This episode carries on the thinking for what the endgame might look like for technology and organizations. There are seeds already planted that will certainly grow over the next 100 years and may look familiar but blossom in was we never expected. For example, what really will the impacts of AI be on organizations over the long run. Many of the ideas Scott delivers in this pod will be hotly debated for a while. In the long run, we will get to see how prescient he really is!
This podcast kicks off the next series about the Endgame of Digital Transformation. The next four podcasts will postulate what the future may look like when technology is “done” transforming four areas of our world. This podcast kicks off the predications with the impacts of technology on society in general. While no one, not even Scott, can predict the future with 100% accuracy, even being able to imagine the future with some degree of clarity is helpful for knowledge and decisions today. Listen in and see if you agree with the picture Scott paints about what society might look like when our grandkids are old!
There are many CEO’s and CIO’s who cringe the moment someone says the phrase “digital transformation.” Unfortunately, the concept was hijacked by consultants and advisors for a decade and became way overused before an appropriate definition could really get into the dictionary. It became a term synonymous with digitizing business processes. It is a perfect time to redo the common definition and broaden it to look at a fifty-year time in history that is transforming humanity. This podcast also sets up the next series so be sure to listen so you have background needed to understand future episodes.
Maybe one of the more important podcasts in this series, the topic of Digital Wellbeing. A growing problem in the world is our many hours spent interfacing with digital tools, whether at work, or in our personal lives, and many time both. Scott provides an analogy between healthy eating and healthy digital being that you might find interesting!
This is one of Scott’s favorite topics! He has been studying and talking about transhumanism for over a decade and it is time to take this concept more mainstream so we can prepare for the outcome. Our technology tools are becoming more powerful each year and with the advent of powerful robotics and AI, we will soon (historically speaking) have the ability to power our lives and capabilities far past previous generations. At some point, we will no longer be Homo Sapien, we will be a new species that is dimensionally more capable and powerful. We will not be cyborgs, we will humans who are boosted with tools that cause us to be H+. If you have not listened to the previous podast (The Singularity: A Better Definition) please listen to that one first because the Singularity and Transhumanism go together in ways you will learn.
This is one of Scott’s favorite topics! He has been studying and talking about transhumanism for over a decade and it is time to take this concept more mainstream so we can prepare for the outcome. Our technology tools are becoming more powerful each year and with the advent of powerful robotics and AI, we will soon (historically speaking) have the ability to power our lives and capabilities far past previous generations. At some point, we will no longer be Homo Sapien, we will be a new species that is dimensionally more capable and powerful. We will not be cyborgs, we will humans who are boosted with tools that cause us to be H+. If you have not listened to the previous podast (The Singularity: A Better Definition) please listen to that one first because the Singularity and Transhumanism go together in ways you will learn.
Scott starts a new series that is all about finding better definitions for important words we use in the technology field. Too many times words are used that many people really do not understand. In other cases, the words we use are not good at really describing the concepts behind the words. In this first podcast of the series, Scott takes on artificial Intelligence and dramatically expands the words and meanings for different forms of intelligence. By the end, the listener will have a whole new palette of words to choose from when talking about human and synthetic intelligence.
This is an interstitial podcast between two series. There is so much talk about whether AI is good or bad and those words do not do justice to the complexity of that debate. Scott looks at one important aspect by thinking through whether we might become negatively addicted to the use of AI or will AI free us from mundane tasks and free our creative capabilities – or both! The more accurately we can predict the impacts of AI, the better we can adjust how we use it for good. This is the first podcasts that ends in a warning!
Like the story of the fish that do not have a sense that they live in the water because it always all around them, humanity is being impacted by the amplification of technology. For those of us living right in the middle of it, we have a sense that our lives are changing, but we don’t really have the comparative scale to understand how much or how fast. People who have lived for many decades can remember the way it was and compare to the way it is – for better or for worse. Younger people have less perspective to work with. This podcast talks about the dark and the light of digital amplification when looked at through a larger lens. The more precise perspective we can create on what technology can and will do to humanity, the more we can make good decisions on finding the needed balance between humans and machines.
Like the story of the fish that do not have a sense that they live in the water because it always all around them, humanity is being impacted by the amplification of technology. For those of us living right in the middle of it, we have a sense that our lives are changing, but we don’t really have the comparative scale to understand how much or how fast. People who have lived for many decades can remember the way it was and compare to the way it is – for better or for worse. Younger people have less perspective to work with. This podcast talks about the dark and the light of digital amplification when looked at through a larger lens. The more precise perspective we can create on what technology can and will do to humanity, the more we can make good decisions on finding the needed balance between humans and machines.
There are two central ways humans will amplify themselves. This podcast deals with the first which is physically improving our capabilities. We were all born with natural bodies. Some of these bodies had weaknesses from birth. Some of our bodies get damaged along the way. What happens when we can repair either of these states and create physical parity in the world? What happens when we can extend lifespan through the use of biotech, nanotech, and digital tech? We stand at the precipice of amazing improvements through the integration of AI, biotech, and nanotech. What kind of world will that lead us into? How much of what science fiction writers has shared for years will come true? Now is the time to get a clear picture in our minds and wrestle with what we will tell our kids and grandkids when they have the chance to enhance.
Human beings are always looking for an edge or improvement. In a lot of ways, we are achievement junkies who never stop figuring out how to amplify our capabilities. A competitive world drives us from childhood to find ways to be better than those around us. It is no surprise that technologies are becoming a more powerful influence in getting us the advantages we seek. In this opening podcast of the series, Scott looks into what has driven us in the past and how those same catalysts will cause a very Humalogy future – at the individual level. Will we all become cyborgs? No. Will we slowly be drawn more towards technology amplifications? Very likely. The more we wrestle with the direction of amplification now, the more likely we are to avoid some of the blind alleys that have hurt us in the past.
What is the human mind in relationship to our brain? What is a machine mind going to look like? How do humans decide on their next best word or action and how does an LLM do the same? At what point might we believe that a machine mind is waking up? In this episode, Scott dives into the philosophy of mind by asking you the listener a handful of intriguing questions. Along the way you might come to believe that we overstate the sophistication of the human mind and under predict the possibility for a machine mind to be awake. If nothing else, this episode will help you think about analogies and ideas you might not have heard before and that will help inspire your mind!
In the final podcast in the Digital Philosophy series, Scott examines whether technology will ultimately help or hurt the human race. This requires us to understand the recipe of digital interaction we each have and see what the ingredients are that make up our own recipe. To help with that Scott reviews an interesting list of negative impacts of technology, then the opposite side with the positive impacts. Only by meditating on these lists and looking at the digital recipes we each create for our lives can we answer this incredibly important philosophical question. Technology: A blessing or an existential poison!
What if we stopped using humanity as the high bar we seek when building AI’s and robots? A philosophy to explore is the need to let go of the belief that building AI’s “as smart as us” is the right path. The reason we fear AI’s harming us is because we harm each other, and we can only imagine that technology will do the same. We can have a new philosophy that says we should build technology to be much more than us, then harness it to amplify the human race. This podcast will change the way you think about the standards we are setting with our new digital tools and the optimistic future we can have.
Philosophy is thousands of years old and for all that time, it has been the study of finding truth in a world populated by humans as the only thinking entities. AI’s and synthetic intelligence are now changing the very definition of intelligences and consciousness. In this podcast Scott explores what he calls Neo-Philosophy and the need to answer important questions about the integration of human and synthetic intelligence. One such question is defining levels of consciousness and how technology fits into the new model. One hundred years of science fiction is now coming true and we need to find the Truth about how that will impact each of us. You might want to have a device near you to take a few notes from this podcast!
Why digital philosophy and not digital science? Because science struggles to answer some questions that have lots of humanity baked into them. Because the meaning of words sometimes fail us with being consistent across peoples and science struggles when the words don’t have solid measurable meanings. Such it is with happiness and the meaning of life. These words are a state of being or set of choices we all make, and they are hard to measure. Were we happier thirty years ago? Did we have more of a sense of meaning? The answers today must live in the realm of philosophy. In this first podcast in the series Scott examines the possible impacts of digital transformation on our happiness and the meaning of our lives. There are big questions in this podcast that when answered, will help you move forward in life – if you are willing to contemplate them deeply!
This podcast is an important concept that sets the foundation for the new series coming next – Digital Philosophy. Scott shares the concept that the generations alive today are struggling with a lack of context and story as to what we are trying to achieve as a country, or as a world. We have almost no agreement as to what the important outcome of our being alive together will mean. Without a compelling story to hang on to, we are floundering in a existential crisis. So, Scott offers a story we can all hang on to. It is a story with a positive ending that historians will write about for hundreds of years. Listen and see if this story resonates with you.
Most everyone understands that a large amount of content on the Internet is not true. This is posted by people and organizations who have a specific reason to lie and mislead, or can be posted by people who simply state “facts” and make references to research that is simply not valid. We are not far from the ability to use AI, Machine Learning and Deep Learning to begin scoring content as to the likely truthfulness it contains. Will there be bumps along the road of this quantification concept? Yes. Do we need something better than the nothing we have today to help us? Yes.
Organizations are using more technology and data to measure job candidates and workers. This dynamic was kickstarted during the pandemic when workers were forced to work from home for an extended period of time and job interviews all became virtual. Now that we have moved back to a hybrid work environment, we have the gap between how workers feel about their productivity and what leaders are thinking. With AI, wearables, and automation on the rise, the ability to do real time surveillance on workers is on the rise. Ultimately, is this positive for workers? It surely is positive for organizations. Scott unpacks this concept in the next podcast in the Quantified life series.