Questioning Our Human Future

well welcome everybody welcome good afternoon and thank you for joining us for this issue briefing is extraordinary issue briefing which we arranged is because there was so much interest when the program was released to the public last week the professor Hariri here was good it was going to be speaking that Congress there was such an intense amount of interest to get him in a smaller more conducive environment and I can't think of anywhere more conducive and here in the media center all that way from that you know the you know the busyness and the hubbub of the Congress center - yeah drill down a little bit more and ask a few more questions and try to get a bit more behind the professor's work so as is the the norm with issue briefings we don't have a huge amount of time just 30 minutes and we want to make it as interactive as possible I'd like as much you know as much disagreements and challenging of the professor's theories that you can possibly muster they're quite compelling and I've been trying and failing but one thing I will say is I'm glad there is a five-minute walk between the Congress Center and here because after his session I was looking for a deep dark room just to go and kind of gather my gather my thoughts I should also say and I always say you know sometimes we get this but welcome indeed to our audience watching live online we're on twitter on we form dot org and a number of other platforms as well professor you've out Herrera Europe I professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and of course best known for your if your two books sapiens a brief history of humankind I believe in 2014 and and followed up swiftly by homo just a brief history of tomorrow which was a year later I would just ask I'd like to take advantage of my privilege of being in this position I ask the first question so you said in your your your speech just now the politicians are a bit like musicians and they're yeah they have the ability to play on human and emotional and be a biochemical systems and they have the power to inspire fear now actually I find you were similarly able to inspire myself what I wasn't sure about is is what your view of the future is whether you think is a good thing with your you know as a scientist you're quite entranced by possibilities and whether you're you're as scared as maybe some of the other people that left the room I just don't know I mean I don't think that anybody has any idea how the world would look like in 40 or 50 years let alone a century the only thing we are certain is that it's going to be completely different from what what it is today I don't remember who said it but somebody said that if if they tell you about the world in 2015 and it sounds like science fiction it's probably not true but if they tell you about the world of 2050 and it doesn't sound like science fiction it's definitely not true so this is the best I can do I mean the message is that technology is not deterministic it's not like okay now we have AI and bio engineering so this is going to happen no matter what we do know it opens up an entire menu of possibilities and nothing is determined in advance I was in my part of my preparation for this meeting as you know where we focused quite heavily on the fourth Industrial Revolution here and it was a again popularized in a book this time by our professor Klaus Schwab founder and executive chairman a couple of years ago and I was looking to see what the narrative had yeah who had been that had followed from this book and I in my reading last year that I found that there were less developments in terms of technology but more developments in terms of the impacts of technology and and the kind of the the the the kind of thoughtfulness around the need to kind of bake in some kind of a system to govern and to and to try to steer the technology in the right way what's your view of where we're at is humanity and kind of try to understand as you say these these technological leaps that we're kind of you know we're seeing before our eyes we are making so far very little progress I mean most people are hardly aware of what is happening and even many governments their basic attitude ah we have more urgent things to take care of than this so as I said in in my in my talk the world is divided into a very very small minority of people concentrated in a few corporations and governments that have a clear or at least a clearer idea of what is really happening and what is at stake and the vast majority of humanity that they just don't have that the time they don't have the volition they don't have the education or the ability to make sense of what is happening and this is very very dangerous in the past you talked about the succession of difficult situations humanities defend itself and if you're on the wrong side of the fence they in feudalism we're in the desperate a Jew or a peasant or you're a worker and you couldn't we could find ourselves on the wrong side of history again in the in the the vision that you create are we less able in the current in this situation we're about to enter to be in charge of our own destiny than we have been in the past it was always very difficult to be in charge of your destiny what is unique now is that what people the big danger for people is no longer exploitation its irrelevance I mean in the previously in history if you were on the wrong side of history if you didn't understand what was happening in Europe and you lost the competition then you ended up as some kind of serf or manual laborer being exploited by the people who understand and have the power now if you're left behind you're facing something far worse which is to be completely irrelevant they won't even need you as a serf or as a slave yeah which is which is a worrying thing and of course we for we go we're very concerned about how to how to find meaningful work and we need for existence for folk in the future including ourselves one of the one of the comments by the moderator of the last session in the Congress Center was that Chancellor Merkel actually passed you in the in degree marine wages he got mentioned that she'd read your book how involved have you been working with governments and all other organizations in trying to kind of think out this this this next stage of history and try to kind of make sense of it you also mention it I think and respect for the ability of governments to to put into in place the long term thinking as well are there any good examples of collaborations or signs of hope that we're kind of attacking this in the right way I'm not very involved with governments I mean I see my job as a historian and I still regard myself as a stolen base achill II it's just trying to level the playing ground a bit in the sense of making more people appreciate what is happening around the world what is at stake what are the developments we are facing so that more people can join the debate about the future which is the future of all of us if you're not part of the debate it doesn't mean you won't be affected by the consequences and I have no illusion that we can include all 7.5 billion people in the debate for a variety of reasons but even magnifying the number of people involved by 10 times it's still something that we should aspire to and this is what I see as my role as a story just to create more clarity for people and to thereby empower them to have a voice in in this debate and how what kind of response are you getting from people is there is this a slow burn we talk a lot here again about shifting mindsets which is never as fast as one would like do you feel that mindsets are being shifted or is this still still too early to say no they are shifting but the the pace of progress of what we're talking about especially the disruptive technology is much faster than the pace in which Minds shift and it's very very difficult to really change the minds of people which case about your comment that we don't know our bodies as well as algorithms yeah it may soon know our buddies let's have a quick show of hands he wants to ask questions ok so we have a couple here all right let's let's start them please wait for the microphone if you could remind us who you are and where you're from Thank You Alec hug from business comm they many questions but I'll throw two at you and maybe you could also buzzer them the first is some kind of an update from sapiens on the two big last markets and and the second thing is we're in the media people aren't informed fifty percent we heard from Edelman's don't consume media anymore how can we change that so about markets and states they are still the the main the main actors the main agents in history we don't have a new agent so far and I don't think that it's going to change anytime soon the two big processes is States trying to accumulate more power and markets trying to accelerate the pace of growth this is what is pushing these revolutions forward and this will continue anybody who tries to get off this train I mean unless the whole human race gets off the train at the same time by some common agreement then you'll just be left behind I mean if some state says or I don't want to go on with with these kinds of developments while other states continue with business as usual then it will just be left behind and no state is willing to do the talking to itself as for media I'm not sure that I understand the question I mean if you can just rephrase it media sorry at the at the Edelman's Trust Barometer yesterday it came out that 50% of people are no longer consuming media at all any kind of any kind of media and the 50% that are consuming them three two-thirds of them don't know what the difference between fake news and proper news now we are presumably in the business of trying to inform anti fake news have you got any thoughts of how one as a storing agent don't really understand the the maybe hysteria around fake news because this was always the case I mean when was the ero of truth in the 1980s the 1930s the 18th century the Middle Ages when was it that everybody consumed just truthful stories that government didn't lie that propaganda didn't play a central role I think that in some ways situation is is better now then it was i'm a medievalist so i tend to look at everything so through the prism of the Middle Ages and believe me the Middle Ages was full of far worse fake news than what we are seeing today I think that the really big problem is the flood of information of any kind whether I mean even the truth is problematic when you are just flooded by enormous amounts of truthful but irrelevant information or too much information to make sense of and to create some kind of meaningful picture the real what we are really missing is not not just the ability to tell the difference between what's true and not what what's not true it's the ability to make sense of the big picture this is the the real difficulty and in this sense the problem with media is not so much whether that the stories are out rule not it's just that it's to what extent does the media focus on really helping people to have an understanding of the big picture or is it just focused on pushing that the next story doesn't matter the story is true or not that's that's for me is the real issue which is interesting because you mentioned a kind of slight distrust of governments to put in place the kind of long-term thinking you're talking and there's slight distrust of the media for putting across that bigger picture this is a multi-stakeholder embracing organization and meeting well what stakeholder groups are best positioned to do this kind of long-term thinking that we need to do it would be easy to say science but that's too easy because when you don't have responsibility then you can have all kinds of ideas and theories and and talk big I don't think that the government of scientists ruling the world will necessarily do a better job we what we need is not to get rid of the state so get rid of the corporations but to get them on board and to work with them and through them gentlemen right let's move on to you sir please wait for the microphone so if we as a species are changed or - Vikram Chandra from NDTV if you said that the that we as a species are changing and the era of sapiens might be coming to an end since you wrote through videos have you thought any further as to what could be coming and what sort of a entity is likely to replace sapiens that's an impossible question to answer because given the ability to re-engineer bodies and brains and minds then our imagination too is up for grabs so I can tell you what sapiens like us would like to do with things like bioengineering or direct brain computer interfaces they would like to extend their lifespans to be more healthy to be more beautiful and so forth and so on but once you change the basic parameters of the human brain and of the human mind I've absolutely no idea what the new kinds of entities would like to do with these technologies I mean so far in history what we have seen is humans just like us changing the world outside them so they cut down forests they build bridges they build factories all kinds of things but the real change now is that we are gaining the ability to start reengineering not the world outside us but the world inside us inside the body in the and by definition you don't know where this is leading because you're still stuck with your brain so if you can imagine what the future entities will do with the technology they are not superior to you they are just like you and what are the first ways we'll see this happening well give you some kind of first baby steps towards kind of infiltrating the inside of the body rather than the world around us what should we what do we need to look out for it's happening on on three fronts there is biological engineering which is taking the body as we know it as natural selection shaped it and basically speeding up natural selection with all kinds of help from intelligent design and we are beginning to see all kinds of interventions or the genetic level all kinds of interventions with the growing new organs and rejuvenating organs and so forth so this is one front biological engineering which is the most conservative because it still stays with the basic building blocks of organisms as we have known them for four billion years okay so they change a few genes and you have a different brain but it's still an organism as we know as we've known it the second approach is more radical and this is to start combining organic and inorganic stuff so direct brain computer interfaces replacing organic hands with Bionic hands are adding to the body a second immune system which is not organic but an inorganic immune system are made up of millions of tiny tiny nano robots inside your body that diagnose cancer and eliminates all kinds of diseases and so forth but you still the the main command and control center is still your organic brain which is connected to all kinds of devices of computers can serve the internet whatever the third and most radical way is to completely give up completely abandon organic stuff and create completely inorganic life-forms whether this can be done or not is an open question the biggest open question is yet so far ending the life sciences is the question of consciousness we have no idea what consciousness is what it does how how it emerges the common assumption is that somehow the mind consciousness emerges from the brain and if we have the brain and if we understand how billions of neurons create subjective experiences of anger and love and pain and pleasure then there should be no barrier for recreating these kinds of experiences based on silicon and not carbon based on computers and not brains but this is just at present it's just a dogma we are still far from really understanding consciousness so maybe it's not like that and many will never be able to create non organic life-forms but more and more scientists serious scientists are becoming convinced that sooner or later this will happen and we'll be able to leave behind the realm of organic compounds and create completely inorganic life-forms I've seen a couple of hands guy maybe we should just take the questions and Lady a question that you talked about markets and the state I was wondering if you see any role in the future for the networks and specifically what are your thoughts on the blockchain as a mechanism to organize human cooperation at scale that maybe previously was only able to be done by States or Martens and a cheeky one what are you hopeful about okay well it's just over there give me some time to think about that one hi I'm Marcel means from global news TV Brazil I've heard mr. Jack Ma from Alibaba his thoughts about education what would that the world who need a revolution education to be prepared for the loss of jobs to computers and robots he talked about 800 million jobs being lost in the near future I like to have your take in what need to be done in education because it always seems that we are educating looking at the past and not at the future and he says that the more important things nowadays to separate clearly humans from robots so teaching kids music sports and painting let's say to make them very different from robots I like to have your say on education anybody else what we're doing or any questions yeah judgments run dry I'd love to know how you see these three sects or these three movements playing out in the near term maybe a decade or two something that you feel you do have some analytical visibility into you know three ways I have a humanism neuro humanism and posthumanist I just do a gentleman the last right they will take all these mhm you can choose which one you want to do first Rick Wiles true news Florida USA in the earlier session you said there is no intelligent design by a God in the clouds could you elaborate on those thoughts okay so we have blockchain the power networks for facilitating human cooperation mm-hmm education revolution and education yeah timeline three stages got in the clouds and last but not least what makes you hopeful okay they learn at a time before you get to that last question please okay so about markets and States and blockchain I mean basically we've been done before in the 1990s in the great optimistic era of the internet and then we heard the same story that all states the market corporations this is old stuff the internet will completely change the way things are happening will create all kinds of digital communities that will replace states and corporations and markets and as we all know it didn't happen what happened was that the corporations the markets and the states colonized cyberspace and are now becoming more and more powerful and they now compete among themselves it's States against States against corporations and so now we have this new promise ok that the old internet was not good enough to do it blockchain will do it and maybe it will happen I mean history's never just repeat itself the fact that something happened last time is no guarantee that this will happen again this time so we'll just have to wait and see I am skeptical because the states and the market has been here for such a long time already and they have managed to adapt to so many different new environments that I'm I find it hard to imagine that just you know just need one more technological twist and they and they are out of the game they some of them may become extinct but others will adapt and take over also the new technology maybe so this is about the promise of blockchain about education then yes I mean if this is the the really big question with all the talk about job loss and so forth is it's not the absolute an inhalation of jobs there will be new jobs the big question is whether people will be able to perform these new jobs whether they will have the skills because usually when people talk today about the the coming waves of automation and the creation of new jobs what I think about is jobs that demand specialized not specialized but more highly proficient skills jobs that we create a demand creativity and innovation and things like that and ok so you have these millions of jobs demand that but do you have the necessary Education and Skills to fulfill the jobs in the previous waves of automation let's say if you're a farm worker in 1910 and they don't need you anymore because they now have these new tractors but there are there are openings in the tractor factory in Detroit so we moved from the farm to Detroit and you apply to the tractor factory and it's it's a routine manual job so you do need to learn some new skills and you do need some time to adjust but in principle most farm workers were able to reinvent themselves as factory workers relatively easily but in the next stage in the next waves of automation if you lost your job as a cashier or as a textile worker and there is a new job in data analytics or in designing virtual reality games that's going to be far more difficult and we are not teaching young people today the necessary skills for the simple reason that nobody knows what these skills will be we can't predict what will be the necessary skills so the best bet is to focus on things like emotional intelligence like mental resilience like the ability to learn because this will definitely be necessary the problem here is that nobody really knows how to teach it on a on a massive scale you can create a very inert innovative school that focuses on things like emotional intelligence and things like like mental resilience but how do you scale that for billions of people around the world this is a big big question about the 3 Way the three ways in which this is going to play out some we see beginning to happen in different ways around us today genetic engineering is no longer just science fiction I mean every month or so we hear about a new treatment in new experimental method on mice or on monkeys or sometimes on people which is which is being explored and it's the same ways our brain computer faces now for example the idea of just thinking about something and the lights go out or the the the something appears in the computer screen this is no longer science fiction it's happening once we have a good two-way communication system direct communication system between brains and computers this is kind of the watershed moment I mean once you have a good two-way nobody has any idea what happens after that it's kind of like the the the the screen comes down in a completely different show begins for example if you have a good two-way communication system directly between brains and computers it also means you can connect several brains together to create an inter brain net with because it's it's the same the same system the same communication system and nobody has any idea what this means for things like identity Who am I when I can access directly the brain of another person the third way of creating completely inorganic life-forms this is still science fiction of course it depends on your definition of a life-form but if you want it to have consciousness if you want it to have subjective experiences then this is still science fiction and maybe they'll be a breakthrough in the next decade or two maybe it will never happen I don't know the fourth question was about God in the intelligent design and gods and in clouds so I was just referring to it that the world intelligent design immediately brings to mind of many people the creationist idea that all life forms are designed by God and I sometimes people tell you don't use the word intelligent design but it is intelligent design what we are about to see in the world it's just not the intelligent design of the God of the Bible it's the intelligent design of human beings and increasingly of algorithms this is why I referred to the intelligent design of clouds of the of the of the cloud computing that designing a life-form is such a complicated thing to do but in all likelihood no human being will be able to do it but our algorithms may be able to do it for us and increasingly we'll see in more and more fields this shift in authority from humans to algorithms so even if we keep as figureheads the presidents and the CEOs will continue to be human beings because we don't like the idea of being ruled by algorithms actually these presidents and CEOs they will be choosing between options dictated by algorithms often without really understanding how they came to these options and what do these options mean so you'll still have some human being being given the option okay we'll do a B or C but the ones really driving the show will be the algorithms that shape the options in the first place and the last question was time what gives you hope that humanity has managed to overcome very big challenges in the past as well if you look back say 50 years in the 1950s 1960s the nuclear war was on everybody's like number one item on the human agenda and lots of people were convinced that humanity is not up to it and that sooner or later the Cold War will end in a nuclear catastrophe that will annihilate all of humankind and much of the ecological system as well and throw fari didn't happen the Cold War ended not in some huge bloodbath but actually ended peacefully with some eruptions here and there but generally speaking it it if you think about previous similar crisis in history it was the most peaceful transition of power maybe in in human history what happened at the at the end of the Cold War and this was not a miracle this was human beings making wise choices the Soviets the Americans Chinese the Europeans they made wise choices during the Cold War and it ended peacefully it gives us no guarantee that we can do the same thing in with with the challenges that we now face but it does give us hope that yes human stupidity is unlimited but so is hopefully also human wisdom I'm reminded at the the fact that I believe it was after the first nuclear bombs were dropped that we managed to get a human a treaty for non-proliferation of nuclear weapons yet still and with you I'm hopeful good news guys we have an extra 15 minutes Oh we've given professor here more time we normally give so so we can have some more questions and just to give you some time to kind of think about it so I'm sure you've had plenty we have written business much and it's I don't know how to make money that is exactly so let's just really listen yeah baby but before you do you talk about States and governments but also vast owners of data these days our businesses so my question I'd like to ask is can they be trusted more than governments to be safe custodian responsible custodians of this data and do you think that the owners of this data today will be the owners of data as we move into this this this future we are painting for us no not necessarily I mean those who own the data today there is no guarantee that they will continue to own it especially as more people and especially governments wake up to the importance of this data they might want to grab it to nationalize it actually one of my fears when I was thinking about what to talk whenever the environment to Davos and I was thinking about giving this talk my main fear was that it will be sidered as a call to nationalize the data and even though I'm I I think there are many reasons to distrust corporations but at least in the West in China is different but at least in the West today the main owners of data are the big corporations I'm not I don't I'm not convinced we'll be better off if the government's nationalize this data again as I said I don't have a solution I think it's it's really too early the discussion is just beginning it's a couple more questions very quick this is the last road I promise you say three people there former Co said the crucial question is Europe has to decide who owns the data and so I wanted to ask you whether it's better if a corporation owns the data or a government and what scares you more okay say well let's do this four in a row in that state so late mum if you could give us your name as well and if you don't mind my name is Anne right and I was wondering you know independent of the question of who owns the data have you thought at all about how requirements might be put in place so that people will have access to their own data an example is that axiom and other at data aggregators have the sophisticated data model that they used to add advertise towards you which it would be really really really nice if you could see you know well what what you know what do they know about yeah what what do they know about what is their model of me so that you can you can challenge that plus a microphone behind you please mom and couldíve is your name and where you tell us where you're from these futuristic you've written a lot of ideas that have been around there's really a large community of people who have been thinking about this and I in addition to bringing some good insights and some kind of balance the count an awful lot of what you did or accomplished was just wonderful and organizing it in in a refreshing way and I was just interested in who you drew upon because it because there is this large community of scholars out there involved in this and I just wondered who your inspirations are who you found particularly helpful whose ideas you were inspired by mm-hmm jasmine iced tea please yeah Lee away from sighs Shane from China so mentioning about governments you repeatedly mentioning China I'm wondering do you mean it in a say an active sense as Gillian Tett mentioned earlier digital dictatorship or in a positive sense that Chinese government have the capability to do things specifically on these tech giants Chinese societies recognition of their kind of negative impact is lagging behind the Western society but it seems in monopolistic effect on a society of these two tech giants are ahead of the West so do you think Chinese government can do it before things blow up not a great choice of words but anyway so we got challenges to democracy inspirations access trade data and mom your question wasn't quite answered earlier about yeah dressed for address the first and the last questions together about China yeah I'm trying to find this middle way my basic message is not that the Chinese are worse than everybody else or that they are better than everybody else my basic understanding is that they are ahead of all the other governments in understanding what is happening and what is at stake and and this can be something very good because they are thinking about these issues and they come up with solutions before people in other countries realize that the dangers or it could be bad that they aren't learning how to manipulate it and how to use it so it's it can go either way at present and again I'm not an expert on subject I haven't studied it deeply enough the only thing I can say is that they are probably ahead of other other governments in understanding the importance of in actions I don't know what they're doing in actuality so this I I cannot comment on but at least from what I from meetings ahead and discussions and what I read the impression is that they really understand what is happening in a way that in the West you talk to people both in governments and sometimes also in business and they are somewhere behind they think they don't realize the immense power that most of their thinking is really about the you know shopping and consumerism and if Amazon knows that I like this they can sell me that and this everybody know almost everybody knows that by now but the more important stuff that they can knows things far more important about me and they can manipulate far more in deeper aspects of my personality in life this is still something that at least in the West people are not aware of or not aware of enough now this brings us to the question of okay so if you have to choose between corporations and governments what do you choose it is very difficult on the one hand governments at least represent people or supposed to represent people beyond the shareholders and the managers whereas the big corporations nobody really wrote it for them or or endorsed them in in any public way to to take hold of of these developments enough of the future of humanity so from this perspective it's better if the data is in the hands of governments who also thinks in in broader terms they have the mandate to think not just about profitability but about social issues and about health and about environment and many other things that corporations are this is not their business their business is just business it's just the bottom line so from this perspective it's better if the government nationalised the data on the other hand governments can do because they have a broader perspective they can do far worse things with this data than the corporations I mean the cooperation okay so they'll make a few more trillion dollars but what all kinds of of despotic regimes might do I mean if if you really build a digital dictatorship based on biometric sensors and biometric data there is no way that it can be dismantled from within it's the end of the line I mean all these liberal fantasies about people making the revolutions and rising up there are a hundred steps ahead of you they know what is happening in your brain before the thought is even formulated and they can manipulate you on a far deeper level than just you know George Orwell and then their brain propaganda machine of the of the that kind they had in the 1930s and 40s so this is really the scary scenario once you go there there is almost no way of getting out of there so this is why it's it's really scary if the government's get their hands on this we do a quick show of hands to see who would prefer to have governments in control as opposed to business governor who's a who's for governments only or data lady no to and he takes on three though business and seven or eight hand business wins surprise you but none is I mean where is it all right none and actually promised not to track personal data my way from you never give us your name please mm-hmm so yes we can think about third options but as we discussed earlier and this is a lot of power we're talking about if you establish some I don't know NGO that accumulates the data it will become the most powerful organ in in the world and then the the state either the states and the corporations will try to get the power bank all the same problems you have today with governments and with corporations you will have with this NGO I mean the option of just not using the data it means giving up on all the enormous potential and here then as I said in the talk the most obvious front is is healthcare I mean think of the kind of healthcare you could provide to people if you really know what is happening every moment inside their bodies and inside their brains now would you like to give it up because you're afraid of the other things that this kind of information might make possible my guess is that most people especially when it comes to life and death situations affecting themselves or their children or their spouses would not like would would take the risk I mean health care will win and in the wake of health care will have all the other things making use of this data Evo let's let's move on we have a couple more days last access here and data and inspirations in whatever all you like yes so access to dead this is a very good idea I think from the things we can implement then ok so there's lots of data about me I want to have access to know what they know this is a very good idea how to implement how to implement especially because most of the data would not make any sense to you unless you have the tools to to I mean if they give you all the data about like you can today get your DNA scan what does it mean I mean you need an entire system to make sense of data like your DNA scan so so this is one issue you need the system and not just the raw data and the other thing is that you know if the throughout history that the repeated advice that all the philosophers and prophets and poet told peoples is get to know yourself know thyself and this is very very difficult partly because people often don't want to know themselves very well there are many things you don't want to know about yourself if you really had access not just to the raw data but what the data means about you this will be a life shattering event to really know who you are it's not necessarily bad it's just very difficult difficult not in the sense of how to make it happen if it happens it will be something very difficult for people to deal with and I mean against the kind of consumerist idea in the same way they give me the report about my bank transaction every month they'll send me a report or what we learned about you this month this will be a shuttering report so and your inspirations in inspirations but I read so much I mean so difficult I mean I'll mention just just a few with Jared Diamond who first gave me the the idea that historians and and and and scientists can talk about these issues seriously from a scientific perspective and there is France Duvall who is a primatologist these studies chimpanzees and bonobos and so forth and I've learned from his work more about humans I guess then about only chimpanzees and bonobos and there is a long list of other I just I'm we are running out of time yes so um thanks Alec so I leave it there but it's a very long list I mean I definitely I would say most of my work is not creative it's it's a work of synthesis I read what people write about chimpanzees and about artificial intelligence and about ancient China and about brain science and I try to bring it together in such a way that it will be meaningful for the average person and it will be helpful and empowering to understand what is happening in the world final questions we before we leave so you've written a brief history of humankind you've written a brief history of tomorrow professor urine you're a young man what what's next well where do you go from here the next book is really about the present I mean we've done the past we've done the futures of the present he's the only thing that is left so this is fascinating well what a vivid description you've given us and it's by far one of the most interesting sessions I've ever had the pleasure not this one the earlier one I hope you enjoyed this one and I enjoy talking to you thank you so much for joining us here thank you thank you all for joining us thank you for joining us and watching us online [Applause]

Channel: World Economic Forum

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Keywords: World Economic Forum, Davos, WEF2018, Davos 2018, politics, finance, economy, news, leadership, democracy, education, 4IR, technology, tech, AI, automation, work, future, webcast

Id: GhF7Skyx0F8

Length: 47min 17sec (2837 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 24 2018