( A Ten minute read)

These day’s bashing free-market capitalism is high on the agenda and its no wonder as we indeed need to understand its shortcomings. Yet criticizing capitalism should not blind us to its advantages and attainments.

If we ignore the potential ecological meltdown and measure success by production and growth we could say with some degree of accuracy that perpetual growth and cooperation has to a great extent being achieved.

We’re surfing a technology tsunami!

New technologies are changing the way the world operates, the way people live, and the way we do business. Nothing will ever be the same, as customers take control of relationships. But the connectivity explosion has also created a global trust crisis. Who do we trust – the local pharmacy, or Google? Our local politicians, or a stranger we have never met on Facebook?

Power is shifting – moving from institutions, from governments and big companies, into the hands of connected individuals. This is completely reshaping societies, economics, politics and business. And this is giving rise to a generation of new, nimble, innovative competitors across the entire business market, who are challenging the existing players with different models and new rules.

The world as you know it is rapidly changing: AI, Robotics, Drones, Block chain, 3 D printers, Self-Driving Cars, Unlimited energy, the list goes on and on.

If on an almost daily basis, there is a sense that the world is moving faster, it’s because we are! Entire industries will be rocked to the core and some will be destroyed overnight, while others will be created.

But at what price.

The new modern deal with Artificial Intelligence Algorithms and the coming automation is demanding that we give up meaning as the free-market cloaked in Algorithms is making Capitalism blind and invisible.

We humans remain as fickle as the wind.

Who ever determines the meaning of our actions, whether they be good or bad, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, will have the authority to tell us what to think and how to behave.

Our source of meaning and authority is now being relocated into filtered wireless platforms which are in the process of reshaping logic that has no sensitivity or experience.  Indeed we are heading to a new form of living that is taking no measure of feelings that can be turned into wisdom. Unfortunately it remains impossible to take into account the experiences of all to weight them against each other in a fair way. If we want a fair and just world it will be only achieved by common action.  It is impossible to argue that all human experiences are equally valuable.

To the  best of our scientific understanding, determinism and randomness have divided the entire cake between them.

Our feelings as you know provide meaning not only for our privater lives , but also for social and political processes.

In the past world history was shape by small number of forward thinking people not by the masses. To day we are all carrying brain scanners call smartphones all of which are in the business of predicting people’s desires and making decisions well before we become aware of them.

Lacking freewill is the main aim of every un vetted algorithm and app that are designed to generate profit.

With direct brain stimulation becoming the new scientific world, with its technologies translating into everyday activities and economic structures we will need new religious beliefs and new political institutions.

Many inventions are born in the lab and never make it into the consumer market, while others evolve beyond the pace of putting good regulations on their use. For example Twitter Periscope app being used to groom children.  Or facial recognition apps that will soon be enforcing open air prisons turning us all into second class Google citizens.     

We have the technology to put computers almost anywhere and in almost anything surely its time we create a New World Organisation which is self financing and totally transparent to vet all technology. ( see previous posts) 

Machines could soon have access to our innermost thoughts.

Our thoughts and actions could actually be hijacked by a form of media that makes us think we’re getting what we want, when really, we’re going for something our brains may only think is supposed to be good.

Data and the machines and algorithms used to manage and make sense of it could largely replace independent decision-making — either large or small — and it is happening at such a speed that it’s sometimes hard to remember the data isn’t in control.

People still control the data, but just who has this control and what they do with it will become an ongoing challenge.

Will there be a day when you say “I can’t read your mind, you know!” and the reply will be “Oh, stop it — of course you can!”?

Picture a tiny bit of a thing on an already minuscule computer chip. Something microscopic with the power to think like a computer without the need of complex circuitry and capable of being moved by light or sound: That is quantum technology simplified.

Lack of opportunity and lack of hope for the youth are practically boiling over — or, at least, are simmering and ready to explode.

Maybe you aren’t comfortable with all of the futurist predictions and even the current rate of technological advance, and that’s OK. You can be yourself and interact in the world in a fairly low-tech way while allowing a surrogate, avatar or robot to live your online and tech life for you.

How wants a faceless world without understanding intelligence or cognition first.

We need to be concerned about the unintended consequences in the types of AI that are no being developed before they are trusted.

Being a scientist doesn’t absolve you from humanity.

We need a clear idea of what we want AI to do or become. There is little point in automation pushing people out of jobs, making people who own the machines richer and every one else poorer.

We are now looking down the barrel of Colliding Worlds: 

Linear vs. Exponential. Physical vs. Virtual. People vs. Machines. Ownership vs. Access. Limits vs. Abundance, and so much more.

This is not a scientific issue; it’s a political and socioeconomic problem that we as society must solve.

The conservation of all forms of life is a shared responsibility.

The big question will be why should super intelligence keep us around.

If we don’t find a way of distributing our wealth in all forms better we will fuel capitalism with artificial intelligence serving very few.

A gloomy underworld of tech-savvy ne’-er-do-wells using their genius for profit.

Three recent breakthroughs moved artificial intelligence from the trivial days to where we are today. Cheap parallel computing, Big Data, Better algorithms.

Taken together, these three developments created the ideal conditions for AI to evolve.

All comments Appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.