day predicting the future I try and
model systems and businesses and I use
really cool tools like artificial
intelligence or blockchain to help
understand what makes humans tick and
what I found most fascinating from the
past few years of my experience and
what’s also been the most frustrating is
that all those expressions and all those
clichés are true it bothers me I don’t
know why the fact that the journey is
more important than the destination the
fact that to go further and look further
you stand on the shoulders of giants
that those who don’t understand what
history was are doomed to repeat it in
the tempest William Shakespeare wrote
that what’s past is prologue I think a
lot of people recognize this expression
to mean that everything that happened
before was exposition that to live in
the present is what’s important data has
shown me that that’s different to me
what’s past is prologue means is that
the future can be based on a barometer
of the past and understand the trends
and signals and patterns of where we
been can show us what we’ve done before
and where we’re going to go this
presentation is an argument for basic
income and let me show you how we get
there I start in 1696 in Britain as part
of the glass tax in an effort to raise
revenue the British Parliament created a
prohibitive tax on glass and window
panes and the like it meant that glass
and windows was so expensive that
literally lords and ladies would take
glass out of their houses and bring them
up to their summer castles for fear of
theft or breaking if you were just a
person living in the city you lived most
of your internal life in darkness it
affected things that people had never
considered before in different ways
architecture interior design new
dining-room didn’t have a table in the
middle of it you’d hit your shins in the
darkness people had a bench by the side
of the room and a large board up against
the wall when it was time to have a
meeting or have a meal together they
would take the benches sit everyone down
bring
bored on everyone’s lap that’s where
they had their meeting that’s where I
had the discussion and that’s where we
got the term board meeting not only that
that guy at the end that Dan the chair
he was in charge he ran the show that’s
right
that guy was the chairman of the board
to me it is fascinating how arbitrary
choices from the past can affect the
future centuries laters in ways people
can’t understand or think about at all
and we are coming to one of those
critical junctures and choice points
again soon I’m going to skip ahead a
couple decades to the British
countryside the Church of England in an
attempt to reorganize themselves split
up the country into various plots and
created parse ninja’s each one of these
sections had a reverend and his job was
to help guide the flock and all the
things that reverence do these people
were given a strong education they were
giving enough resources to understand
where their next meal was coming from
and they were sent on their way this was
arguably one of the first times a
society was had a class of people who
were academic well-read and didn’t
really have that much to do what did
these reverends do they changed the
world
the Reverend Eamon Cartwright created
the powerloom and brought apart the
Industrial Revolution as we know it
today automation improving in process
happened because of that the reverend
john mckenzie bacon was the father of
modern aerial photography he showed us
the first pictures of cities from above
revolutionised urban planning and city
design the Reverend William Buckland
wrote the essay on the principle of
population you know this already what he
learned back then cities only grow when
there’s an excess of food more than is
needed to sustain the population the
Reverend William Greenwald was the
father of modern archaeology before him
people would just go to dig sites and
grab stuff because it looked cool and
brought it home he was one of the first
people suggest that we apply proper
scientific rigor and scientific method
and revolutionized the field of
archaeology wasn’t just the reverence –
it was their families their children
their spouses
when people knew that there was a roof
over their head and a meal coming to not
worry about their creativity flourished
I bet you know at least half a dozen
names on this list of people who were
either children or spouses of these
reverence hook Ren Bronte Tennyson Carol
Jane Austen these people were so
profound in their ability to push arson
science further that even centuries
later we still consume their art in ways
that affects us that have never been
considered before we as a society we as
a culture push further and go farther
when we take the tools that have been
built before us and go to the next
obvious step because those expressions
are true those cliches are all true most
people thought it was actually Isaac
Newton who said it but it was actually
Bernard de chartes who said if I have
seen further it is by standing on the
shoulders of giants the fact that every
time that we want to try push culture
further and make society go that little
bit farther that we don’t need to go
back to the beginning is because we use
the tools and processes of people who
were built before us and that’s how we
advance as a society and as a people it
has never been easier to try and push
these idea head and move forward the
ability to take this thing over here and
combine it with that thing over there
and produce something new has never been
easier faster less expensive or less
involving risk than it is right now I
can’t guarantee that the idea of
combining this thing and that thing will
work but you’ll know quickly if it’s
gonna fail or if it has legs never was
that way before technology usually got
in the way more than it helped this is
special back then it was a problem
example number one let’s talk about
audio recording the ability to take a
song or music and record it to a wax
disc was incredibly difficult and if
someone made a mistake if a microphone
screwed up or if someone dropped
something on the ground you had to throw
it away and start all over again oh
you’re already on our – sorry doesn’t
care start all over
in fact the audio engineers – they had a
huge problem let’s say you’re recording
a symphony in a concert hall let’s say
if the sound got all screwed up you
can’t have a violin and a clarinet near
each other and next to the tuba – would
be too loud the hack from the sound
engineers was tagged
we move the instruments around the
entire theater so you’d have the the
flutes nearby you’d have the the tubas
in the background the drums the drums
were so loud they actually were down the
hall down the stairs in a separate room
and they had to create a series of
mirror so the drummer’s can see the
conductor to know when to play if you
were a soloist you were pushed on a
little dolly and what was your turn
they’d they push up to the front right
near the microphone to hear it when you
were done they’d pull you right back
again and if any time and any one of
those songs of someone if one person
made a mistake you threw it out and you
started again you didn’t take risks you
didn’t have the time you didn’t have the
opportunity now if I want to try
something new if I want to see what it
sounds like when I guitar gets loud I
just press the guitar knob and turn it
up a little bit never before have we had
the ability for technology to make our
life easier and push our creative drive
further than we have right now but it
wasn’t always like that
it was difficult if you go back to the
war the fact that planes were coming
overhead as part of a bombing run was a
huge problem before radar people didn’t
really have good solutions as to solve
to figure out when the planes were
coming planes are high planes are fast
planes are far away we took the best
people in the Allied resource we took
the entire knowledge of what we have to
do to figure out how to find planes and
we came up with this giant earphone like
tubes and a soldier who’s hopefully
really good at hearing stuff listening
hoping to hear their propellers
stretching yearning going that little
bit further dished to hear to buy an
extra minute or two so people can run
down to safety we don’t have this
problem anymore radars basically solved
problem in many respects I can go to the
store and for a couple bucks buy a
little radar in a box I can put it in my
car I can put it on my bike I can put it
in my hat and do a lot of cool stuff if
I wanted to it has never been easier to
give a chance and see if it works well
that idea work I got no clue but I don’t
know quickly if I can move on and try
something else wasn’t always like that
technologies often got in the way
you ever wonder why people in old photos
don’t smile and I see some nodding heads
I’m gonna be embarrassed about this when
I was a kid I literally thought that
everyone born pre-1920 was just
miserable and sad and surly turns out
this was a technical problem to actually
exist and have a camera take a picture
back then required a huge amount of
light it required a huge amount of time
to sit there and let the light expose
the film so if you’re gonna take a photo
of someone moving it’s gonna screw up so
when they taste don’t move you don’t
move cuz you know if you move you’re
gonna ruin the photo and then you got to
start again this was a huge technical
problem at the time and that’s why
people were told to not keep their rest
their smiling face cuz I don’t know
about you but smiling for a minute
starts to look insincere so instead they
said use your resting face and if you
don’t have a nice-looking resting face
sorry that’s the photo that you get it’s
not like that anymore right we’ve solved
lolis technical problems most people
have a camera in their own pocket I take
a thousand photos I think the best three
that I like and I throw the rest away
and I don’t need to know about focus and
aperture and all these types of
technical terms to take a fairly good
photo technology’s made it so that
creativity can push us further than we
have before if you want to build
different tools if you want to bring
these things together it’s super easy
machine learning – if you want to take
some cool new AI things and and move to
the next step and go forward it’s fine
you want to take yourself a chatbot or
recognize emotional detection or look at
text or videos and see what’s going on
it
you can do it for fractions of a penny I
just tried this last night I built
something for this presentation I went
online and I didn’t write a single bit
of code and I can made something that
looked in my face it can tell if I’m
smiling it can tell if I’m yawning or
not it can tell when I’m blinking all
without writing a single bit of code if
you have an idea where you’re taking
this beats and this piece and mashing
them together you can do it now easier
and faster than ever before let’s say
you want to build a camera tool thing
image AAB that if someone takes a
picture of someone blinking it deletes
the photo
automatically well you don’t need to
know how cameras work you just take the
camera thing someone built you don’t
need to know how neural networks
recognize if you’re blinking you just go
grab that software and put it together
could you go to mark with that idea
probably not but you’ll know right away
if you’ve built something that has
required you to actually know how
momentum or not whether or not you then
call in an expert to make it world-class
these are the opportunities we have now
to go further and push harder how go to
these tools they’re incredible just last
year Microsoft released a tool for
real-time language translation so
picture those guys at the UN with the
little your phone’s talking in real-time
really quietly average human error rate
for that’s about six percent that’s that
little dot over there in the corner
machines are now as good at humans at
translating language in real-time at
scale 24/7 just so you’re thinking about
throwing your red herring let’s talk
about image classification the problem
of taking a photo or video and
identifying all the things and is
actually surprisingly hard humans will
get it right only about 93 times out of
a hundred error about seven percent just
last year Microsoft released a tool
machine learning thing with AI that down
to three and a half percent as of right
now machines are twice as good at humans
at identifying images and objects and
videos and pictures IBM beat them to the
down to three and three points this year
not only that look at that chart that’s
a ten times drop in air in only five
years
I can’t wait to see what the next five
years brings us now there’s two schools
of thought here yes automation is coming
yes a lot of jobs will be made redundant
now the first school of thought says
well Jim I don’t churn my own butter
already anyways you’re not wrong right
the progress of progress goes forward
and pushes us further than we’ve been
before the second school of thought
argues that that’s true but is the most
fortunate opportunity that we have as a
people to be able to look in advance and
recognize that massive change is coming
almost never before ever people looked
in advance and said that’s coming we can
have a discussion about what we want to
we can have a debate and a cultured
conversation about what happens when
lots of people don’t have their jobs
anymore I would suggest that for these
people if we give them an education if
we gave them enough income to make sure
that they have a roof over their head
and if they have enough food on the
table that we can create a class of
people who are academic well-read and
really don’t have that much to do we’ve
seen before in history that these people
can change the world in ways that are
still affecting us centuries from now
this is the opportunity we have and this
is a discussion that we need to have in
the next five years ten years maybe
twenty it has never been easier for us
to take this thing and that thing and
mash it together and try a new idea to
see if it has legs let me show you let
me give you a very quick example this is
a sphere anyone seen its fair before
it’s a fun little toy I got one for my
kid for Christmas it lets you actually
use your phone and connect things
together and play I got one right here
it’s a cute little toy totally made for
kids for Christmas and it’s great
because it lets my kids learn how to
code without them even knowing that
they’re learning how to code so here’s
what I’m gonna do without writing any
code at all what I’m gonna do is take a
picture of my face with my cell phone
and then going to connect it to a world
class Microsoft deep learning network to
look at my face we’re gonna tell if it
knows if I’m smiling or not I’m gonna
change the color of this device based on
whether I’m smiling or frowning remember
we talked about pictures and smiling
okay there we go there we go and there
we go yellow whoo now the important part
I want to get across to you is I did
this reading ridiculously small amounts
of code someone already built the tool
that connects to the cloud someone
already built the world-class network up
there that can look at someone’s face
recognize their age their gender and if
they’re smiling for fractions of a penny
someone out there was kind enough to
take this little Sphero tool and build a
library that I can connect right into it
and not worry about all the stuff about
it but in the abstract think about what
I just did there for fractions of a
penny and maybe a day’s worth of my time
I connected to a world class deep
learning network that recognized my face
I then used it to change a wireless IOT
device using Bluetooth just like that it
has never been easier
for us to take tools to take toys to
play with them to see what idea comes
further to see how we can push ourselves
further I look forward to the next five
years because I can’t see what’s coming
and I look forward to hear from each and
every one of you who has a brilliant
idea to take this thing over here and
that thing over there and combine them
together and to push us as a people
further thank you very much
you [Music]