My point in the book is that we need to embrace technology and harness its positive powers but we should not become technology ourselves in the process, i.e. Technology is growing exponentially powerful, and much of it is likely to have very positive effects on humanity – such as the possibility of ending diseases, solving energy issues and reducing global warming and possibly halting or reversing climate change. But what I'm concerned about in the current transhumanist debate is the automatic assumption that we aready know the limits of humanity – and that those limits should be dismantled via some type of intervention. Technological progress is clearly not something that we can undo or prevent, or stuff back into the box.

Genii or Pandora? Because technology is a human product it has always cut both ways. When technology starts involving the biological world within us – and this has really started already – the 300 years in that statement may swiftly expand to 3,000 years. To date, technology revolutions have involved the material world around us. our bodies) – it is actually moving inside of us (via wearables, BCIs, nano-technology, human genome editing, AI etc) thus impacting the very definition of humanity. I think it is actually an understatement given the reality of exponential and combinatorial technological change – the compound effect of these changes vastly surpasses the industrial revolution or the invention of the printing press, imho. One key factor is that technology will no longer remain just outside of us (such as the steam engine or the printing press which existed outside of human biology i.e. Some people snicker at this statement because it sounds like grand-standing. Humanity will change more in the next 20 years than the previous 300 years. Therefore, I’m 90% positive and 10% worried, at this point – but it’s certainly urgent to not let the 10% grow exponentially along with everything else, either! Humanity plus (or with) technology would be an overall positive outcome – and this has been our historical default, of course. social and cultural needs, self realisation etc). In an ideal future, humanity will sit on-top of technology, harness its power to solve most of humanity’s challenges (disease, water, food, energy etc), while allowing us to spend more time on the top layers of the Maslow needs pyramid (i.e. However, I don’t think that is likely to happen if we can finally start to collaborate on a global set of digital ethics and a collective understanding of what/who we want to be in the future, and define where ‘human’ ends and ‘machine’ starts, and vice versa. My position is one of the hopeful optimist, so for me, ’versus’ would be the worst possible case – where technology would no longer further the goal of human flourishing, but rather ‘flourish itself’.

The book title is simply meant as a provocation not as a prediction. The title: technology versus humanity? A clash of man and machine? NEW: watch this 5 minute video explaining the key memes in the book I have posted the key memes and bottom lines on the book's website, as well.įind out more about the book on the ‘Technology vs Humanity' site, buy the book on Amazon (this link automatically takes you to your local amazon site), or order it directly from my publisher (all formats bulk orders at a nice discount)Įnjoy and please ping me anytime with questions, comments or your own insights. I am now getting way too many interview requests and general questions so I figured it may be useful to provide some simple answers in this ,cheat sheet', below.

(Updated Feb 10, 2017) My new book ‘Technology vs Humanity' has been available in print and electronic versions since September 2016.

Gerd leonhard video