3 Views of the Future
This is my review of two very smart books — Abundance by Peter Diamandis and The Circle by Dave Eggers as well as one incredibly well done indie film, Her directed by Spike Jonze. I had meant to write this review closer to the release of these two books and film, but I think they are just as relevant today. In The Circle, Dave Eggers presents a company loosely modeled after Google called The Circle. It focuses on a young employee, Mae, who joins the company and becomes heavily indoctrinated in the company culture and its vision for the world. The implications of the new technology presented in the book are dystopian and it is intended as a cautionary tale. In particular, Mr. Eggers presents a world in which everyone wears a camera all time time and broadcasts their life to the world. This isn’t necessarily a new concept, but somehow the way it is done in the book and the image of Google doing something similar at such scale gives the reader an eery feeling that it’s not far away. Don’t get me wrong, there are moments in the book that are so hyperbolic it causes the reader to roll his eyes. But the ubiquity of cameras in today’s society, combined with having so much personal information online which can be hacked (celebrities phones recently, US government personnel files, etc) that it gives the author’s concern a certain heft. Another concern Eggers addresses is the non-stop pull of social media for Mae. Her performance is constantly measured at the company and part of that includes participation in social media. In this sense, she is so busy doing small stuff that it’s clearly hader to have a deep thought or time to reflect. The business world hasn’t quite figured out how to properly engage with social media and the blurring between personal life and work life has become challenging in the era of personal brand. Introspection has been replaced with selfies nowadays. The book is well done and reminds me that there are many challenges that are coming with ubiquitous computing. Some of these challenges we may have to live with, some we will deal with using social customs (which seems to have killed Google glass for the moment at least), and some will be big opportunities for technology itself to protect against.
In Abundance, Peter Diamandis does a fantastic job laying out the challenges we face taking care of a global population that is heading toward 10 billion on a small planet with finite resources. I like that Peter takes an optimistic view here and talks about all the technology that is coming along which can help us. He backs his sentiments up with data and facts and it’s hard not to be compelled by his positive perspective on the future. He articluates how small teams of individauls have the ability to make radical improvements and that systems are now in place for individals to have an impact like never before. Abundance is a call to arms for entrepreneurs or would be entrepreneurs to get started on their next big idea.
Finally, in Her, Spike Jonze’s latest film presents a future where the main character falls in love with an artificial intelligence. This movie was so well done, I found it to be one of the best science fiction films I’ve seen in recent times. The performances were beautiful and the presentation of the future was so suitably understated that you find yourself delighted with it instead of clobbered by it. The technology gets out of the way for the main story line and the concept is artfully presented in a believable way. The film has you ponder what it would be like to have super intelligent computers, what it means to be conscious, and how computers and humans might interact in the future. I’m not sure where AI will lead. I tend to be in the camp of it being less functional and farther out that many people think. When it comes, my sense is it will be excel at certain limited things (what is called expert systems) versus be anything close to human scale general intelligence. But lots of smart people including Elon Musk think computers will be intelligent, their intelligence will grow exponentially and that this is a pending concern for society. He’s even donated $10MM to help protect against it. My feeling is computers are really good at doing things that humans do poorly such as memory, but are not necessarily good at doing things that we humans do well (vision, creativity, learning in the broadest sense).
We live in an interesting time, technology touches almost everyone directly or indirectly. Her, Abundance, and The Circle are three well done perspectives on how things are changing and where the world may be headed.
