How to Stay Human in the Digital?
The digital revolution is continuing to transform every aspect of our lives — but is it also transforming who we are as human beings?
As the world of the digital demands our constant attention, becomes ever closer and intertwined with our human needs, it’s becoming increasingly hard to say where one ends and the other begins. In a few years time, our ‘hand-held’ devices will be almost invisible, augmented and virtual reality will have become part of our day to day lives, and big data and learning machines will be predicting the next trend before it even happens. With so much accelerated change, what does it even mean to be human anymore? The last great paradigm-shift, the industrial revolution, forced people to rethink how entire societies could be organized; it raised ethical, economic and ecological issues that continue to shape and affect us to this day. Perhaps the digital revolution will provoke an even greater change in the way we view ourselves and our place in the world.
Let's promote a discussion about these new possibilities and limits by asking the question, How to stay human in the digital? A question that offers a variety of interpretations and answers, including, but not limited to: How will our work, productivity and well-being change? In the case of massive unemployment and changing economic structures, how might we deal with rising inequalities and make sure that everybody can fulfil their human potential? How do we make sure that an increasingly intelligent AI remains 100% for the good of humanity? How will we, our bodies, and our brains adapt to constant connectivity? How much are our attention spans and relationships really worth? How much are our children’s — and also their sensory learning and experience? When will technology be able to replace a digital friendship — with a digital friend? Which human needs can technology serve — which can’t it serve? What problems can it solve and what chances will it bring? And, of course, the question of what is uniquely ‘human’ — what can never be digitalized and what should we, personally now and as society, further cultivate?
How to stay human in the digital?
Berlin, December 2017
