We are drawn to profits like a moth to a flame. Although the window of opportunity for humans to flourish may be open, we turn away away away to chase the dollar.
We have lived through the invention, innovation and evolution of social media which could have united us in friendship, kindness, love, and compassion, but used it to create social conflict, agitation, divisiveness, disinformation, mistrust, depression in our kids, and to weaken our democracy and diminish our ability to respond to a global pandemic with a unified front. All for the purpose of generating increasing profits.
We are witnessing the deployment of low-cost lethal drones that can swarm, follow, and attack a person silently from the air using artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and lethal weapons. These are developed and sold in the pursuit of profits. Profits don’t respect borders, and these technologies will soon be available to be purchased by all - a fearful thought.
Large enterprises are automating business processes with robotic process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence, and mechanical robots as fast as they can to eliminate jobs, and to increase quality, efficiencies and profits. Our challenge as humans will be to make available enough new kinds of rewarding jobs for the technology-displaced unemployed. Without jobs and purpose, these unemployed will grab pitchforks and torches and march to the town square.
Artificial intelligence can be one of the most incredible technologies humans have ever invented as it can help cure diseases, help us achieve sustainability, reach global food and water abundance, provide personalized education around the world and more, but only if we collaborate within an ecosystem of people and organizations with a shared purpose and goal to enable and expand human flourishing.
Purpose is not just a marketing buzzword. It is required for humans to flourish. We need a definition of flourishing, and a goal to achieve it that is future focused. Seeking a time in history where we imagine humans flourished is not going to help us today as we cannot relive history. The future is both the time and place available to us now. How can we get from today to a flourishing tomorrow?
Kevin Benedict
Partner | Futurist at TCS
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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
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