conversation with professor Yuval Noah
Harare my name is Gillian Tett I’m the
u.s. managing editor of the Financial
Times now there are not many historians
who would be put on the main stage of
the Congress center of the World
Economic Forum sandwiched between Angela
Merkel and McComb I think there are even
fewer who could fill the room almost as
much as Angela Merkel and almost none
who would have the experience as we were
waiting in the greenroom and Angela
Merkel came through Chancellor Merkel
came through she took care to stop go up
to you ball and introduce herself and
say I’ve read your book pretty amazing
but eval Harare has written two very
important books which have really shaped
the debate not just inside governments
but inside many businesses and many
non-governmental organisations – one of
them I imagine most of you read Sapien
hands up who in the room with read
sapiens okay well that is pretty
impressive his second book her modeis
took those themes of sapiens looking at
the history of mankind through it into
the future and look to the dish you of
digital he’s got a third book coming out
this summer 21 lessons for the 21st
century which is going to look at the
present but what he’s going to be
talking about today is something that
actually Chancellor Merkel touched on in
her own speech which is a question of
data and what do we do about data today
his ideas are very provocative very
alarming and something that all of you
should pay very close attention to now
professor Harare professor Yuval the
thank you so hello everybody let me just
have one minute to get friends with this
computer and make sure everything is ok
and can I have a bit more light on the
audience so I can see the faces and not
just speak to a darkness thank you so I
want to talk to you today about the
future of our species and really the
future of life we are probably one of
the last generations of Homo sapiens
within a century or two Earth will be
dominated by entities that are more
different from us than we are different
from Neanderthals or from chimpanzees
because in the coming generations we
will learn how to engineer bodies and
brains and minds
this will be the main products of the
economy of the 21st century economy not
textiles and vehicles and weapons but
bodies and brains and minds now how
exactly will the future masters of the
planet look like this will be decided by
the people who own the data those who
control the data control the future not
just of humanity but the future of life
itself
because today data is the most important
asset in the world in ancient times land
was the most important asset and if too
much land became concentrated in too few
hands humanity split into aristocrats
and commoners then in the modern age in
the last two centuries machinery
replaced land as the most important
asset and if too many of the machine
became concentrated in too few hands
humanity split into classes into
capitalists and proletarians now data is
replacing machinery as the most
important asset and if too much of the
data becomes concentrated in two for
your hands humanity will split not in
two classes it will split into species
in two different species
now why is data so important it’s
important because we’ve reached the
point when we can hack not just
computers we can hack human beings and
other organisms there is a lot of talk
these days about hacking computers and
email accounts and bank accounts and
mobile phones but actually we are
gaining the ability to hack human beings
now what do you need in order to hack a
human being you need two things you need
a lot of computing power and you need a
lot of data especially biometric data no
data about what I buy or where I go but
data about what is happening inside my
body and inside my brain until today
nobody had the necessary computing power
and the necessary data to hack humanity
even if the Soviet KGB or the Spanish
Inquisition followed you around
everywhere 24 hours a day watching
everything you do listening to
everything you say still they didn’t
have the computing power and the
biological knowledge necessary to make
sense of what was happening inside your
body and brain and to understand how you
feel and what you think and what you
want but this is now changing because of
two simultaneous revolutions on the one
hand advances in computer
science and especially the rise of
machine learning and AI are giving us
the necessary computing power and at the
same time advances in biology and
especially in brain science are giving
us the necessary understanding
biological understanding you can really
summarize a hundred and fifty years of
biological research since Charles Darwin
in three words organisms are algorithms
this is the big insight of the modern
life sciences that organisms were the
viruses of bananas or humans they are
really just biochemical algorithms and
we are learning how to decipher these
algorithms now when the two revolutions
merge when the Infotech revolution
merges with the biotech revolution what
you get is the ability to hack human
beings and maybe the most important
invention for the merger of Infotech and
biotech is the biometric sensor that
translates biochemical processes in the
body in the brain into electronic
signals that a computer can store and
analyze and once you have enough such
biometric information and enough
computing power you can create
algorithms that know me better than I
know myself
and humans really don’t know themselves
very well this is why algorithms have a
real chance of getting to know ourselves
better
we don’t really know ourselves to give
an example when I was 21 I finally
realized that I was gay after living for
several years in denial and this is not
exceptional a lot of gay men live in
denial for many years they don’t know
something very important about
themselves now imagine the situation in
10 or 20 years when an algorithm
can tell any teenager exactly where he
or she is on the gay-straight spectrum
and even how malleable this position is
the algorithm tracks your eye movements
your blood pressure of your brain
activity and tells you who you are now
maybe you personally wouldn’t like to
make use of such an algorithm but maybe
you find yourself in some boring
birthday party of somebody from your
class at school and one of your friends
has this wonderful idea that I’ve just
heard about this cool new algorithm that
tells you your sexual orientation and
wouldn’t it be very a lot of fun if
everybody just takes turns testing
themselves on this algorithm as
everybody else is watching and
commenting what would you do would you
just walk away and even if you walk away
and even if you keep hiding from your
classmate or from yourself you will not
be able to hide from Amazon and Alibaba
and the secret police as you surf the
internet as you watch videos or check
your social feed the algorithms will be
monitoring your eye movements your blood
pressure your brain activity and they
will know they could tell coca-cola that
if you want to sell this person some
fuzzy sugary drink
don’t use the advertisement with the
shirtless girl use the advertisement
with the shirtless guy you wouldn’t even
know that this was happening but they
will know and this information will be
worth billions once we have algorithms
that can understand me better than I
understand myself they could predict my
desires manipulate my emotions and even
take decisions on my behalf and if we
are not careful the outcome might be the
rise of digital dictatorships
in the twentieth century democracy
generally outperformed dictatorship
because democracy was better at
processing data and making decisions we
are used to thinking about democracy in
dictatorship in ethical or political
terms but actually these are two
different methods to process information
democracy processes information in a
distributed way it distributes the
information and the power to make
decisions between many institutions and
individuals dictatorship on the other
hand concentrates all information and
power in one place now given the
technological conditions of the 20th
century distributed data processing
worked better than centralized data
processing which is one of the main
reasons why democracy outperform
dictatorship and why for example the US
economy outperformed the Soviet economy
but this is true only under the unique
technological conditions of the 20th
century in the 21st century new
technological revolutions especially AI
and machine learning might swing the
pendulum in the opposite direction they
might make centralized data processing
far more efficient than distributed data
processing and if democracy cannot adapt
to these new conditions then humans will
come to live under the rule of digital
dictatorships and already present we are
seeing the formation of more and more
sophisticated surveillance regimes
throughout the world not just by
authoritarian regimes but also by
democratic governments the US for
example is bill
a global surveillance system while my
home country of Israel is trying to
build a total surveillance regime in the
West Bank but control of data might
enable human elites to do something even
more radical than just build digital
dictatorships by hacking organisms
elites may gain the power to re-engineer
the future of life itself because once
you can hack something you can usually
also engineer it and if indeed we
succeed in hacking and engineering life
this will be not just the greatest
revolution in the history of humanity
this will be the greatest revolution in
biology since the very beginning of life
four billion years ago for four billion
years nothing fundamental changed in the
basic rules of the game of life all of
life for four billion years dinosaur’s
amoebas Tomatoes humans all of life was
subject to the laws of natural
selections and to the laws of organic
biochemistry but this is now about to
change science is replacing evolution by
natural selection with evolution by
intelligent design not the intelligent
design of some God above the clouds but
our intelligent design and the
intelligent design of our clouds the IBM
cloud the Microsoft cloud these are the
new driving forces of evolution and at
the same time science may enable life
after being confined for four billion
years to the limited realm of organic
compounds science may enable life to
break out into the inorganic real so
after four billion years
of organic life shaped by natural
selection we are entering the era of
inorganic life shaped by intelligent
design this is why the ownership of data
is so important if we don’t regulate it
a tiny elite may come to control not
just the future of human societies but
the shape of life-forms in the future so
how to regulate the data the ownership
of data we’ve had 10,000 years of
experience regulating the ownership of
land we have had a few centuries of
experience regulating the ownership of
industrial machinery but we don’t have
much experience in regulating the
ownership of data which is inherently
far more difficult because unlike land
and unlike machinery data is everywhere
and nowhere at the same time it can move
at the speed of light and you can create
as many copies of it as you want
so does the data about my DNA
my brain my body my life does it belong
to me or to some corporation or to the
government or perhaps to the human
collective at present big corporations
are holding much of the data and people
are becoming worried about it but
mandating government’s to nationalize
the data may curb the power of the big
corporations only in order to give rise
to digital dictatorships and politicians
really many politicians at least our
like musicians and the instrument they
play on is the human emotional and
biochemical system a politician gives a
speech and there is a wave of fear all
over the country a politician tweets and
the reason Explorer
of anger and hatred now I don’t think we
should give these musicians most
sophisticated instruments to play on and
I certainly don’t think they are ready
to be entrusted with the future of life
in the universe
especially as many politicians and
governments seem incapable of producing
meaningful visions for the future and
instead what they sell the public on
nostalgic fantasies about going back to
the past and as a historian I can tell
you two things about the past first of
all it wasn’t fun you wouldn’t like to
really go back there and secondly it’s
not coming back so nostalgic fantasies
really are not a solution so who should
on the data I frankly don’t know I think
the discussion has just began most
people when they hear the talk about
regular regulating data they think about
privacy about shopping about companies
corporations that know where I go and
what I buy but this is just the tip of
the iceberg there are much more
important things at stake so the
discussion is hardly began and we cannot
expect instant answers we had better
call upon our scientists or philosophers
our lawyers and even our poets or
especially our poets to turn their
attention to this big question how do
you regulate the ownership of data the
future not just of humanity but the
future of life itself may depend on the
answer to this question thank you
[Applause]
well thank you professor Harare for an
absolutely brilliant thought-provoking
and it must be said somewhat challenging
and depressing talk I must say I’m quite
starstruck sitting here listening to
that stream of ideas and I’d like to
start with a very simple question which
is this you paint this picture of a
future that’s quite scary
how soon do you expect that future to be
here are we talking about two years 20
years 200 years
I mean how soon could we be dealing with
digital dictatorships I think that the
time scale is decades I mean in 200
years I guess there won’t be any sapiens
left there’ll be something completely
different two years it’s far too soon so
we are talking about a few decades
nobody knows exactly how many right now
you’re unusual because you actually
stood up on that stage and you said I
don’t know what the answer is okay
that’s not something you hear a lot at
the World Economic Forum
it’s admirably humble but I’m curious
you know as you look around the world
today do you see any countries or any
groups of people or any academic groups
that seem to be having a sensible debate
about this do you see any reason for
encouragement at all well I think that
world is divided into a very very small
group of people and institutions who
understand what is happening and what is
at stake and the vast majority not just
of ordinary people but even of
politician and business people who are
not really I guess they hear about data
yeah data protection there are cyber
attacks somebody might steal my identity
or my bank account details but that as I
said it’s just the tip of the iceberg I
think that my guess I didn’t I’m not I
don’t know but I guess that some of the
big corporations like Google like faced
with the usual suspects they understand
what is at stake I also think that some
governments especially the
Chinese government I think they
understand what is at stake I think most
certainly most humans have no idea right
again the thing is just to make it clear
it’s the biometric data is the key when
people think about data they mostly
think about where I go what what I buy
when they think about hacking they think
about computers they talk about AI about
machine learning they forget the other
side of the equation which is the life
science as the brain sciences the brain
sciences are giving us access to here
this is the real that what we really
tried we what somebody is really trying
to hack is this not this right I mean
China is interesting because I remember
sitting at a table a few years ago in
Davos where the senior Chinese official
who and we were arguing about democracy
and he said well you in the worst of
democracy we have social media and the
point was that Chinese government is
using social media to not just monitor
its citizens but also act as a
weathervane to gather information about
what’s happening in terms of public
sentiment and ensure that they stay one
inch ahead of that to stop any
explosions do you see China as a place
where this type of digital dictatorship
is most likely to emerge well I don’t
know as I said as I gave examples you
have cases in the West and I know maybe
best about my own country that Israel is
building a real total surveillance
regime in the West Bank which is
something we haven’t seen any word
almost anywhere in history before of
really trying to follow every place
every individual and and we are still we
still haven’t crossed the critical
watershed of the of the biometric sensor
whether it’s in the u.s. in Israel in
China it’s still social media it’s still
my mobile phone it’s still where I go
what you say make of my credit card we
still don’t really have the technology
to go inside but we are maybe five years
10 years away from having the technology
so maybe to give an extreme example
let’s say you live in North Korea
and you have to wear this bracelet which
constantly monitors what is happening
inside your body and you walk into a
room and you see the picture of the dear
leader on the wall and the bracelet can
know what is happening to your brain to
your blood pressure as you see this
picture so this this really what what
what is meant by a digital dictatorship
I mean it makes 1984 sound positively
child’s play exactly
you say you don’t know what to do about
this but imagine for a moment that you
were dictator be that digital or not
what would you do right now to help
humanity deal with us would you like to
just throw away all of those biometric
devices no absolutely it’s absolutely
impossible to go back especially in
terms of technology in science even if
one country or an entire continent is
freaked out by the possibilities and
they say we stopped all research in this
field you can’t force other countries to
do the same and then you have your own I
mean you have a race a race to the
bottom unless you have some global
agreement on how to deal with this then
no country would like to stay behind in
the race so do you want the scientists
today to take control do you want the
United Nations do you think the
indoctrination is really said I mean the
World Economic Forum I mean could all
the people here but could take control
of this do you think and the discussion
is just begin I don’t think we should if
we should panic we should just first of
all be aware that this is what we are
facing and there are many possibilities
also technological possibilities how for
example I mean when we talk about
regulating ownership of land we have a
very clear picture what it means okay
you have a plot you have a field you
build a fence around you have a gate you
stand the gate and you say okay you can
come in you can’t but this is my field
now what does it mean in terms of the
data about my DNA or what’s happening in
my brain I mean what’s the analogy
of the the fence and the gate we just
don’t understand so I think we are in an
analogous position to where we were with
Industrial Revolution 200 years ago and
you just need time I mean when you start
a discussion I know this from class from
university you start a discussion and
somebody raises the hand and says okay
but what should I write in the test and
no no no we are not there yet
we should first have a discussion about
this I don’t have all the all the
answers right I mean one thing I find
fascinating in your description of the
digital economy is that it actually
involves a picture of society which is
not quite the picture that normal
economists have because most of the
digital exchanges today don’t actually
involve money people are giving up data
in exchange for services yeah and that’s
something that no economic model can
capture right now and frankly the legal
models can’t either in terms of the
antitrust so I’m curious when you look
at this problem it’s not quite economics
it’s certainly not just computer science
it’s not really any particular
discipline do you think this means that
universities need to rethink how they
categorize academics I mean who is going
to take this overarching view to try and
talk about these issues and I should say
I’m trained as an anthropologist so I’d
love to say the anthropologist but I’m
not waiting on them either no hopefully
everybody I mean I think that today if
you’re a computer scientist you also
need to be to some extent a philosopher
and then and anthropologist it’s it’s
now part of part of the business and I
think maybe again to try and focus it
you talked about different exchanges in
the world maybe the most important
exchange in this respect will be in
healthcare the big battle over what we
today call privacy will be between
privacy and health
do you give access to what is happening
inside your body and brain in exchange
for far better health care and my guess
is
Health will win hands down people will
give up their privacy in exchange for
health care and maybe in many places
they won’t have a choice I mean they
won’t even get insurance if they are
unwilling to give access to what is
happening inside their bodies so another
big exchange that will not involve money
but still be very very important last
quick question that we must wrap sadly
when it was all about land control the
elites essentially had futile ISM we
call it feudalism in history when it was
all about the industrial machines we had
capitalism and Marxism have you thought
of a word to describe this new world of
data rhythm yeah I try I tried data is
Umberto I mean words have their own
their own life and what word catches and
what word doesn’t it’s it’s it’s really
a coincidence
well maybe answers on the postcard if
anyone in the hall has an idea or
tweeted out or sentiment an email or
whatever digital communication you like
but anyway on behalf of everyone here I
can see from the faces people are
actually not looking at their mobile
phones they’re actually looking at you
they are wrapped that is quite an
achievement and thank you very much
indeed for both inspiring us and
terrifying us thank you thank you Julia thank you
Harare my name is Gillian Tett I’m the
u.s. managing editor of the Financial
Times now there are not many historians
who would be put on the main stage of
the Congress center of the World
Economic Forum sandwiched between Angela
Merkel and McComb I think there are even
fewer who could fill the room almost as
much as Angela Merkel and almost none
who would have the experience as we were
waiting in the greenroom and Angela
Merkel came through Chancellor Merkel
came through she took care to stop go up
to you ball and introduce herself and
say I’ve read your book pretty amazing
but eval Harare has written two very
important books which have really shaped
the debate not just inside governments
but inside many businesses and many
non-governmental organisations – one of
them I imagine most of you read Sapien
hands up who in the room with read
sapiens okay well that is pretty
impressive his second book her modeis
took those themes of sapiens looking at
the history of mankind through it into
the future and look to the dish you of
digital he’s got a third book coming out
this summer 21 lessons for the 21st
century which is going to look at the
present but what he’s going to be
talking about today is something that
actually Chancellor Merkel touched on in
her own speech which is a question of
data and what do we do about data today
his ideas are very provocative very
alarming and something that all of you
should pay very close attention to now
professor Harare professor Yuval the
thank you so hello everybody let me just
have one minute to get friends with this
computer and make sure everything is ok
and can I have a bit more light on the
audience so I can see the faces and not
just speak to a darkness thank you so I
want to talk to you today about the
future of our species and really the
future of life we are probably one of
the last generations of Homo sapiens
within a century or two Earth will be
dominated by entities that are more
different from us than we are different
from Neanderthals or from chimpanzees
because in the coming generations we
will learn how to engineer bodies and
brains and minds
this will be the main products of the
economy of the 21st century economy not
textiles and vehicles and weapons but
bodies and brains and minds now how
exactly will the future masters of the
planet look like this will be decided by
the people who own the data those who
control the data control the future not
just of humanity but the future of life
itself
because today data is the most important
asset in the world in ancient times land
was the most important asset and if too
much land became concentrated in too few
hands humanity split into aristocrats
and commoners then in the modern age in
the last two centuries machinery
replaced land as the most important
asset and if too many of the machine
became concentrated in too few hands
humanity split into classes into
capitalists and proletarians now data is
replacing machinery as the most
important asset and if too much of the
data becomes concentrated in two for
your hands humanity will split not in
two classes it will split into species
in two different species
now why is data so important it’s
important because we’ve reached the
point when we can hack not just
computers we can hack human beings and
other organisms there is a lot of talk
these days about hacking computers and
email accounts and bank accounts and
mobile phones but actually we are
gaining the ability to hack human beings
now what do you need in order to hack a
human being you need two things you need
a lot of computing power and you need a
lot of data especially biometric data no
data about what I buy or where I go but
data about what is happening inside my
body and inside my brain until today
nobody had the necessary computing power
and the necessary data to hack humanity
even if the Soviet KGB or the Spanish
Inquisition followed you around
everywhere 24 hours a day watching
everything you do listening to
everything you say still they didn’t
have the computing power and the
biological knowledge necessary to make
sense of what was happening inside your
body and brain and to understand how you
feel and what you think and what you
want but this is now changing because of
two simultaneous revolutions on the one
hand advances in computer
science and especially the rise of
machine learning and AI are giving us
the necessary computing power and at the
same time advances in biology and
especially in brain science are giving
us the necessary understanding
biological understanding you can really
summarize a hundred and fifty years of
biological research since Charles Darwin
in three words organisms are algorithms
this is the big insight of the modern
life sciences that organisms were the
viruses of bananas or humans they are
really just biochemical algorithms and
we are learning how to decipher these
algorithms now when the two revolutions
merge when the Infotech revolution
merges with the biotech revolution what
you get is the ability to hack human
beings and maybe the most important
invention for the merger of Infotech and
biotech is the biometric sensor that
translates biochemical processes in the
body in the brain into electronic
signals that a computer can store and
analyze and once you have enough such
biometric information and enough
computing power you can create
algorithms that know me better than I
know myself
and humans really don’t know themselves
very well this is why algorithms have a
real chance of getting to know ourselves
better
we don’t really know ourselves to give
an example when I was 21 I finally
realized that I was gay after living for
several years in denial and this is not
exceptional a lot of gay men live in
denial for many years they don’t know
something very important about
themselves now imagine the situation in
10 or 20 years when an algorithm
can tell any teenager exactly where he
or she is on the gay-straight spectrum
and even how malleable this position is
the algorithm tracks your eye movements
your blood pressure of your brain
activity and tells you who you are now
maybe you personally wouldn’t like to
make use of such an algorithm but maybe
you find yourself in some boring
birthday party of somebody from your
class at school and one of your friends
has this wonderful idea that I’ve just
heard about this cool new algorithm that
tells you your sexual orientation and
wouldn’t it be very a lot of fun if
everybody just takes turns testing
themselves on this algorithm as
everybody else is watching and
commenting what would you do would you
just walk away and even if you walk away
and even if you keep hiding from your
classmate or from yourself you will not
be able to hide from Amazon and Alibaba
and the secret police as you surf the
internet as you watch videos or check
your social feed the algorithms will be
monitoring your eye movements your blood
pressure your brain activity and they
will know they could tell coca-cola that
if you want to sell this person some
fuzzy sugary drink
don’t use the advertisement with the
shirtless girl use the advertisement
with the shirtless guy you wouldn’t even
know that this was happening but they
will know and this information will be
worth billions once we have algorithms
that can understand me better than I
understand myself they could predict my
desires manipulate my emotions and even
take decisions on my behalf and if we
are not careful the outcome might be the
rise of digital dictatorships
in the twentieth century democracy
generally outperformed dictatorship
because democracy was better at
processing data and making decisions we
are used to thinking about democracy in
dictatorship in ethical or political
terms but actually these are two
different methods to process information
democracy processes information in a
distributed way it distributes the
information and the power to make
decisions between many institutions and
individuals dictatorship on the other
hand concentrates all information and
power in one place now given the
technological conditions of the 20th
century distributed data processing
worked better than centralized data
processing which is one of the main
reasons why democracy outperform
dictatorship and why for example the US
economy outperformed the Soviet economy
but this is true only under the unique
technological conditions of the 20th
century in the 21st century new
technological revolutions especially AI
and machine learning might swing the
pendulum in the opposite direction they
might make centralized data processing
far more efficient than distributed data
processing and if democracy cannot adapt
to these new conditions then humans will
come to live under the rule of digital
dictatorships and already present we are
seeing the formation of more and more
sophisticated surveillance regimes
throughout the world not just by
authoritarian regimes but also by
democratic governments the US for
example is bill
a global surveillance system while my
home country of Israel is trying to
build a total surveillance regime in the
West Bank but control of data might
enable human elites to do something even
more radical than just build digital
dictatorships by hacking organisms
elites may gain the power to re-engineer
the future of life itself because once
you can hack something you can usually
also engineer it and if indeed we
succeed in hacking and engineering life
this will be not just the greatest
revolution in the history of humanity
this will be the greatest revolution in
biology since the very beginning of life
four billion years ago for four billion
years nothing fundamental changed in the
basic rules of the game of life all of
life for four billion years dinosaur’s
amoebas Tomatoes humans all of life was
subject to the laws of natural
selections and to the laws of organic
biochemistry but this is now about to
change science is replacing evolution by
natural selection with evolution by
intelligent design not the intelligent
design of some God above the clouds but
our intelligent design and the
intelligent design of our clouds the IBM
cloud the Microsoft cloud these are the
new driving forces of evolution and at
the same time science may enable life
after being confined for four billion
years to the limited realm of organic
compounds science may enable life to
break out into the inorganic real so
after four billion years
of organic life shaped by natural
selection we are entering the era of
inorganic life shaped by intelligent
design this is why the ownership of data
is so important if we don’t regulate it
a tiny elite may come to control not
just the future of human societies but
the shape of life-forms in the future so
how to regulate the data the ownership
of data we’ve had 10,000 years of
experience regulating the ownership of
land we have had a few centuries of
experience regulating the ownership of
industrial machinery but we don’t have
much experience in regulating the
ownership of data which is inherently
far more difficult because unlike land
and unlike machinery data is everywhere
and nowhere at the same time it can move
at the speed of light and you can create
as many copies of it as you want
so does the data about my DNA
my brain my body my life does it belong
to me or to some corporation or to the
government or perhaps to the human
collective at present big corporations
are holding much of the data and people
are becoming worried about it but
mandating government’s to nationalize
the data may curb the power of the big
corporations only in order to give rise
to digital dictatorships and politicians
really many politicians at least our
like musicians and the instrument they
play on is the human emotional and
biochemical system a politician gives a
speech and there is a wave of fear all
over the country a politician tweets and
the reason Explorer
of anger and hatred now I don’t think we
should give these musicians most
sophisticated instruments to play on and
I certainly don’t think they are ready
to be entrusted with the future of life
in the universe
especially as many politicians and
governments seem incapable of producing
meaningful visions for the future and
instead what they sell the public on
nostalgic fantasies about going back to
the past and as a historian I can tell
you two things about the past first of
all it wasn’t fun you wouldn’t like to
really go back there and secondly it’s
not coming back so nostalgic fantasies
really are not a solution so who should
on the data I frankly don’t know I think
the discussion has just began most
people when they hear the talk about
regular regulating data they think about
privacy about shopping about companies
corporations that know where I go and
what I buy but this is just the tip of
the iceberg there are much more
important things at stake so the
discussion is hardly began and we cannot
expect instant answers we had better
call upon our scientists or philosophers
our lawyers and even our poets or
especially our poets to turn their
attention to this big question how do
you regulate the ownership of data the
future not just of humanity but the
future of life itself may depend on the
answer to this question thank you
[Applause]
well thank you professor Harare for an
absolutely brilliant thought-provoking
and it must be said somewhat challenging
and depressing talk I must say I’m quite
starstruck sitting here listening to
that stream of ideas and I’d like to
start with a very simple question which
is this you paint this picture of a
future that’s quite scary
how soon do you expect that future to be
here are we talking about two years 20
years 200 years
I mean how soon could we be dealing with
digital dictatorships I think that the
time scale is decades I mean in 200
years I guess there won’t be any sapiens
left there’ll be something completely
different two years it’s far too soon so
we are talking about a few decades
nobody knows exactly how many right now
you’re unusual because you actually
stood up on that stage and you said I
don’t know what the answer is okay
that’s not something you hear a lot at
the World Economic Forum
it’s admirably humble but I’m curious
you know as you look around the world
today do you see any countries or any
groups of people or any academic groups
that seem to be having a sensible debate
about this do you see any reason for
encouragement at all well I think that
world is divided into a very very small
group of people and institutions who
understand what is happening and what is
at stake and the vast majority not just
of ordinary people but even of
politician and business people who are
not really I guess they hear about data
yeah data protection there are cyber
attacks somebody might steal my identity
or my bank account details but that as I
said it’s just the tip of the iceberg I
think that my guess I didn’t I’m not I
don’t know but I guess that some of the
big corporations like Google like faced
with the usual suspects they understand
what is at stake I also think that some
governments especially the
Chinese government I think they
understand what is at stake I think most
certainly most humans have no idea right
again the thing is just to make it clear
it’s the biometric data is the key when
people think about data they mostly
think about where I go what what I buy
when they think about hacking they think
about computers they talk about AI about
machine learning they forget the other
side of the equation which is the life
science as the brain sciences the brain
sciences are giving us access to here
this is the real that what we really
tried we what somebody is really trying
to hack is this not this right I mean
China is interesting because I remember
sitting at a table a few years ago in
Davos where the senior Chinese official
who and we were arguing about democracy
and he said well you in the worst of
democracy we have social media and the
point was that Chinese government is
using social media to not just monitor
its citizens but also act as a
weathervane to gather information about
what’s happening in terms of public
sentiment and ensure that they stay one
inch ahead of that to stop any
explosions do you see China as a place
where this type of digital dictatorship
is most likely to emerge well I don’t
know as I said as I gave examples you
have cases in the West and I know maybe
best about my own country that Israel is
building a real total surveillance
regime in the West Bank which is
something we haven’t seen any word
almost anywhere in history before of
really trying to follow every place
every individual and and we are still we
still haven’t crossed the critical
watershed of the of the biometric sensor
whether it’s in the u.s. in Israel in
China it’s still social media it’s still
my mobile phone it’s still where I go
what you say make of my credit card we
still don’t really have the technology
to go inside but we are maybe five years
10 years away from having the technology
so maybe to give an extreme example
let’s say you live in North Korea
and you have to wear this bracelet which
constantly monitors what is happening
inside your body and you walk into a
room and you see the picture of the dear
leader on the wall and the bracelet can
know what is happening to your brain to
your blood pressure as you see this
picture so this this really what what
what is meant by a digital dictatorship
I mean it makes 1984 sound positively
child’s play exactly
you say you don’t know what to do about
this but imagine for a moment that you
were dictator be that digital or not
what would you do right now to help
humanity deal with us would you like to
just throw away all of those biometric
devices no absolutely it’s absolutely
impossible to go back especially in
terms of technology in science even if
one country or an entire continent is
freaked out by the possibilities and
they say we stopped all research in this
field you can’t force other countries to
do the same and then you have your own I
mean you have a race a race to the
bottom unless you have some global
agreement on how to deal with this then
no country would like to stay behind in
the race so do you want the scientists
today to take control do you want the
United Nations do you think the
indoctrination is really said I mean the
World Economic Forum I mean could all
the people here but could take control
of this do you think and the discussion
is just begin I don’t think we should if
we should panic we should just first of
all be aware that this is what we are
facing and there are many possibilities
also technological possibilities how for
example I mean when we talk about
regulating ownership of land we have a
very clear picture what it means okay
you have a plot you have a field you
build a fence around you have a gate you
stand the gate and you say okay you can
come in you can’t but this is my field
now what does it mean in terms of the
data about my DNA or what’s happening in
my brain I mean what’s the analogy
of the the fence and the gate we just
don’t understand so I think we are in an
analogous position to where we were with
Industrial Revolution 200 years ago and
you just need time I mean when you start
a discussion I know this from class from
university you start a discussion and
somebody raises the hand and says okay
but what should I write in the test and
no no no we are not there yet
we should first have a discussion about
this I don’t have all the all the
answers right I mean one thing I find
fascinating in your description of the
digital economy is that it actually
involves a picture of society which is
not quite the picture that normal
economists have because most of the
digital exchanges today don’t actually
involve money people are giving up data
in exchange for services yeah and that’s
something that no economic model can
capture right now and frankly the legal
models can’t either in terms of the
antitrust so I’m curious when you look
at this problem it’s not quite economics
it’s certainly not just computer science
it’s not really any particular
discipline do you think this means that
universities need to rethink how they
categorize academics I mean who is going
to take this overarching view to try and
talk about these issues and I should say
I’m trained as an anthropologist so I’d
love to say the anthropologist but I’m
not waiting on them either no hopefully
everybody I mean I think that today if
you’re a computer scientist you also
need to be to some extent a philosopher
and then and anthropologist it’s it’s
now part of part of the business and I
think maybe again to try and focus it
you talked about different exchanges in
the world maybe the most important
exchange in this respect will be in
healthcare the big battle over what we
today call privacy will be between
privacy and health
do you give access to what is happening
inside your body and brain in exchange
for far better health care and my guess
is
Health will win hands down people will
give up their privacy in exchange for
health care and maybe in many places
they won’t have a choice I mean they
won’t even get insurance if they are
unwilling to give access to what is
happening inside their bodies so another
big exchange that will not involve money
but still be very very important last
quick question that we must wrap sadly
when it was all about land control the
elites essentially had futile ISM we
call it feudalism in history when it was
all about the industrial machines we had
capitalism and Marxism have you thought
of a word to describe this new world of
data rhythm yeah I try I tried data is
Umberto I mean words have their own
their own life and what word catches and
what word doesn’t it’s it’s it’s really
a coincidence
well maybe answers on the postcard if
anyone in the hall has an idea or
tweeted out or sentiment an email or
whatever digital communication you like
but anyway on behalf of everyone here I
can see from the faces people are
actually not looking at their mobile
phones they’re actually looking at you
they are wrapped that is quite an
achievement and thank you very much
indeed for both inspiring us and
terrifying us thank you thank you Julia thank you
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