As I immersed myself in such discussions repeatedly, I began to question the nature of the media that creates technophobia.
I want to say, "Ah, after all, humanity that has adapted to technology has become worse than it is now." However, following such feelings only makes me technophobic in my head.
In reality, people are surrounded by IT devices, access information via Facebook and Twitter, and create an unpredictable situation in which they both criticise and benefit from the communication and community technology brings. Such unfounded pessimism about technology will only make our daily lives worse.
16)
One of the events that struck me personally in 2016 was a conversation with Kevin Kelly (the former founding editor of WIRED and author of Technium).
At an event to celebrate the release of the Japanese version of his book "What Comes After the Internet", translator Katsura Hattori kindly arranged a conversation and panel, and I was able to have a thorough chat. I had one question: "How do we deal with technophobia?"
17)
In his book, he calls "protopia", a future different from utopia and dystopia. Protopia is a worldview in which things gradually improve through the fluidity of repeated technological innovation. It is also a self-organised, non-uniform "decent dystopia."
It is a kind of optimistic technological thinking. However, the book is written in a style that acknowledges the inevitability of the phenomenon and discusses its nature.
When I heard this story, it seemed that the biggest problem was dealing with the technophobia that exists to a certain extent. Because I felt that the biggest obstacle was technophobia rather than possible dystopias or protopias, it is not a closed system.
Still, the power of technophobes who hate change in the system is frightening. The power that prevents democratisation creates even more distorted inequalities.
18)
In a conversation about this question, I remember that we discussed that technophobia can only be confronted through dialogue but can also be forgotten and eliminated as we adapt to time and technology.
Time is not going back, so we need to think carefully about human adaptation to technology. In 2017, we should at least be moving towards a protopia brought about by the fluidity of technology rather than a pessimistic dystopia.
19)
We are not moving towards a world without nuclear weapons. As a result of adapting to a world with nuclear weapons, we understand atomic weapons better than people did before, and we are moving towards a "clean energy world that has learned from nuclear weapons".
Nuclear power is often used as an example in discussions about technology and choice. Has nuclear power been a failure? Will clean energy lead to a world without nuclear weapons?
20)
What I often think here is that we are not moving towards a world without nuclear weapons, but rather, as a result of adapting to a world with nuclear weapons, we understand atomic weapons better than humans did before.
We are moving towards a clean energy world that has learned from atomic weapons. Human energy consumption has not decreased; we have moved to using energy resources that are more efficient and "humane" than before nuclear weapons.
Time passes, and in the long run, all that remains is adaptation. There is no Occam's Razor (in science) that can make advanced technology forget its development.
Technology does not go back once it has developed.
Towards 2017: "Childhood's End." Now is the time to build the Tower of Babel" (Part 1)
https://www.fuze.dj/2017/01/2017-childhoods-end-build-the-babel.html
Towards 2017: "Childhood's End." Now is the time to build the Tower of Babel" (Part 2)
https://www.fuze.dj/2017/01/2017-childhoods-end-build-the-babel-2.html
A)
I published a book called "The Magic Century" to predict 2015 and 2016. The term "magic century" was coined to describe the 20th century, when mass-media-type information transmission systems dominated the world, also known as the "century of images."
In contrast, this century, in which everything has been "black-boxed" = "marginalised" by computers, is called the "magic century" in the book "Re-enchanting the World" by the American social critic Morris Berman.
B)
Enchantment also significantly impacts the social systems that people run. People become indifferent to how things work. For example, according to recent surveys on social media, people tend to share rumours rather than the truth, and each person lives in the world they prefer within their social media communities.
I called this feeling "the poor man's VR" in my book. Although each person lives according to what they think is reality, the "reality" shown by timelines and communities is somewhat biased and different from the facts.
C)
Finally, when I think about future changes, I believe the clash between classical and digital humanity will be like the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis.
D)
All the lands had the same tongue and the same language. The people from the east came to the plain of the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and let us burn them with fire.
So they made bricks instead of stones and mortar instead of plaster. And they said, "Come, let us build a city and a tower whose top reaches the heavens, and make a name for ourselves, so that we may not be scattered over all the Earth.
And the Lord came down and saw the city and the tower which the sons of men were about to build, and said: "Behold, they are one people, and they speak the same language; and this work is the beginning of their works, and perhaps they will not fail to accomplish this.
Let us, therefore, go down and confound their language so that they may not understand one another. He has scattered them from there into all the countries for the Lord. They stopped building the city. That's why the city was called Babel; there, the Lord confused the languages of all the Earth and scattered the people from there over all the world.
Genesis 11:1-9 / Federico Barbaro, Genesis, The Bible, Kodansha, p.24, 16th printing, 2007 (1st printing, 1980) via Wikipedia
E)
Today, highly computer-friendly people, such as digital humans and millennials, tend to use the same tools on a common platform, can speak different words on the same semantic level through machine translation, and try to solve the problems that exist in the world today.
However, some people cannot benefit from the tall tower that was built there. I don't want that gap to be closed by building walls or dividing the world. I hope the language will not be confused and people will not be separated individually by rekindling local problems.
F)
"Humanity is currently raising a grandchild. This child was born into the Internet and had eyes and fingers to draw through images. Now, it is about understanding the language of the whole world and acquiring physicality.
It will build a great tower to reunite the scattered people and dismantle those who want the world to be as it was".
G)
In 2017, we should move towards a protopia brought about by the fluidity of technology rather than a pessimistic dystopia created by unfounded fears. I pray that society will be tolerant in adapting to and accepting the next generation of people and the next intellectual system that aims to do so.
[Ochiai Yoichi: Survival strategy in the age of super AI] The amazingness of Fujii Sota / The growth of "AI + humans" is huge / Wars will happen more / Earthquakes are scary / From "learning with videos" to "learning with AI" / Productivity will increase tenfold / Master the geekiness that is not mass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJzzsCWgl0U
[Explanatory map] What is interesting about "Childhood's End"? We will consider everything from the plot to the lessons
https://mindmeister.jp/posts/kaisetu-Childhoods-End
The masterpiece we will examine this time is "Childhood's End." This work depicts a peaceful alien invasion of Earth and an apparent utopia under indirect alien rule as a price for human identity and culture.
What is so great about "Childhood's End"? What did the author, Arthur C. Clarke, want to tell his readers? We will use mind maps to explore these questions.
Childhood's End - Wikipedia
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B9%BC%E5%B9%B4%E6%9C%9F%E3%81%AE%E7%B5%82%E3%82%8A
Childhood's End is a full-length novel by British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. It depicts the human race "raised" for a century for the sake of the more excellent order of the universe and the changing landscape of the Earth, with a touch of philosophical speculation. Since its publication in the United States in 1952, it has become Clarke's masterpiece and a masterpiece in the history of science fiction and is widely read internationally.
An easy-to-understand explanation of the meaning of the singularity! Explaining the arrival of the 2045 problem
Technological singularity refers to a point in the future when artificial intelligence and other technologies surpass human intelligence. Scientists and futurists discuss the concept as a possible outcome of technological developments in humanity's future. When the singularity occurs, artificial intelligence will accelerate its self-improvement and development of new technologies, with unpredictable social and economic impacts.
Occam's Razor
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AA%E3%83%83%E3%82%AB%E3%83%A0%E3%81%AE%E5%89%83%E5%88%80
Occam's Razor is a guideline that states that one should not make more assumptions than necessary to explain something. It became famous for being used frequently by the 14th-century philosopher and theologian Ockham. However, modern medicine in the 21st century should make the concept of Occam's Razor a little outdated and reconsider the management of all risks.
