Should We Have a Futurist
Mindset?
It is time to We should start with
education and our approach to education if our future generation is to develop
a futuristic mindset.
by Dr. Ruwantissa Abeyratne
For time and the world do not stand still.
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present
are certain to miss the future…John F. Kennedy
( May 9,
2018, Montreal, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is incontrovertible that global winds of
massive technological changes coupled with economic shifts are sweeping us
toward a revolutionary way of considering our future. Julie Friedman
Steele, Chairperson on the Board of the World Future Society says: “Our current
global story line isn’t working. With accelerating technological growth
and access to collective knowledge revolutionizing every day life, the zero-sum
game of capitalism is unsustainable. With automated labour force on the horizon,
and the looming existential threats of artificial intelligence (AI), nuclear
weapons, and climate change, there is too much at stake to prolong the status
quo”. Friedman warns of the unfathomable bounds of AI and the
incomprehensible dimensions it will reach in the future and calls for us to be
futuristic citizens with a futuristic mindset. In this context, it must
be noted that, although AI is essentially a process of machine learning with
data and algorithms which enables it to do better than humans in such areas as
medical diagnosis and even legal research, there are constraints that impel us
to be cautiously optimistic about this technology.
Garry
Kasparov, one-time world chess champion who matched his wits with
IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue (and beat it before losing a rematch), adds to
the concept of the futuristic mindset by saying “humans will still set the
goals and establish the priorities. We must
ensure that our agnostic machines represent the best of our human
morality”. There is no dissonance between what Friedman says and what
Kasparov states. On the contrary, they complement each other well with
the inexorable conclusion that this is an era where we must get our left brain
to coordinate with the right brain and enable them to work in consonance to
meet the future of the exponential march of technology with the values we place
on our rules of conduct.
The left
brain controls our powers of analysis and our ability to make logical
conclusions. The right side of the brain makes us innovative, creative
and ethical. This is indeed what our futuristic mindset should be – a
combination and harmonious blending of the two. In his book How
to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci, author Michael J. Gelb hails Da Vinci as
the greatest genius of all time (which this author does not doubt) and ascribes
Da Vinci’s genius to the fact that he employed both sides of his brain equally,
bringing to bear the question as to whether Da Vinci was a scientist interested
in art or an artist interested in science. The
conclusion is that he was both. This enabled Da Vinci to excel in being
an artist, scientist, architect, inventor, engineer, cook and musician, all in
one. The seven
steps identified by Gelb that characterised Da Vinci’s mindset was Curiosita (insatiable
curiosity); Demostrazione (demonstrability of competence and
testing knowledge with experience); sensazione (sharpening the
senses consistently); sfumato (being comfortable with
ambiguity); arte/scienza (balance science and art, logic &
imagination); corporalita (develop poise: the balance of body
& mind): and connessione (maintain a big
picture perspective).
There are
megatrends facing us portending immense pressure on our world. This
is even more reason that we should have a futurist mindset that is balanced
between the sciences and art with an infusion of our moral values. These
megatrends, which are: the economic shift from the West to the East; rapid
urbanization; demographic changes; innovative technology; and climate change,
all call for what Kasparov calls our “new tools” when he says: “if we succeed,
our new tools will make us smarter, enabling us to better understand our world,
and ourselves”.
Here’s my
take. We should start with education and our approach to education if our
future generation is to develop a futuristic mindset. In other words, we
must enable our children to think like Da Vinci (not with the specific intent
of creating a world of super geniuses, although that would not hurt),
particularly in the context of arte/scienza (balance science
and art, logic & imagination). Elizabeth H. Blackburn, President of
the Salk Institute in La Jolla California and Nobel Laureate says: “let science
be our guidepost” and she is absolutely right. However, one must heed the
tremendous contribution of the humanities if we are to control AI according to
human values and achieve the balance of Da Vinci’s arte/scienza.
Only a talent-based education system that replaces an examination-based
education system could achieve this balance.
Fareed
Zakaria, in his book In Defence of a Liberal Education says
that the education he received enabled him to achieve three things: “1) it
teaches you to write, 2) to think, and 3) to learn”. Zakaria writes of
the value of a liberal education in developing the individual life of the mind
and ourselves as human beings. After all, as someone once said, morality
is the harmonious blending of the elements of freedom and compulsion.
While we must have the compulsion to make science our guidepost, we must have
the freedom of thinking that enable us to set values for ourselves when using
science and technology. It is not certain at all that AI could one day be
infused with the categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant or the meth; muditha
and karuna of the teachings of the enlightened one. The futuristic
mindset should devise a way that robots can be a tool towards a better world
that could enhance our lifestyles while at the same time enabling us to retain
our human values. As Zakaria says in one of his essays: “This
dismissal of broad-based learning, however, comes from a fundamental misreading
of the facts — and puts America on a dangerously narrow path for the future. The United States has led the world in economic dynamism, innovation and
entrepreneurship thanks to exactly the kind of teaching we are now told to
defenestrate. A broad
general education helps foster critical thinking and creativity. Exposure to a
variety of fields produces synergy and cross fertilization. Yes, science and
technology are crucial components of this education, but so are English and
philosophy”.
So let us begin to think like Da Vinci and be aware of what Erich Fromm
said: “the danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that
men may become robots”.
The
author is a Senior Associate at Aviation Strategies International.
