hello everyone I would like to ask a
very big question why do we want the
internet really how do we want it I feel
almost a bit childish asking a big
question like that but more and more
people have no memory of a time before
the Internet they just take it for
granted it’s just there right so for me
it’s a very important question to answer
because I was there in the pre-internet
days so here’s my answer it’s as big as
the question might be and probably a bit
it’s actually here in this picture how
many of you thought about what’s there
on the other side of this fence yeah we
are curious beings and in fact compared
to other animals we’re quite childish
too we retain or childlike curiosity
even as we grow old there’s a scientific
term for retaining childlike features
and it’s called neoteny it literally
means extended youth we have bigger
heads flatter faces and shorter arms and
legs than other primates we actually
look childish and I actually look very
we have been aware of this childishness
of course as humans for a long time
personally I spent a lot of my time in
Japan and in Zen Buddhism there is this
idea about shushing it would translate
into something like naive heart and it
means that you should approach anything
even advanced topics just like a
childhood other animals they stopped
playing and learning as the growler but
we humans have a continued appetite for
learning some animals are carnivores
meat-eaters others are herbivores plant
eaters but we humans we should probably
think of ourselves as Infowars
because our appetite for information is
endless we gather information by travel
now travel is all about exploring the
unknown even when you go for an
unplanned trip in your car you’re
actually an explorer if you think about
it and just like with your car a lot of
new technology has been developed
specifically in conjunction with travel
to go faster to go further a long time
ago we build ships that took us to
distant shores we got there we struck
camp we built bigger ships that took us
even further but the camps got bigger
too and they turned into cities if you
think about it many of the world’s
biggest cities are situated next to
water as a result of curiosity in terms
curiosity is not something exclusive to
famous explorers like Christopher
Columbus or Roald Amundsen
or Neil Armstrong it’s just that back
but of course the internet changed all
of that
the internet is there for almost
everyone and I really mean almost
everyone there are about 2.5 billion
smartphone users in the world right now
and if you take an old iPhone 4 that was
released back in 2010 it actually has
the computing power of a Cray two
supercomputer from 1995 so we literally
have billions of explorers out there
using supercomputers and since these
devices let us travel and explore we
should really think about them as our
ships the only difference is that now
the next Shore the new frontier as it
were is in cyberspace and just like the
physical explorers formed relationships
with their devices we talked about the
captain and captain of his ship and the
crew of the enterprise and all these
kinds of things of course we also form
personally I first formed such a
relationship with the computer when I
got one in order to write articles and
books since then of course digital
devices have changed me fundamentally
but it also changed the main character
of my second novel published in 1990 it
tells the story of a man who starts
speaking a sort of machine language his
exposure to computers makes him behave
partially as a machine
and in a more indirect way I think
actually that happens to all of us we
get influenced by our digital devices to
me that’s very fascinating I’ve always
been interested in this overlap between
the digital and the physical so that’s
why I went on to do a PhD in metadata
modeling at a university in Japan after
that I more concretely started studying
how people are using digital devices in
everyday life
first at Ericsson consumer lab and also
more recently as an adjunct professor at
the University of lund so I’ve had the
privilege to study how people set out on
this digital journey while doing so
myself at the same time and this is a
journey that still very much is ongoing
it can actually be summarized in two
important device strands that I would
like to share with you today the first
one the first trend is about the
realization that there is a very very
clear direction in how devices are
developing they’re coming from the floor
up towards us so it’s a very directional
trend a long time ago computers were big
dinosaurs that filled whole rooms but
eventually they got so small that we
started calling them tower pcs but all
of these devices were floor tops from
there that took a step up towards us and
became desktops the next step was kind
of a strategic side maneuver Hewish bit
sly I think from these devices but they
kind of slid off the tables and onto our
laps and became laptops right but from
there once they got there they started
back in this direction of the actual
trend and towards us and they got into
hands and they became palmtops
mobile phones and such stuff and
actually they’ve been there for the last
35 years what is widely thought to be
the next step in this trend is for
computers to become glasses now if and
when that happens
this represents the thinking of this
directional trend which is why I call it
head tops device is removed from the
floor and now they’re on top of our
heads computers on top of our heads in
the form of glasses but even though the
trend Peaks there it doesn’t of course
end there because the actual direction
is not towards the outside of her head
it’s of course towards your brains so
that’s the head top trend but recently
there’s a new device category that
seemingly doesn’t fit in with this trend
because it’s back to being desktop
device again I’m talking about smart
speakers although this trend is not
about jumping towards us it’s very much
about brains
this time the brains in the devices so
that’s probably why we are using more
and more of this smart prefix for
everything smart phones smartwatches
smart cars smart thermometers and of
course their smart watches smart
everything but if you compare a smart
speaker to other speakers there are
clear differences take me for example
right now I’m a speaker but I’m clearly
different to a smart speaker right so
what if the small speaker would be more
like me hmm then you might react to say
that I’m a very dumb speaker but even so
I would be fundamentally different to
that device so for devices to become
more likely they would first have to be
aware of me as an individual and in fact
that is what is happening right now
which is why I call the second trend a
wearables now a wearables they don’t
have to be wearable they just have to be
aware aware army and aware of my
so it would be very easy for you to see
if this trend is really happening
maybe that smart speaker starts
recognizing and becoming aware of
different people in the room and talk to
them in different ways or maybe you will
actually see self-driving cars on the
streets but the one device that is of
course has the biggest potential to
become aware of you would be a personal
device like the smartphone so
smartphones already today contain a lot
of sensors and they gather a lot of
information about this but they use all
that to perform what I would say simile
looks like looks like seemingly trivial
functions such as unlocking your phone
even when they do that in a very
high-tech fashion such as with face
recognition and whatnot but what if your
smartphone would really become aware of
you not only what you do but who you are
there is in fact already today
artificial intelligence technology that
can decide your personality just by
looking into your eyes or hearing your
voice what if your smartphone would do
that the roles would be reversed today
we need to learn how to use devices we
need to speak the Machine language as it
were like the man in my novel until we
can use them but tomorrow with wearables
they will understand us and act
accordingly so that’s the aware of all
trend but won’t we become slaves to
these machines won’t we become isolated
from other humans and just turn into
computer servants a lot of people seem
to fear that and there are also many
experts
but from my perspective I think we’re
already slaves to these machines at
least we give all our time to them right
already back in 2011 we did a diary
survey where we tried to figure out how
people spend their everyday life what
they put their time on and if we take
New York the average time spent working
there among our survey respondents was
39 hours in a week that was the single
biggest activity for them but if you
would take all the time they spent in
front of screens and call that one
activity even though it was on different
devices somewhere for work and somewhat
for other purposes but if you would just
call it screen time that was actually
the number one activity 41 hours so if
you take that perspective we are already
what you might call homo apparatus the
big machine Apes a lot of that time is
spent learning how to use this devices
of course that how to use Word and
PowerPoint how to upload data and
download data how to find apps and
update apps and how to connect the cloud
services and how to set passwords and
manage passwords and so on and so forth
and if we don’t learn how to use these
things
what happens the machines talk us out in
fact the machines are already looking us
out from very basic societal services so
people who today don’t know how to use
online banking they are finding lis
finding it increasingly difficult to do
even simple things such as paying their
water and electricity bills it’s a real
problem for them so we are slaves to
device today because we try to be like
that but tomorrow
devices will try to be like us and if we
only can hand this transition in a good
way which will be a challenge of course
but if we can handle this transition
maybe the playing field will be more
equal so to sum up I talked about our
endless curiosity and the fact that it
doesn’t go away with age instead we’re
given an extended youth and that lets us
explore the Internet the Internet is
there for us to use our curiosity and
annal devices are very important because
they get us there to the Internet so I
talked about the trend of devices
jumping up from the floor towards us
towards our brains the head top trend
the other trend was also about devices I
talked about a wearables within some
years machines will know us better than
we know them and we’re already slaves to
these machines in the sense that we need
to speak their language today and that
influences us if you take the man in my
novel he lost somebody’s empathy and
actually some of his curiosity too but
with the wearables machines will
understand us and act accordingly and if
we can handle this transition maybe it
will level the playing field for us and
then we can spend our valuable time on
different things on better things and
what would be better than spend the time
on satisfying or endless curiosity which
is why we wanted the internet in the
first place digital devices are not
there to make us buy more things for
cheaper price online that’s not their
purpose we want devices because they let
us travel and explore if they stop
serving that purpose
I believe that we will lose interest in
them and not use them anymore
but as long as they continue to ticular
in imagination as we grow older they
could help us extend the unique human
feature our curiosity and we need to
keep this goal in mind as long as we
keep this goal in mind the Internet and
the next generation of digital devices
could in fact help us become more human
and not less thank you very much [Applause]
very big question why do we want the
internet really how do we want it I feel
almost a bit childish asking a big
question like that but more and more
people have no memory of a time before
the Internet they just take it for
granted it’s just there right so for me
it’s a very important question to answer
because I was there in the pre-internet
days so here’s my answer it’s as big as
the question might be and probably a bit
it’s actually here in this picture how
many of you thought about what’s there
on the other side of this fence yeah we
are curious beings and in fact compared
to other animals we’re quite childish
too we retain or childlike curiosity
even as we grow old there’s a scientific
term for retaining childlike features
and it’s called neoteny it literally
means extended youth we have bigger
heads flatter faces and shorter arms and
legs than other primates we actually
look childish and I actually look very
we have been aware of this childishness
of course as humans for a long time
personally I spent a lot of my time in
Japan and in Zen Buddhism there is this
idea about shushing it would translate
into something like naive heart and it
means that you should approach anything
even advanced topics just like a
childhood other animals they stopped
playing and learning as the growler but
we humans have a continued appetite for
learning some animals are carnivores
meat-eaters others are herbivores plant
eaters but we humans we should probably
think of ourselves as Infowars
because our appetite for information is
endless we gather information by travel
now travel is all about exploring the
unknown even when you go for an
unplanned trip in your car you’re
actually an explorer if you think about
it and just like with your car a lot of
new technology has been developed
specifically in conjunction with travel
to go faster to go further a long time
ago we build ships that took us to
distant shores we got there we struck
camp we built bigger ships that took us
even further but the camps got bigger
too and they turned into cities if you
think about it many of the world’s
biggest cities are situated next to
water as a result of curiosity in terms
curiosity is not something exclusive to
famous explorers like Christopher
Columbus or Roald Amundsen
or Neil Armstrong it’s just that back
but of course the internet changed all
of that
the internet is there for almost
everyone and I really mean almost
everyone there are about 2.5 billion
smartphone users in the world right now
and if you take an old iPhone 4 that was
released back in 2010 it actually has
the computing power of a Cray two
supercomputer from 1995 so we literally
have billions of explorers out there
using supercomputers and since these
devices let us travel and explore we
should really think about them as our
ships the only difference is that now
the next Shore the new frontier as it
were is in cyberspace and just like the
physical explorers formed relationships
with their devices we talked about the
captain and captain of his ship and the
crew of the enterprise and all these
kinds of things of course we also form
personally I first formed such a
relationship with the computer when I
got one in order to write articles and
books since then of course digital
devices have changed me fundamentally
but it also changed the main character
of my second novel published in 1990 it
tells the story of a man who starts
speaking a sort of machine language his
exposure to computers makes him behave
partially as a machine
and in a more indirect way I think
actually that happens to all of us we
get influenced by our digital devices to
me that’s very fascinating I’ve always
been interested in this overlap between
the digital and the physical so that’s
why I went on to do a PhD in metadata
modeling at a university in Japan after
that I more concretely started studying
how people are using digital devices in
everyday life
first at Ericsson consumer lab and also
more recently as an adjunct professor at
the University of lund so I’ve had the
privilege to study how people set out on
this digital journey while doing so
myself at the same time and this is a
journey that still very much is ongoing
it can actually be summarized in two
important device strands that I would
like to share with you today the first
one the first trend is about the
realization that there is a very very
clear direction in how devices are
developing they’re coming from the floor
up towards us so it’s a very directional
trend a long time ago computers were big
dinosaurs that filled whole rooms but
eventually they got so small that we
started calling them tower pcs but all
of these devices were floor tops from
there that took a step up towards us and
became desktops the next step was kind
of a strategic side maneuver Hewish bit
sly I think from these devices but they
kind of slid off the tables and onto our
laps and became laptops right but from
there once they got there they started
back in this direction of the actual
trend and towards us and they got into
hands and they became palmtops
mobile phones and such stuff and
actually they’ve been there for the last
35 years what is widely thought to be
the next step in this trend is for
computers to become glasses now if and
when that happens
this represents the thinking of this
directional trend which is why I call it
head tops device is removed from the
floor and now they’re on top of our
heads computers on top of our heads in
the form of glasses but even though the
trend Peaks there it doesn’t of course
end there because the actual direction
is not towards the outside of her head
it’s of course towards your brains so
that’s the head top trend but recently
there’s a new device category that
seemingly doesn’t fit in with this trend
because it’s back to being desktop
device again I’m talking about smart
speakers although this trend is not
about jumping towards us it’s very much
about brains
this time the brains in the devices so
that’s probably why we are using more
and more of this smart prefix for
everything smart phones smartwatches
smart cars smart thermometers and of
course their smart watches smart
everything but if you compare a smart
speaker to other speakers there are
clear differences take me for example
right now I’m a speaker but I’m clearly
different to a smart speaker right so
what if the small speaker would be more
like me hmm then you might react to say
that I’m a very dumb speaker but even so
I would be fundamentally different to
that device so for devices to become
more likely they would first have to be
aware of me as an individual and in fact
that is what is happening right now
which is why I call the second trend a
wearables now a wearables they don’t
have to be wearable they just have to be
aware aware army and aware of my
so it would be very easy for you to see
if this trend is really happening
maybe that smart speaker starts
recognizing and becoming aware of
different people in the room and talk to
them in different ways or maybe you will
actually see self-driving cars on the
streets but the one device that is of
course has the biggest potential to
become aware of you would be a personal
device like the smartphone so
smartphones already today contain a lot
of sensors and they gather a lot of
information about this but they use all
that to perform what I would say simile
looks like looks like seemingly trivial
functions such as unlocking your phone
even when they do that in a very
high-tech fashion such as with face
recognition and whatnot but what if your
smartphone would really become aware of
you not only what you do but who you are
there is in fact already today
artificial intelligence technology that
can decide your personality just by
looking into your eyes or hearing your
voice what if your smartphone would do
that the roles would be reversed today
we need to learn how to use devices we
need to speak the Machine language as it
were like the man in my novel until we
can use them but tomorrow with wearables
they will understand us and act
accordingly so that’s the aware of all
trend but won’t we become slaves to
these machines won’t we become isolated
from other humans and just turn into
computer servants a lot of people seem
to fear that and there are also many
experts
but from my perspective I think we’re
already slaves to these machines at
least we give all our time to them right
already back in 2011 we did a diary
survey where we tried to figure out how
people spend their everyday life what
they put their time on and if we take
New York the average time spent working
there among our survey respondents was
39 hours in a week that was the single
biggest activity for them but if you
would take all the time they spent in
front of screens and call that one
activity even though it was on different
devices somewhere for work and somewhat
for other purposes but if you would just
call it screen time that was actually
the number one activity 41 hours so if
you take that perspective we are already
what you might call homo apparatus the
big machine Apes a lot of that time is
spent learning how to use this devices
of course that how to use Word and
PowerPoint how to upload data and
download data how to find apps and
update apps and how to connect the cloud
services and how to set passwords and
manage passwords and so on and so forth
and if we don’t learn how to use these
things
what happens the machines talk us out in
fact the machines are already looking us
out from very basic societal services so
people who today don’t know how to use
online banking they are finding lis
finding it increasingly difficult to do
even simple things such as paying their
water and electricity bills it’s a real
problem for them so we are slaves to
device today because we try to be like
that but tomorrow
devices will try to be like us and if we
only can hand this transition in a good
way which will be a challenge of course
but if we can handle this transition
maybe the playing field will be more
equal so to sum up I talked about our
endless curiosity and the fact that it
doesn’t go away with age instead we’re
given an extended youth and that lets us
explore the Internet the Internet is
there for us to use our curiosity and
annal devices are very important because
they get us there to the Internet so I
talked about the trend of devices
jumping up from the floor towards us
towards our brains the head top trend
the other trend was also about devices I
talked about a wearables within some
years machines will know us better than
we know them and we’re already slaves to
these machines in the sense that we need
to speak their language today and that
influences us if you take the man in my
novel he lost somebody’s empathy and
actually some of his curiosity too but
with the wearables machines will
understand us and act accordingly and if
we can handle this transition maybe it
will level the playing field for us and
then we can spend our valuable time on
different things on better things and
what would be better than spend the time
on satisfying or endless curiosity which
is why we wanted the internet in the
first place digital devices are not
there to make us buy more things for
cheaper price online that’s not their
purpose we want devices because they let
us travel and explore if they stop
serving that purpose
I believe that we will lose interest in
them and not use them anymore
but as long as they continue to ticular
in imagination as we grow older they
could help us extend the unique human
feature our curiosity and we need to
keep this goal in mind as long as we
keep this goal in mind the Internet and
the next generation of digital devices
could in fact help us become more human
and not less thank you very much [Applause]
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