Translator: Leonardo Silva
Reviewer: Denise RQ I want to start with the story
of how I kind of broke the law, and kind of manipulated
thousands of people to get what I deserved. It's the mid 1990s, I'm 15 years old, and ever since childhood,
I wanted to become a music producer. But I had a big problem: music studios were
luxurious and expensive, and to make electronic music,
you had to get these modules, each module with a specific purpose. One module would create piano sounds,
another one would create echo effects, and a third one would give you
synthesizer sounds, and so on. So, to make a full record,
you had to get a bunch of these, which quickly exceeded
thousands of dollars, money which we didn't have. So, as I was jamming along
on my cheap Casio keyboard and surfing the web,
something amazing happened. A Swedish software company shows up,
and they announce their brand new product. They said, "With our product,
you can get as many modules as you want, you can create as many sounds
and effects as you want, in you computer." And boy, did I get excited.
Things went fast. I quickly learned how to master
every button and lever in this program, and after a while, I had a bunch
of good tracks in my repertoire. So, I thought to myself, "Wow,
my music actually sounds good now. I am as good as the people
they play on the radio." So, I wanted to be in the record store. But to get there,
I had to get past the gatekeepers, the big record labels deciding
who can and who cannot be on the record store shelves. So I did what everyone told me to do:
I burned my tracks on CDs, and I sent them
to the best labels in the world. Months went by, weeks went by, nobody answered me,
and I got devastated. But I happened to know
the record industry's worst enemy. Napster had emerged around the same time, a software that let you
share your music in mp3 files with anyone in the world. People got to poke around
on the folders in your computer and you got to poke around
on their computers, and download music from each other. And every day, hundreds of people
would come to my computer and download music from me,
and I quickly noticed an obvious trend. When a famous artist
had just released a new album, people would come in droves
to download that album from my computer. So, I got an idea: "What if I take two of my best tracks, and I tuck them gently into the folders
of other famous artist's albums?" (Laughter) And I would photoshop
the album covers and the backside, and change the track lists,
so to avoid suspicion. Brilliant. Nobody noticed a thing, and now, hundreds, thousands of people
were downloading my music, without even knowing it
and without even wanting it. (Laughter) So my music spread like wildfire,
and people started to notice. Discussion forums on the web
tried to figure out, "Why are there two tracks the album
I downloaded from the web, but in the store, I can't find
these tracks on the CD?" They wanted to know,
"Who's this guy making this music?" They actually liked my music. So, all of a sudden,
I was a semi-famous personality in the underground music world. So, long story short, this little maneuver got me in contact
with some important people, and a while later,
I got to sign record deals with three of the best
companies at that time. Now, here's the irony of it all: the same technologies - the Internet
and digital music sharing - that helped me achieve this
were the same technologies that would turn the music industry
upside down and almost destroy it. Because why would you buy a CD anymore, when the convenient click
of a mouse button would give you the same product
for a fraction of the price and a fraction of the time? That leads us to one of my favorite
quotes, made by Ayn Rand decades ago, but I think it's more relevant than ever. She said, "You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid
the consequences of avoiding reality." And before I tell you
what I think this reality is, I'll let these words from a Newsweek
article in 1995 speak for themselves: "People predict that we'll soon
buy books and newspapers straight over the Internet. Uh, sure.", Clifford Stoll wrote, sarcastically. In 2012, people spent
USD $1 billion online per day, during the holiday season, and that was the same year
Newsweek had to end its print run and go all digital. So, I know that we're all aware
that technology can show up and transform our world overnight, but I still think that we underestimate
how fast technology can come and transform everything. So, what if I ask you:
what is the speed of technology? Can we actually measure it? Well, I won't be able to give you
a number as an answer, but I can tell you this: 25,000 years ago, one of the first
human technologies emerged, the art of painting and drawing. From then until we
figured out agriculture, it took astounding 50,000 years, but from agriculture until we
figured out writing and the wheel, it only took 5,000 years. From writing and the wheel till we figured out how to organize
our societies into cities and states, it only took 2,500 years. And from city states till we figured out
the experimental method, only 1,900 years. And from that to industrialism,
only 325 years. And from industrialism till we invented
electricity, the telephone and the radio, only 95 years. And from that to the first
vacuum tube computers, only 65 years. And from primitive computers
to the modern PC, only 38 years. And from modern computing
to the Internet, it only took 15 years. And from the Internet to smartphones,
the Cloud and mobile computing, it only took 12 years. So, do you see what's happening here? This is what Ray Kurzweil called
"The Law of Accelerating Returns," essentially meaning
that the more advanced we become, the faster we become at advancing. So, the answer
to "How fast is technology?" - well, technology is an accelerating force. The future approaches us
faster and faster all the time. Now, we've looked at technology
from a historical perspective, so let's have a quick look
at what's been going on just recently. So, scientists have developed
a smartphone device that can scan you for HIV and syphilis
in just 15 minutes. Take a quick blood sample,
put it in the device, and the results will on your smartphone
displays in just 15 minutes. A research group has developed
a new kind of microscope that can give you live 3D images
of body organs in live animals. In this example, you see
the beating heart of a zebra fish. This research group has developed
a handheld laser probe that can scan the brain
for brain cancer tumors live during surgery. And finally, NASA together with Microsoft have combined Microsoft's
HoloLens technology with images from the Curiosity rover
on Mars to give scientists on Earth virtual access to the surface of Mars. So, scientists can walk around,
collaborate and experiment, without going to Mars. Now, the things I just showed you,
I think they're absolutely amazing, but what I think is almost
even more amazing is the fact that the things
I just showed you are news announced
only during the last 30 days. This is just news from the last 30 days. That's how fast technology is progressing. So, here we are, with the Cloud,
mobile computing, and smartphones at our fingertips, smartphones a thousand times faster,
a thousand times cheaper, and a thousand times smaller
than the computers from the 1950s. That's a billionfold progress
in just 65 years. And we have so much more
cool stuff ahead of us. Honda is developing humanoid robots
that can walk, talk, perform everyday tasks,
such as pouring drinks, serving food, and guiding guests around the building. And they can even communicate
with three persons at the same time. Companies, with Google on the forefront, are developing cars
that can drive themselves, and they drive better
than human beings do. And then, we have the mind-blowing,
super computer at IBM, by the name of "Watson". Watson was designed to understand,
analyze and speak human language fluently. And to test its capabilities, they uploaded to it all of Wikipedia,
IMDB and other databases, and then they sent
the computer to Jeopardy, to compete against the two
humans champions of the day. So, I'd like to show a quick clip
of how that went. (Video) Host: Good morning, everybody.
Thank you for being here. What do you say we play Jeopardy?
Players: Alright. Host: Let's get right
into the Jeopardy round. These categories: a man, a plane, a canal, eerie, chicks dig me,
children's book titles, my Michelle, "M.C." 5
and, finally, vocabulary. Ken, you're in the first position.
Please make a selection. Ken Jennings: I'm nervous to say this
on TV. Chicks dig me, for $200. (Laughter) Host: Kathleen Kenyon's excavation
of this city mentioned in Joshua showed the walls
had been repaired 17 times. Watson? Watson: What is Jericho?
Host: Correct. Watson: $400, same category. Host: This mystery author
and her archiologist hubby dug in hopes of finding
the lost Syrian city of Urkesh. Watson? Watson: Who is Agatha Christie?
Host: Correct. Watson: Same category, $600. Host: At the Olduvai Gorge, in 1959,
she and hubby Louis found a 1.75 million-year-old
Australopithecus boysy-eyed skull. Watson? Watson: Who is Mary Leakey?
Host: You're right. Watson: $800, same category. Host: Harriet Boyd Hawes was the first
woman to discover and excavate a Minoan settlement
on this island. Watson? Watson: What is Crete?
Host: Yes. Watson: Let's finish. Chicks dig me. (Video ends) (Laughter) Ashkan Fardost: So,
for the first time in human history, a computer has beaten us at knowledge. And they didn't build Watson
to compete on TV, because after the show,
they sent Watson to medical school. And today, Watson is working in hospitals, diagnosing cancer
better than human doctors. And they've put Watson on the Cloud so that software developers
around the world can unleash the power
of Watson in their apps. So, artificial intelligence
is not around the corner. It's here and it's real,
and it's here to stay. So, you can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid
the consequences of avoiding reality. And I believe that reality is this: when knowledge is for free,
only your ideas are worth paying for. And wow, do we need ideas
now more than ever, because the Internet
was just a warm-up phase. There's something much bigger
and much more profound emerging. It's what Neil Gross described
in his 1999 article, when he said, "In the next century, planet Earth
will don an electric skin. It will use the Internet as a scaffold
to support and transmit its sensations." Some call it "The Interne of Things." Others call it "The Internet
of Everything." It's going to affect everything
from manufacturing to education, to finance and healthcare,
and every other aspect of life. Thought leaders are talking about
a 14-trillion-dollar value at stake, up for grabs in the coming seven years. That's 23 times the GDP of Sweden,
in value in just seven years. I mean, think about it, computers
and sensors have become so small that we can basically connect almost
everything to the Internet now, already. And we're talking about connecting
everything from our highways, our roads, our traffic lights,
our traffic signs, street lights, to systems that can detect avalanches
and forest fires before they even happen. We're talking about systems
that can monitor air pollution, and check the well-being
of the soil on our farms. And we will even connect our own bodies
using electronic skin patches and sensors that connect directly with our doctors,
healthcare institutions, and pharmacies. But the real magic isn't that everything
will be connected to the Internet. The real magic is that everything will
be able to communicate with each other. Think about sensors
in our cars and our roads that can automatically
detect a car accident. They could automatically notify
the nearest hospital and the emergency services. And they could tell the traffic lights
and the traffic signs to redirect traffic to make a clear path for the ambulance. And if I'm a medical doctor
and I'm nearby the accident, the sensors could notify me too. All of this within seconds,
without human intervention. And we can talk about the everyday,
simple things of life, like pollen sensors around the city
communicating with your run keeper app, so you can avoid jogging
in pollen-heavy areas. Or imagine your kitchen
and your refrigerator keeping inventory and ordering food for you automatically. Now, this is just the tip of the iceberg,
but it's already happening. Amsterdam is upgrading their street lights
to Internet-connected LEDs. The city of Santander is connecting
their entire city step by step. Already today, you can go on the web
and check noise levels around the city, or you can check where to find
free parking spaces, and track all the buses, and so much more. Now, technology has the power
to transform our world, and technology is at your fingertips too, just like technology helped me turn my idea of becoming
a music producer into reality. Today, with devices like these, the Arduino or the Spark Core, you can turn any idea
involving technology into reality. And these devices are web-enabled and they can communicate
with everything on the Internet, and to them you can connect sensors
that can measure temperature, gases, touch sensors,
GPS devices, and so much more. And the best part: you don't need
any prior experience in programming
or electronics to use these. For example, a 14-year-old kid
in Chile, Sebastian Alegria, used the Arduino to build
an earthquake warning system that was better than the Chilean
government's million-dollar proposal. And Arduino has been used in the world's
first crowdfunded satellite. And today, this is spinning
around our planet, conducting scientific
experiments in space. I used the Arduino to build
wearable electronics for myself, only after two months of practice,
and I'm not a programmer, and today, I'm using the Spark
to build a pollen-detection system for our city, for the web. So, the world is changing,
and it's changing fast, but we need you and your ideas, and we need you to turn them into reality, because technology
is at your fingertips too. So we need you to turn
your ideas into reality now. Thank you. (Applause)
