Techno optimism vs. pessimism

Are you an optimist or do you have a natural proclivity towards pessimism?

Here is an old story worth telling: A family had twin boys whose only resemblance to each other was their looks. If one felt it was too hot, the other thought it was too cold. If one said the TV was too loud, the other claimed the volume needed to be turned up. Opposite in every way, one was an eternal optimist, the other a doom & gloom pessimist.

The parents noticed the contrast in disposition and, so wanting to see what would happen, on the twins’ birthday their father loaded the pessimist’s room with every imaginable toy and game. The optimist’s room he loaded with horse manure.

That night the father passed by the pessimist’s room and found him sitting amid his new gifts crying bitterly.

“Why are you crying?” the father asked.

“Because my friends will be jealous, I’ll have to read all these instructions before I can do anything with this stuff, I’ll constantly need batteries, and my toys will eventually get broken,” answered the pessimist twin.

Passing the optimist twin’s room, the father found him dancing for joy in the pile of manure. “What are you so happy about?” he asked.

To which his optimist twin replied, “There’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!”

In the field of technology, it has been observed that two giant figures – Elon Musk and Jack Ma – display different dispositions. Their words reveal a little bit of their temperament.

Tesla’s Elon Musk says: “I am not trying to be anyone’s savior. I am just trying to think about the future and not be sad.” He is also the same person who says I want to die in Mars. Just not to crash into it.

Alibaba’s Jack Ma says: “‘There are big problems that change the world. If we are working together, that will make us understand each other, appreciate each other, help each other.’ ‘Never give up. Today is hard. Tomorrow will be worse. But the day after tomorrow will be sunshine.’”

So, what am I driving at? How is the future and what would be the future as far as technology is taking us?

There are now many quotes and narratives from respected business leaders as well as the academe giving us hints toward the kind of future we will have, and it would be good to pay attention and assess their observations:

• Up to 35 percent of jobs in Britain will be eliminated by new computing and robotics technology over the next 20 years, say experts (Deloitte/ Oxford University).

• A similar report featured on CNBC in March 2016 concluded that 50 percent of US Jobs were at “high risk” of being automated out of existence in the next two decades. There is now a term for this and it is called “The Jobs Apocalypse.”

The respected tech authority Marc Andreessen says: “Software is eating the world.”

• Michael Vassar, MetaMed founder, quoted in New York magazine says: “Almost all health care people get is going to be done – hopefully – by algorithms within a decade or two.”

• It has been well publicized about how algorithms have already written symphonies as inspiring as those composed by the master musicians of old, written news articles like a veteran reporter, diagnosed patients with more accuracy than a doctor, and provided legal advice a senior law partner would have done, and needless to say, drove cars and trucks on highways better than humans can. In his book “Automate This: How Algorithms Took Over Our Markets,” author Christopher Steiner narrated an actual incident about a classical music-composing contest that was won by an algorithmically produced piece of music. Later on, at a subsequent high-level conference, the algorithm’s creator was punched in the nose by a leading (human) composer.

• “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function,” says Albert A. Bartlett.

• Automation has become so sophisticated that on a typical passenger flight, a human pilot holds the controls for a grand total of just THREE MINUTES. Pilots have become, it’s not much of an exaggeration to say, computer operators. Says Nicholas Carr, “The Great Forgetting” The Atlantic.

Would these views be alarmism or expressions of truth that is poised to happen? I don’t know. There are “techno-optimists” who believe that we will cope with these changes, face these “technology tsunami” and come out the other end whole and there are equally intelligent and seasoned “techno-pessimists” who have apocalyptic views.

The one thing I know is that I will still have to give my best in what I currently do today and level up each day through diligent study, an aversion to status quo and desire for comfort, and to just plain old rise and shine and grind and provide excellent service and training for my clients.

I am more inclined towards the optimism side because of two reasons: That as long as I continue to learn, it enables me to be adaptive to change. The second reason is stronger than the first one: “I do not know what the future may hold, but I certainly know and trust Who holds the future.”

(Francis Kong with his highly acclaimed Level Up Leadership learning event will run on June 5-6 at Makati Diamond Residences near Greenbelt 1. Early registrations and reservations can be made by contacting April at +63928-559-1798 or register online at www.levelupleadership.ph)