I got invited to an exclusive resort to deliver a talk about the digital future to what I assumed would be a couple of hundred tech executives. And I was there in the green room, waiting to go on, and instead of bringing me to the stage, they brought five men into the green room who sat around this little table with me. They were tech billionaires. And they started peppering me with these really binary questions, like: Bitcoin or Etherium? Virtual reality or augmented reality? I don't know if they were taking bets or what. And as they got more comfortable with me, they edged towards their real question of concern. Alaska or New Zealand?
Bio sam pozvan u jedno ekskluzivno odmaralište da održim govor o digitalnoj budućnosti za, kako sam ja pretpostavljao, par stotina tech rukovoditelja. Nalazio sam se tamo u 'zelenoj sobi' čekajući da počnem, no umjesto da me odvedu na binu, doveli su u 'zelenu sobu' petoricu muškaraca koji su sjeli sa mnom oko tog malog stola. Bili su to tech milijarderi. I počeli su me obasipati tim zaista binarnim pitanjima, kao: Bitcoin ili Etherium? Virtualna stvarnost ili proširena stvarnost? Ne znam jesu li se kladili ili što? I kako su se osjećali sve slobodniji sa mnom, načeli su i pitanje koje ih je zapravo brinulo. Aljaska ili Novi Zeland?
That's right. These tech billionaires were asking a media theorist for advice on where to put their doomsday bunkers. We spent the rest of the hour on the single question: "How do I maintain control of my security staff after the event?" By "the event" they mean the thermonuclear war or climate catastrophe or social unrest that ends the world as we know it, and more importantly, makes their money obsolete. And I couldn't help but think: these are the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world, yet they see themselves as utterly powerless to influence the future. The best they can do is hang on for the inevitable catastrophe and then use their technology and money to get away from the rest of us. And these are the winners of the digital economy.
Točno tako. Ti tech milijarderi pitali su medijskog teoretičara za savjet o tome gdje da sagrade svoje bunkere za sudnji dan. Ostatak tog sata proveli smo baveći se samo jednim pitanjem: "Kako ću održati kontrolu nad mojim zaštitarima nakon tog događaja?" Pod "događajem" mislili su na termonuklearni rat, klimatsku katastrofu ili društvene nemire koji će okončati svijet kakav poznajemo i, što je još važnije, njihov novac učiniti neupotrebljivim. A ja nisam mogao da ne pomislim: ovo su najbogatiji, najmoćniji ljudi na svijetu, a ipak misle da su potpuno nemoćni da utječu na budućnost. Najbolje što mogu je čekati tu neizbježnu katastrofu i onda upotrijebiti svoju tehnologiju i novac kako bi pobjegli od nas ostalih. A to su pobjednici digitalne ekonomije!
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
The digital renaissance was about the unbridled potential of the collective human imagination. It spanned everything from chaos math and quantum physics to fantasy role-playing and the Gaia hypothesis, right? We believed that human beings connected could create any future we could imagine. And then came the dot com boom. And the digital future became stock futures. And we used all that energy of the digital age to pump steroids into the already dying NASDAQ stock exchange. The tech magazines told us a tsunami was coming. And only the investors who hired the best scenario-planners and futurists would be able to survive the wave.
Digitalna renesansa odnosila se na neobuzdani potencijal kolektivne ljudske imaginacije. Ona je zahvaćala sve, od matematike kaosa i kvantne fizike, do igranja izmišljenih uloga i hipoteze o Geji, zar ne? Vjerovali smo da bi povezana ljudska bića mogla stvoriti budućnost kakvu god možemo zamisliti. A onda je došao procvat dot-coma. I digitalna budućnost postala je dionička budućnosnica. I svu tu energiju digitalnog doba iskoristili smo da bismo steroidima napumpali već umiruću burzu dionica NASDAQ. Tech časopisi rekli su nam da dolazi tsunami. I samo će oni investitori koji zaposle najbolje planere scenarija i futuriste biti u stanju preživjeti taj val.
And so the future changed from this thing we create together in the present to something we bet on in some kind of a zero-sum winner-takes-all competition. And when things get that competitive about the future, humans are no longer valued for our creativity. No, now we're just valued for our data. Because they can use the data to make predictions. Creativity, if anything, that creates noise. That makes it harder to predict.
I tako se budućnost pretvorila, iz nečega što stvaramo zajedno u sadašnjem trenutku, u nešto na što se kladimo, neku vrsta natjecanja gdje pobjednik nosi sve, a pobjednika nema. A kada stvari postanu tako kompetitivne u vezi budućnosti, ljudi se više ne vrednuju zbog svoje kreativnosti. Ne, danas nas vrednuju samo zbog naših podataka, jer te podatke mogu koristiti za izradu predviđanja. Kreativnost, ako išta, to stvara šum. To otežava predviđanje.
So we ended up with a digital landscape that really repressed creativity, repressed novelty, it repressed what makes us most human. We ended up with social media. Does social media really connect people in new, interesting ways? No, social media is about using our data to predict our future behavior. Or when necessary, to influence our future behavior so that we act more in accordance with our statistical profiles. The digital economy -- does it like people? No, if you have a business plan, what are you supposed to do? Get rid of all the people. Human beings, they want health care, they want money, they want meaning. You can't scale with people.
Tako smo na koncu dobili digitalni krajolik koji zaista guši kreativnost, guši inovativnost, guši ono što nas najviše čini ljudskima. Dobili smo društvene medije. Povezuju li zaista društveni mediji ljude na nove, zanimljive načine? Ne. Društveni mediji koriste naše podatke za predviđanje našeg budućeg ponašanja ili da bi, po potrebi, utjecali na naše buduće ponašanje, kako bismo se ponašali više u skladu s našim statističkim profilima. Digitalna ekonomija - voli li ona ljude? Ne. Ako imate poslovni plan, što se od vas očekuje? Da se riješite svih ljudi. Ljudska bića, ona žele zdravstvenu skrb, žele novac, žele smisao. S ljudima ne možete postići rast i profit.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Even our digital apps -- they don't help us form any rapport or solidarity. I mean, where's the button on the ride hailing app for the drivers to talk to one another about their working conditions or to unionize? Even our videoconferencing tools, they don't allow us to establish real rapport. However good the resolution of the video, you still can't see if somebody's irises are opening to really take you in. All of the things that we've done to establish rapport that we've developed over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, they don't work, you can't see if someone's breath is syncing up with yours. So the mirror neurons never fire, the oxytocin never goes through your body, you never have that experience of bonding with the other human being. And instead, you're left like, "Well, they agreed with me, but did they really, did they really get me?" And we don't blame the technology for that lack of fidelity. We blame the other person.
Čak i digitalne aplikacije -- one nam ne pomažu stvoriti bilo kakav bliski odnos ili solidarnost. Mislim, gdje je tipka u aplikaciji za poziv taksija za vozače, da mogu međusobno razgovarati o svojim uvjetima rada ili se udruživati? Čak i naši alati za video konferencije, ne omogućuju nam da uspostavimo stvarno bliski odnos. Koliko god dobra bila rezolucija videa, ipak ne vidite otvaraju li se nečije zjenice u želji da vas se stvarno shvati. Sve one stvari koje činimo da uspostavimo bliski odnos, koje smo razvijali stotinama tisuća godina evolucije, one ne rade. Ne možete vidjeti je li nečiji dah usklađen s vašim. Zato se zrcalni neuroni nikada ne pale, oksitocin nikada ne kola vašim tijelom, nikada nemate iskustvo povezivanja s drugim ljudskim bićem. Umjesto toga, ostaje vam ono: "Pa, složili su se sa mnom. A jesu li zaista, jesu li me zaista shvatili?" I mi ne krivimo tehnologiju za taj nedostatak vjernosti. Mi krivimo drugu osobu.
You know, even the technologies and the digital initiatives that we have to promote humans, are intensely anti-human at the core. Think about the blockchain. The blockchain is here to help us have a great humanized economy? No. The blockchain does not engender trust between users, the blockchain simply substitutes for trust in a new, even less transparent way.
Znate, čak i tehnologije i digitalne inicijative koje imamo za promoviranje ljudi, snažno su anti-ljudske u srži. Razmislite o blockchainu. Blokchain postoji da nam pomogne imati sjajnu humaniziranu ekonomiju? Ne! Blockchain ne stvara povjerenje između korisnika. Blockchain je jednostavno zamjena za povjerenje na novi, još manje transparentan način.
Or the code movement. I mean, education is great, we love education, and it's a wonderful idea that we want kids to be able to get jobs in the digital future, so we'll teach them code now. But since when is education about getting jobs? Education wasn't about getting jobs. Education was compensation for a job well done. The idea of public education was for coal miners, who would work in the coal mines all day, then they'd come home and they should have the dignity to be able to read a novel and understand it. Or the intelligence to be able to participate in democracy. When we make it an extension of the job, what are we really doing? We're just letting corporations really externalize the cost of training their workers.
Ili pokret za učenje programiranja. Mislim, obrazovanje je sjajno, mi volimo obrazovanje i to je prekrasna ideja da želimo da djeca budu u stanju naći posao u digitalnoj budućnosti, stoga ćemo ih sada naučiti programirati. Ali otkada je svrha obrazovanja dobivanje posla? To nije bila svrha obrazovanja. Obrazovanje je bilo kompenzacija za dobro odrađen posao. Zamisao javnog obrazovanja bila je za rudare ugljena, koji bi po cijeli dan radili u rudniku, a kada bi došli kući trebali bi imati dostojanstvo da mogu čitati roman i razumjeti ga. Ili biti toliko inteligentni da su sposobni sudjelovati u demokraciji. Kada od toga radimo produžetak posla, što mi ustvari radimo? Mi zapravo samo puštamo korporacije da na druge prebace troškove obučavanja svojih radnika.
And the worst of all really is the humane technology movement. I mean, I love these guys, the former guys who used to take the algorithms from Las Vegas slot machines and put them in our social media feed so that we get addicted. Now they've seen the error of their ways and they want to make technology more humane. But when I hear the expression "humane technology," I think about cage-free chickens or something. We're going to be as humane as possible to them, until we take them to the slaughter. So now they're going to let these technologies be as humane as possible, as long as they extract enough data and extract enough money from us to please their shareholders. Meanwhile, the shareholders, for their part, they're just thinking, "I need to earn enough money now, so I can insulate myself from the world I'm creating by earning money in this way."
A zaista najgori od svih je pokret za humanu tehnologiju. Hoću reći, meni se sviđaju ti momci, bivši momci koji su znali uzeti algoritme iz automata u Las Vegasu i ugrađivati ih u društvene medije kako bismo postali ovisni o njima. Sada uviđaju da su pogriješili i žele tehnologiju učiniti humanijom. No, kad čujem izraz "humana tehnologija", pomislim na nekavezne piliće ili tako nešto. Bit ćemo prema njima humani koliko je god to moguće, sve dok ih ne odvedemo na klanje. Tako će oni pustiti da te tehnologije budu što je moguće humanije, sve dok od nas izvlače dovoljno podataka i dovoljno novca kako bi usrećili svoje dioničare. Dotle dioničari, sa svoje strane, samo razmišljaju: "Moram zaraditi dovoljno novca sada kako bih se izolirao od svijeta koji stvaram zarađujući novac na ovaj način."
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
No matter how many VR goggles they slap on their faces and whatever fantasy world they go into, they can't externalize the slavery and pollution that was caused through the manufacture of the very device.
Bez obzira koliko VR naočala nataknu na lice i u koji god fantastični svijet da ulaze, oni ne mogu na druge prebaciti ropstvo i zagađenje uzrokovano proizvodnjom samih tih uređaja.
It reminds me of Thomas Jefferson's dumbwaiter. Now, we like to think that he made the dumbwaiter in order to spare his slaves all that labor of carrying the food up to the dining room for the people to eat. That's not what it was for, it wasn't for the slaves, it was for Thomas Jefferson and his dinner guests, so they didn't have to see the slave bringing the food up. The food just arrived magically, like it was coming out of a "Start Trek" replicator. It's part of an ethos that says, human beings are the problem and technology is the solution.
To me podsjeća na kuhinjsko dizalo Thomasa Jeffersona. Mi volimo zamišljati da je on napravio kuhinjsko dizalo kako bi poštedio svoje robove svog tog truda oko donošenja hrane gore u blagovaonicu gdje ljudi jedu. Nije to bilo zato, nije bilo za robove, bilo je za Thomasa Jeffersona i njegove goste, kako ne bi morali gledati robove koji donose hranu. Hrana je dolazila magijom, kao da izlazi iz replikatora "Zvjezdanih staza". To je dio etosa koji kaže, ljudska bića su problem, a tehnologija je rješenje.
We can't think that way anymore. We have to stop using technology to optimize human beings for the market and start optimizing technology for the human future. But that's a really hard argument to make these days, because humans are not popular beings. I talked about this in front of an environmentalist just the other day, and she said, "Why are you defending humans? Humans destroyed the planet. They deserve to go extinct."
Ne možemo više razmišljati na taj način. Moramo prestati koristiti tehnologiju za optimiziranje ljudskih bića za tržište i početi optimizirati tehnologiju za budućnost ljudi. Ali to je zaista težak argument u današnje vrijeme, zato jer ljudi više nisu popularna bića. Neki dan sam o tome govorio pred jednom aktivisticom za okoliš, a ona je rekla, "Zašto branite ljude? Ljudi su uništili planet. Zaslužuju da izumru."
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Even our popular media hates humans. Watch television, all the sci-fi shows are about how robots are better and nicer than people. Even zombie shows -- what is every zombie show about? Some person, looking at the horizon at some zombie going by, and they zoom in on the person and you see the person's face, and you know what they're thinking: "What's really the difference between that zombie and me? He walks, I walk. He eats, I eat. He kills, I kill." But he's a zombie. At least you're aware of it. If we are actually having trouble distinguishing ourselves from zombies, we have a pretty big problem going on.
Čak i naši popularni mediji mrze ljude. Gledajte televiziju, svi SF filmovi su o tome kako su roboti bolji i ljubazniji od ljudi. Čak i filmovi o zombijima -- o čemu je svaki film o zombijima? Netko promatra nekog zombija koji se pojavljuje na horizontu i onda zumiraju na osobu, vi vidite lice te osobe i znate o čemu razmišlja: "U čemu je zapravo razlika između tog zombija i mene? On hoda, ja hodam. On jede, ja jedem. On ubija, ja ubijam." Ali on je zombi. Bar ste toga svjesni. Ako nam je zaista teško razlikovati sebe od zombija, onda je to prilično veliki problem.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
And don't even get me started on the transhumanists. I was on a panel with a transhumanist, and he's going on about the singularity. "Oh, the day is going to come really soon when computers are smarter than people. And the only option for people at that point is to pass the evolutionary torch to our successor and fade into the background. Maybe at best, upload your consciousness to a silicon chip. And accept your extinction."
I samo nemojte da počnem o transhumanistima. Bio sam na panel diskusiji s jednim od njih koji je pričao o singularitetu. "Oh, vrlo skoro doći će dan kad će računala biti pametnija od ljudi. I jedina opcija za ljude u tom času je da evolucijsku baklju predaju našem nasljedniku i izgube se u pozadini. U najboljem slučaju, da svoju svijest prenesu na silikonski čip. I prihvate svoje izumiranje."
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
And I said, "No, human beings are special. We can embrace ambiguity, we understand paradox, we're conscious, we're weird, we're quirky. There should be a place for humans in the digital future." And he said, "Oh, Rushkoff, you're just saying that because you're a human."
A ja sam rekao, "Ne, ljudska bića su posebna. Mi možemo prihvatiti višeznačnost, mi razumijemo proturječje, mi smo svjesni, mi smo čudni, mi smo osebujni. Moralo bi postajati mjesto za ljude u digitalnoj budućnosti." A on je rekao, "Oh, Rushkoff, ti to govoriš samo zato jer si ljudsko biće."
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
As if it's hubris. OK, I'm on "Team Human." That was the original insight of the digital age. That being human is a team sport, evolution's a collaborative act.
Kao da je to oholost. U redu, ja sam u "Team Human". To je bio originalni uvid u digitalno doba, da je biti čovjek timski sport, kolaborativno djelo evolucije.
Even the trees in the forest, they're not all in competition with each other, they're connected with the vast network of roots and mushrooms that let them communicate with one another and pass nutrients back and forth. If human beings are the most evolved species, it's because we have the most evolved ways of collaborating and communicating. We have language. We have technology.
Čak i stabla u šumi, ona se ne natječu jedno s drugim, ona su povezana golemom mrežom korijenja i gljiva koja im omogućava međusobnu komunikaciju i prijenos hranjivih tvari od jednog do drugog. Ako su ljudska bića najrazvijenija vrsta, to je zato jer mi imamo najrazvijenije načine suradnje i komuniciranja. Mi imamo jezik. Mi imamo tehnologiju.
It's funny, I used to be the guy who talked about the digital future for people who hadn't yet experienced anything digital. And now I feel like I'm the last guy who remembers what life was like before digital technology. It's not a matter of rejecting the digital or rejecting the technological. It's a matter of retrieving the values that we're in danger of leaving behind and then embedding them in the digital infrastructure for the future.
To je čudno, ja sam nekad bio taj koji je govorio o digitalnoj budućnosti ljudima koji još nisu imali nikakvog iskustva s digitalnim. A sada se osjećam kao da sam ja posljednji koji se sjeća kako je izgledao život prije digitalne tehnologije. Nije stvar u odbacivanju digitalnog ili odbacivanju tehnologije. Stvar je u obnavljanju vrijednosti koje su u opasnosti da ih napustimo i da ih uklopimo u digitalnu infrastrukturu budućnosti.
And that's not rocket science. It's as simple as making a social network that instead of teaching us to see people as adversaries, it teaches us to see our adversaries as people. It means creating an economy that doesn't favor a platform monopoly that wants to extract all the value out of people and places, but one that promotes the circulation of value through a community and allows us to establish platform cooperatives that distribute ownership as wide as possible. It means building platforms that don't repress our creativity and novelty in the name of prediction but actually promote creativity and novelty, so that we can come up with some of the solutions to actually get ourselves out of the mess that we're in.
A to nije neka velika mudrost. To je jednostavno kao stvaranje društvene mreže koja umjesto da nas uči gledati na ljude kao na suparnike, uči nas da na suparnike gledamo kao na ljude. To znači stvaranje ekonomije koja ne pogoduje platformi monopola koja želi izvući svu vrijednost iz ljudi i mjesta, nego koja promovira optjecaj vrijednosti unutar zajednice i omogućava stvaranje kooperativnih platformi koje distribuiraju vlasništvo što je moguće šire. To znači stvaranje platformi koje ne potiskuju našu kreativnost i inovativnost u ime predviđanja, nego zapravo promoviraju kreativnost i inovativnost kako bismo mogli osmisliti neka rješenja da se izvučemo iz zbrke u kojoj se nalazimo.
No, instead of trying to earn enough money to insulate ourselves from the world we're creating, why don't we spend that time and energy making the world a place that we don't feel the need to escape from.
Ne, umjesto pokušavanja da zaradimo dovoljno novca kako bismo se izolirali od svijeta koji stvaramo, zašto ne utrošiti to vrijeme i energiju da svijet učinimo mjestom iz kojeg ne bismo imali potrebu bježati?
There is no escape, there is only one thing going on here. Please, don't leave. Join us. We may not be perfect, but whatever happens, at least you won't be alone. Join "Team Human." Find the others. Together, let's make the future that we always wanted. Oh, and those tech billionaires who wanted to know how to maintain control of their security force after the apocalypse, you know what I told them? "Start treating those people with love and respect right now. Maybe you won't have an apocalypse to worry about."
Ne može se pobjeći, ovdje se događa samo jedna stvar. Molim vas, ne odlazite. Pridružite nam se. Mi možda nismo savršeni, no štogod da se dogodi, bar nećete biti sami. Pridružite se "Timu ljudi". Pronađite druge. Hajde da zajedno stvorimo budućnost kakvu smo oduvijek željeli. A ti tech milijarderi koji su željeli saznati kako održati kontrolu nad svojim zaštitarima nakon apokalipse, znate li što sam im rekao? "Počnite odmah sada tretirati te ljude s ljubavlju i poštovanjem. Možda tada nećete morati brinuti o apokalipsi."
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)