1.5 – Technology

Technology is what elevated us Homo sapiens from simple animal somewhere in the middle of the food chain to undisputed God species. The way we wield this power will determine the future of planet Earth and all its inhabitants. This fifth chapter of Supermorning discusses how our individual choices can ensure that we derive maximum benefit from the wonders of technology, while simultaneously avoiding its many pitfalls.

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Recap: Future Technology Revolutions

It’s fun to imagine the cool technology revolutions that could shape the future of planet Earth. If we manage to interact responsibly with these technologies, the future looks very bright indeed 🙂  

Let’s wrap up the four future revolutions we can look forward to. 

The checklist

  1. Enhanced humans.
    • Genetic engineering and digital/mechanical augmentation can greatly enhance human health, longevity and performance. 
    • A lot of work is ongoing in this area, so those who look after their health and wealth could get to experience these benefits in their lifetimes. 
  2. Artificial intelligence.
    • Learning to communicate with machines could turn out to be a very valuable future skill. 
    • Jobs that involve a high degree of complexity, creativity or emotional intelligence should be safe in the coming era of automation. 
  3. Advanced telecommunications.
    • Although physical teleportation is probably impossible, virtual teleportation is something we can look forward to.
    • Virtual reality technology could totally change the way we meet and travel over coming decades. 
  4. Shared universal mind. 
    • Efficient access to the complete shared knowledge and experience of humanity can greatly enhance individual lives. 
    • With increasingly automated data collection, the creation of such a shared universal mind is becoming a real possibility. 

No one knows how quickly these technological revolutions will play out. But all of them are possible and highly attractive, ensuring that they will eventually happen. 

The best we can do is to shape our lives with an eye on the future and enthusiastically adapt when the time comes. 

Despite the uncertainty and everything that is wrong with the world, the future really looks incredibly interesting!

In fact, one of the primary reasons I’m determined to look after myself as best I can is so that I can see how this all unfolds 🙂

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Future Technology Revolutions: Shared Universal Mind

The human mind is and amazing thing. But it certainly has its (sometimes rather frustrating) limitations. 

But luckily, we have almost 8 billion of them on planet Earth. If all these minds could work together as one, the world’s problems would suddenly look like child’s play. 

I believe that this will happen one day through the creation of a shared universal mind (SUM). 

Google on steroids

Through the SUM, anyone will be able to tap into the combined knowledge and experience of society to instantly find the best answer to any important question. 

On an individual level, this would be most applicable to lifestyle choices. On a governmental level, the SUM would be of great assistance in policy design. 

Simply put, the SUM will give everyone on Earth the ability to make all the right choices to build a happy, healthy, wealthy, productive and sustainable life.

Big data

The SUM will be a machine learning engine that mines a continuously evolving set of data collected from the lives of billions of individuals. 

Data will be collected automatically through things like smart watches and scales (health), tax records (wealth and income), digital device use (productivity), credit card statements (purchasing decisions), and online track records (results).

Such data can then be cross checked against various factors like age, gender, occupation, place of residence, marital status, personality type, etc. 

With all this data, the SUM will be able to give personalized recommendations on all of life’s big questions based on the successes and failures of millions of similar people. 

To protect privacy, any link to the individual will be instantly broken upon data collection. Only the link between all the collected data points will be preserved.

The truth

In today’s interconnected world, those with the most influence are often not the most sensible ones, but rather the loudest and most sensational ones. 

The SUM will put an end to all the misinformation, propaganda and false advertising flying around the web. Instead, it will always report the indisputable facts derived from trillions of datapoints. 

Equality

Anyone with an internet connection will have access to the world’s combined knowledge and experience to design their lives. 

In other words, even the poorest person will have a mentor team of the world’s brightest minds to help him make the most of his life. 

In combination with our previous technology revolutions, this will contribute to the gradual elimination of inequality of opportunity, creating a much more just world. 

A universal consciousness

As more individuals and governments adjust their actions based on the SUM, humanity will develop a shared universal consciousness. 

We will be able to work together seamlessly to exploit the results of 8 billion continuous experiments (this thing called life) for the good of humanity. 

Any trends that are detrimental to society will be automatically stopped before they get started.

And any trends that truly improve the human condition will be automatically incorporated into the lives of billions worldwide. 

The post-SUM society will be a fascinating place to live in. I really hope it happens within my lifetime! 

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Future Technology Revolutions: Advanced Telecommunications

Our third technology revolution is basically Skype on steroids: An unstoppable trend of virtual meetings gradually displacing physical ones.

Coronavirus lockdowns across the world are bringing this technological trend into sharper focus. In a not-too-distant future, we’ll meet virtually not because of a virus, but simply because it’s better. 

Virtual transportation

Imagine that you could teleport yourself instantly to anywhere on earth at a negligible cost.

Such a technology would change everything. There would be much less need for cars, roads and parking spaces. Air transportation would also shrink greatly.

In addition, the nature of collaborative work would change completely as easy face-to-face meetings with anyone in the world become possible. 

Although physical teleportation may well be impossible, virtual teleportation of your mind and senses is not. 

Beyond video conferencing

The long-term vision for collaborative problem solving is the virtual transportation of the ideal team from across the world into a digital space designed for optimal sharing of ideas. 

Each collaborator can participate from the comfort of his own home through a virtual reality (VR) headset. From within the virtual meeting room, his avatar would be able to talk face-to-face with his collaborators, using multimedia information to convey his thoughts most efficiently. 

And we can turn up the sci-fi another notch to the point where we’d be able to communicate just by thinking, making long-distance collaboration even more efficient. 

The annoying problems with Skype still prevalent today show us that this vision is still some way off. But it’s coming…

Remote experiences

VR technology can also enable virtual transportation into physical spaces thousands of miles away. This can have large implications for tourism and live events. 

Although the transmission of taste, smell and touch will always be difficult, the two most important senses, sight and hearing, are easily digitalized. 

Thus, a 360 degree camera and microphone mounted on a drone could replicate most of the experience in any situation where sight and sound are the key senses. Someone wearing a VR headset would be able to look around and experience the environment almost as if she was there. 

The experience could even be better than the real thing if the receiver can go where physical human bodies cannot. For example, safe and convenient exploration of hostile jungles or free teleportation between the best seats in the house at live events. 

How to prepare

The biggest loser from this technology revolution will be the car. I think the auto industry is likely to shrink substantially over coming decades. 

The huge cost related to cars, fuel, maintenance, roads and accidents will be redirected to a wide range of diverse VR services. 

VR entertainment, education, collaboration and exploration are likely to grow rapidly over coming decades. Getting into these sectors fairly early on could be a wise move. 

The other big winner is likely to be smart urban design, where cities are built for people instead of cars.

Living in a central location where cars are an annoyance today could become much more pleasant in the future. This will also help us not to get lost in the virtual world, but enjoy spending time outside in the real one. 

Overall, I think the future world where virtual travelling has become the norm will be awesome. This is the technological revolution I’m most looking forward to 🙂

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Future Technology Revolutions: Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) has long been a favorite of popular culture. But this sci-fi concept is now finally starting to affect the real world. 

AI’s most profitable application today is shoving tons of personalized ads in your face. But it could soon be doing more useful things like driving cars or optimizing your home.

Let’s take a look at what we can do to prepare for this technology revolution.

Learn to talk to machines

The whole idea of AI is that it can allow machines to do tasks that require some degree of human intellect.

Any such task can then be done at a much lower cost and without all the HR complications related to a human workforce.

Those capable of effectively instructing this cheap and obedient machine workforce will gain the ability to get a lot more done.  

It can therefore pay to think though the tasks in your chosen profession that could be suitable for AI. This includes anything where decision-making follows cold logic applied to existing data.

Some first-hand experience with identifying AI-suitable tasks and attempting to implement an AI solution can therefore be very valuable. 

Is your job safe?

The potential downside of AI is the number of jobs that will be taken over by machines. Many people are very worried about this. 

The jobs most at risk are those involving plenty of repetition following a relatively simple algorithm. 

On the other hand, there are three distinct features of jobs that will be safe:

Complexity

Most professional jobs like engineers, doctors and lawyers should be safe because of their complexity. 

Any profession that requires many years of study to learn and decades of experience to master will be tough for AI to replicate. 

To remain competitive, however, professionals will need to learn to use AI for any repetitive or data processing tasks they might be dealing with.

Creativity

This includes typical right-brain activities like writers, graphic designers and musicians. 

The objective of these professions is to appeal to human emotions. It requires a lot of “feeling” that will be very tough to condense into a logical computer code. 

Human touch

These are jobs that require lots of emotional intelligence and empathy such as managers, HR professionals, and nurses.

Human behavior is characterized by a high level of irrationality that will be very tough for robots to manage. Jobs centered on keeping emotional humans happy are safe from automation. 

No more boring jobs!

Despite all the hype and the frequent use of the word “disruption” in articles about AI, changes to our daily lives are likely to be gradual. 

Getting AI to work properly on even slightly complex tasks is very difficult. The infiltration of AI into the job market could therefore be slower than most expect.  

AI works best in jobs that are very boring. Repetitive jobs that a human can learn to do in a day or two will go first. 

And this is certainly a good thing 🙂

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Future Technology Revolutions: Human 2.0

This last week of Supermorning Technology will have a bit of philosophical fun with potential future technological revolutions. 

Let’s start with a big one: creation of the next generation of enhanced human beings. 

Evolution vs. revolution

Over the 200 millennia history of Homo sapiens, our biophysical structure has not improved much. In fact, we seem to have become somewhat smaller and weaker with smaller brains. 

Yes, the human body and mind remains far from perfect, especially for the world we live in today.

In other words, evolution still has a huge amount of work to do. 

But evolution is a painfully slow process. Also, as comically portrayed in the film Idiocracy, it’s slow crawl could even be heading in the wrong direction. 

Luckily, technology is giving us the ability to increasingly augment the human body and mind.

This could replace slow and misguided evolution with intelligently designed revolution. 

Mutants and cyborgs

Just imagine that we could rewrite the human genetic code.

This could allow us to give everyone Einstein’s brain and Ronaldo’s body. It can also help us delete bugs in the code like genetic diseases and even that annoying human trait called aging. 

Next, imagine that we could further augment this genetic perfection with digital and mechanical technology.

Organs that never fail, mechanical muscles that never tire, digital brains with perfect recall and total knowledge access. 

People are working very hard on the creation of such mutants and cyborgs.

It’s only a matter of time. Maybe it takes decades, maybe centuries, but superhumans are an inevitability. 

How to prepare

Despite the enormous social, ethical and political implications of these technologies, it’s undeniable that they will massively enhance the human experience. 

Giving yourself the best chance to experience such augmentations requires that you take excellent care of you health and wealth.

No one has any clue about how long it will take or what it will cost. But a long life and a sizable bank balance will surely boost your odds. 

Having an inspirational and constructive long-term purpose to pursue with this added power will also be essential. 

Great power not directed to a constructive purpose inevitably ends up as a destructive force. It’s critical that we master the double-edged sword of technology before our upgrade to version 2.0. 

In short, the inevitability of superhumans is yet another great reason to develop healthy and wealthy environments, earn the liberty to pursue an inspiring purpose, and master our technology.

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Recap: Navigating the Digital Age

The digital revolution has forever changed our lives. Many changes have been good. Others less so. 

This week discussed ways to draw all the great benefits out of the digital age without getting caught on its long list of drawbacks. 

Let’s do the weekly recap. 

The checklist

  1. Computer.
    • Good ergonomics and regular breaks to move your body are essential for healthy PC use. 
    • A distraction blocker can help you focus on what’s most important. 
  2. Phone.
    • Reorganize your phone to escape chronic distraction from notifications and addictive apps. 
    • Avoid using your phone for things best done on a PC. 
  3. Internet.
    • Like calories are food for your body, information is food for your mind. 
    • Beware of empty information addiction, especially in the form of video and news. 
  4. Social media.
    • Some social networks are designed to be useful, but the value of most is up to the user. 
    • An interesting social media trend to follow is the deletion of purely distracting accounts. 

If you want to prove that you’ve genuinely arrived as a citizen of our modern age, then master the digital revolution. 

As we’ll discuss next week, this revolution is far from over. Your level of mastery over our current digital world will determine whether you’ll surf this rising digital wave or drown in it. 

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Intelligent Social Media Use

The meteoric rise of Facebook all those years ago cemented social media as an inescapable part of life (up there with things like gravity, death and taxes).

And like any other technology, our job is to follow the pros and unfollow the cons. 

Let’s do this for two broad levels of social networking: productive and debatable. 

Productive

In our complex world, most worthwhile projects require a diverse team of experts. Productive social media is the type that enables such team building. 

The best known example in this category is LinkedIn. There are also other options for given industries. For example, even us socially backwards scientists have ResearchGate. 

Although one can certainly waste time on these networks, they’re generally more useful than harmful. They also offer a great repository for your online track record – a valuable intangible asset. 

It’s the next category that requires all our vigilance…

Debatable

Platforms like Facebook and Twitter fall in this category. These are general purpose tools that can be used to distribute any kind of information – whether it’s valuable, distracting or downright dangerous. 

Here, some good old common sense can do a world of good. So, unleash the full might of your common sense on these simple questions:

  1. Can you honestly say that the information you share would improve other people’s lives in this age of information overwhelm?
  2. Does the information you consume from these platforms genuinely improve your life in this age of information overwhelm?

If you answered with a loud and clear “yes!” (with no awkward feeling in the back of you mind), there’s no problem. If not, it might be time for a rethink. 

Disconnecting

Ditching social media is turning into quite the global trend, and most of the experiences of these trailblazers have been highly positive. This article is a good example.  

An important insight from heavy social media users who disconnect is that their relationships actually get better. 

Indeed, social media is a great way to prioritize quantity over quality. But I think we can all agree that relationships work best the other way around. 

Could you benefit from downscaling your social media use? If so, now’s the time to act.

After all, it’s getting trendy 😉

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Intelligent Internet Use

Oh, the internet – that amazing global collaboration that brings the world to a digital device near you.

Like all awesome technological progress, it also brings plenty of problems. In this case, it’s the huge amount of useless or even dangerous information it puts at your fingertips.

Let’s see how we can sort the digital wheat from the chaff.

Honestly assess your information diet

A recent post likened the abundant information from the digital revolution to the abundant calories from the agricultural revolution. 

Calories are food for our bodies. Information is food for our minds. 

So, how’s your mental diet been lately? Do you feed your mind with healthy amounts of wisdom-rich information? Or is it more like one long empty information binge?

Empty information is just like empty calories: great for instant endorphin releases, terrible for long-term health and vitality. 

Cutting out empty information is key to a healthy digital diet. 

Video streaming

Digital video entertainment offers an excellent example of this comparison between information and food: 

  • Semi-illegal streaming of series and movies is like dirt-cheap empty calories. A decidedly average experience that makes you prone to catching some nasty viruses, but oh so addictive. 
  • Budget subscription platforms like Netflix are like a cheap all-you-can-eat buffet. To get good value from your purchase, you have to stuff yourself to bursting point. 
  • Platforms like Google Play where you pay for what you watch promote quality over quantity. This is like buying a fine chocolate and enjoying it slowly, preferably with friends. 
  • Going to see a highly rated new movie in the cinema is like a fine dining experience. 

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the last two are much preferred to the first two. 

Just like food, endorphins from digital treats are sometimes useful to improve mood or enhance a nice social situation. And just like food, we should focus on healthier snacking. 

The key bit of wisdom in the above-linked post goes thusly: if you can’t get yourself to pay for a healthier snack, you clearly don’t need it. 

So, it’s either healthy digital snacking or no digital snacking. 

It’s not just video

This simple rule works for any other type of online information.

Online news offers a highly topical example in these virus-infested times. Having all the world’s problems conveniently summarized at your fingertips is a smooth highway to overwhelm and anxiety. 

And then there’s the big one: social media. This one’s big and scary enough to leave for tomorrow. 

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Intelligent Phone Use

The smartphone is one of the sharpest parts on the double-edged sword of the digital revolution. 

It put the world at our fingertips, but, in so doing, it created the most distracted and overwhelmed generation ever. 

As always, today’s post is all about swiping right on the good and left the bad. 

Notifications

As the world is finally cracking down on smoking, saving millions of lives, a new addiction is quickly filling that void: notifications. 

Addiction is horrible for the user, but great for sales and even better for profits. Tobacco companies exploited this despicable marketing strategy for decades. Now it’s the turn of app developers. 

And notifications lie at the heart of this digital addiction: that hypnotic “ping” or alluring little number on an icon telling you that someone liked the selfie you just posted. 

Indeed, notifications are highly addictive and extraordinarily distracting. 

Turn them off.

All of them (including email).

Your phone should only demand your attention for calls, texts and important reminders.  

Addictive apps

There are countless apps out there that essentially sell distraction. Why on Earth would the most distracted generation in history pay good money for more distraction?

Simple: addiction. 

Here’s a simple 3-step digital detox strategy:

  1. Classify: Carefully consider each installed app and classify it as either essential or addictive.
  2. Clean: Delete all addictive apps without which you’ll still be able to breathe. 
  3. Rearrange: Shift apps around as follows:
    1. Essential apps on the home screen
    2. Non-classified apps on the next screen (so you have to swipe at least once to see them)
    3. Addictive apps you literally can’t live without on the last screen (so they’re multiple swipes away)

Inefficiency

A smartphone is great for getting information on demand, but there are many tasks where your PC is a way better tool. 

Here are three examples of badly inefficient smartphone tasks:

  1. Writing longer messages, emails or documents.
  2. Doing serious online research (you phone is OK for some of life’s big questions like why dogs eat grass and cats are scared of cucumbers).
  3. Online shopping.

Who owns who?

Do you own your phone or is it the other way around? Be honest now…

If you’re in full control of when you use this digital tool, you’re the owner and all is well. 

If this digital tool regularly takes control of your actions, you’re the owned and have a serious problem. 

Rule your phone with an iron first that will make the world’s worst dictators squirm. There should be no doubt about who’s the boss 😉

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Intelligent PC Use

This week, we’ll be spending some quality time with the digital revolution – that wave of clever gadgets that changed our lives forever. 

Like all the other technology revolutions, this one certainly has its pros and cons. Our mission is simple: catch all the pros and dodge all the cons. 

And what better place to start than the digital agent that first infiltrated our homes: the personal computer (PC).

Ergonomics

This should be top priority for anyone spending a sizable chunk of their day on a PC.

Make sure your work space features the following work and life enhancers:

  1. A supportive chair at a height where your feet comfortably rest on the floor. 
  2. Positioning of your mouse and keyboard so that your forearms (and the entire weight of your arms) can rest comfortably on a flat surface. 
  3. Positioning of your monitor so that your neck is always in a comfortable position. 

Movement 

It’s vital to get into the habit of moving your body at least once per hour. 

Actually, there are some studies that want us to get up every 30 minutes, but I find that too disruptive. 

A fitness watch that buzzes when you’ve been stagnant for one hour is just the right tool for the job. The cheap Mi Band 4 discussed earlier helped me to finally get this right. 

Discipline

Creating a comfortable environment for PC use is awesome when you’re at your productive best, but wrought with danger when you’re getting lost in Netflix or YouTube. 

The single best antidote for this slow poison oozing from your PC is RescueTime. 

You can use it to block distracting websites after a certain amount of time, depending on whether it’s work hours or not. It also gives you some eye-opening statistics on how you use your PC. 

Efficiency

There are three keys to graduating from PC user to PC master:

  1. Become an expert in the software you use regularly as well as your chosen operating system. A good test of your expertise is how many keyboard shortcuts you know by heart. 
  2. Two words… Blind typing. 
  3. Excellent organization of your files (including fully automatic cloud backup), combined with a keystroke launcher like Launchy. 

Comfort

Those who have mastered the movement habit, good discipline and high efficiency have earned the privilege of taking ergonomics to the next level: genuine comfort.

Personally, I do most of my work on my PC in a comfortable recliner in front of my TV, which serves only as a computer screen. 

Over here in the far North, I’m always working under a lovely soft duvet, often with a nice cup of hot tea on the table beside me. This makes the process of working on my PC deeply pleasant. 

So, once you’ve proven yourself worthy, proudly claim your just reward: a luxuriously comfortable workstation 🙂

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