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Is AI the New Normal?

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We all have heard about the “new normal”.

New normal, has many interpretations and it is widely spoken everywhere. It seems to be like the new mantra. But do we really know what does it mean for us? Beyond the question of health…

Is it now the “new normal” that we will be more socially (physically) apart than before?

Is it the “new normal” to forget office life and embrace the new home office modality?

Is it the “new normal” to attend online classes, and forget the good old school days of meeting your friends and waiting at the break time to conspire against the world (or just against the teachers) together?

Is it the “new normal” to transform our consumption habit from “Going out shopping” to “Stay home shopping”? – I still remember the legendary phrase of the infamous Carrie Bradshaw at Sex and the City: “Shopping is my cardio!” well, not anymore, dear. Nowadays you don’t need to even stand up from your bed. Just two finger movements with an app and you get your clothes delivered at home.

If you are in the business world, you might agree with me on this: There is no single day that goes by without hearing the word “digitalization”, or even worse: “digital transformation”.

It’s the topic of the century… there is no single strategy meeting, or corporate strategy goal that does not include these buoyant words.

Karl Schwab, Executive Chairman of the WEF (World Economic Forum) in his recent book called “COVID-19: The Great Reset”- seems to be very enthusiastic about the new digital era; in fact, he predicts that “consumers may prefer automated services to face to face interactions” and adds that “recession induced by the pandemic will trigger a sharp increase in labor-substitution, meaning that physical labor will be replaced by robots and intelligent machines, which will provoke lasting changes in the labor market”.

Before the pandemic, we all understood that the digital era was here to stay; that artificial intelligence is advancing at gigantic spaces in many industries and will indeed represent a big shift in our current way of living.

What is missing for me is the central question, the Elefant in the room: Are we ready for a transformation like this? Are we ready to introduce in an unprecedent rapid and high scale, the so-called Internet of Things? How far are we in our local and global policies, in defining what is the impact of AI in our human affairs? What will change in our human rights? Do we really want this or is this change being imposed on us?

Is there a human right protection law against being dismissed from your job in exchange of a robot? Do we need one? Is there a policy which regulates the human made data? To which extent we can claim property rights of our own information, and where is the limit, when an algorithm picks it up and mixes it with other millions of data to form a new data pattern? Who owns the data?

If I get killed by my own automated driving car, can my family take charges against the self-driving car? Against the company who sold it?

And what does philosophy have to do with all of this?

Apparently, most people perceive AI and the «high tech» to be this technical, science based, geek mysterious subject whereas philosophy sounds more like a subjective, poetical, people of words kind of subject. But if we look a bit deeply, one cannot exist without the other.

I think indeed philosophy lies at the heart of artificial intelligence. As we know from common definition, philosophy is the fundamental study of the human nature, more specifically in the nature of knowledge and existence.

AI is here to stay, so what will it mean to our existence? If the life we used to know will be fully transformed by a new digital world, how will this affect our consciousness, our epistemology?

If a robot will in the future perform the classic human affairs, not only the boring assembly job which is anyway fully automatized nowadays in most industries, but actually we can see not so far from now robot nurses, doctor robots (which exist already in some hospitals in China), self-driving cars, intelligent home devices that will talk to you and do the job for you, robots managing global supply chains, and even the arts cannot not escape; algorithms learn so fast that now are able to compose beautiful songs based on millions of data patterns to create new bars of music.

So where do we fit in all of this?

Isaac Asimov, the famous writer of “I, robot” described three fundamental rules that became the heart of the artificial intelligence era of today:

1.A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The third rule bothers me a little.  How can we program a robot that can protect itself without causing any harm at all? How will a robot develop an intuitive thinking like we got after millions of years of evolution, to face such a moral dilemma of deciding what is right or wrong?

Even we, after millions of years of evolution are far from doing this right, as Isamov rightly says: “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” 

I believe philosophy plays a more crucial role than ever before. We are in unprecedented times, and we are urged to think further and consciously about where we are collectively going.

These are not times for being egoistical and worrying just about your own good. These are times where we need to redefine our human philosophy. If a digital era is coming and changing our world, which by the way was a change triggered by us, what does it mean now to be human? What are the new roles in our society? Where do we stand, locally and globally?

How can we regulate this? Where are the values and morals that have defined us for thousands of years? The importance of family as a nuclear entity, the importance of community and the fundamental human need of transcend, to have a mission in life, to have a purpose.

“It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say ‘It’s as plain as the nose on your face.’ But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?” 
― Isaac Asimov, I, Robot

In the end, we are the only responsible ones to define our own identity, aren’t we?

Are You Feeling Overwhelmed? Go Back to Basics

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Already immersed in the second week of November. Through my window, I see the trees slowly running out of leaves. Those precious colors of the autumn are falling apart. Old leaves fall from the trees and die, to become pure soil. It’s a beautiful and a sad scenario at the same time: To experience the death cycle of the tree. It is a signal: It’s getting cold and dark outside.

The autumn is a time for reflection as we are closely approaching the end of 2020. A very strange year, if you ask me. The world changed completely, as we used to know it a year ago.

With much of our freedom taken away (hopefully temporarily), we spent much more time at home than ever before; that means, we also spent much more time online. We hoped that the online world would bring us back that feeling of being not alone, and more as being part of a community. With social media, you do belong to an enormous community… so huge that- personally- I end of feeling more alone the more time I spend trying to build an online persona.

With too much going on in the world right now: Global pandemics, climate change catastrophic warnings, digitalization of almost everything, dramatic presidential elections, second lock downs in several countries… no wonder we might feel a little bit lost about what the future is holding for us.

I started to reflect about how lost I personally felt in the last couple of weeks with so much information flowing here and there. I struggled to remain present in my own experience of life. But with so much information and data to digest, I felt that I fell down to a fake reality bubble where I lost contact with what actually means being present in the daily life, and paid more attention at global events, and everything else trendy right now; whatever appears in my newsfeed.

For my own good, I decided to take a break and stop. Stop with all the frenzy. Go back to who I used to be, before the influence of so much information and networks going around me, getting me saturated with information I am supposed to accept.

I decided to go back to basics.

These are the 3 main basics I applied to my life, and I hope they can help you as well in getting back to your own self again… if like me, you are starting to feel it is time for a change.

Back to Basics 1: Stay tuned with the seasonality of the nature

I remember reading not so long ago this recommendation from Jim Rohn, American philosopher and entrepreneur, of living according to the natural seasonality of life; Apparently, we are one of those species that have been deliberately ignoring this valuable source of wisdom that nature can be.

As like with all living things, we are also affected by the year’s seasons and we go through our personal seasonality cycle as well.

Winter: Time for reflection and healing bounds

 In winter, the days are cold, and short. The night prevails. This is the time to “Stay in the cave”. Winters are times to sit back and recover. Winter might be perceived as dark, cold and unpleasant; but they are a great opportunity to heal your bounds. Sleep longer, take your time.

It is important as well to be able to live through our own winters. For us it means, times of uncertainty, when we feel things are not going well. There are all kinds of winters, and we must be able to go through all of them: Economic winters, health winters, winters with a broken heart. We know deep inside us, this is not going to last forever and even when we reach our darkest hour, we can be certain that it will be followed by light.

Winters are the time to grow strong, like Jim Rohn suggests.

Spring: Time to plant your seeds

This is the time when light is showing up again. We start to get our energy back. The days last longer, and we can get more things done. This is the perfect time to plan for the summer, which is when we reach our highest energy peak to make things done.

Opportunity follows recession, so we must take advantage of this new opportunity to go back on track with our lives. Spring is the time to plant the seeds to harvest for the coming autumn and winter. What does it mean for us? It means that is time to acquire skills, to keep learning, to start planning and acting on our goals.

Springs are a marvelous opportunity to craft our personalities and understand at what we are going after.

Summer: Time to enjoy your harvest and protect your crops

In summer, we feel at the peak of our energy. Days are warm and the longest of the year. These are times in our lives to enjoy, and start getting the first harvest from the seeds we planted during spring.

However, it is also the time to protect what you have planted. Rohn explains that there are two things we should look after during summer: To defend your crops and to learn how to defend your values.

A good classic example: During a winter time, you went through a hard time and gained weight. During spring, you planned for a weight reduction strategy and started working on it. By the time it is summer, you lost most of the weight and start to enjoy the benefits. However, should stay alert; you should keep the discipline of eating well and exercise; otherwise the nice breeze of summer can make you feel a bit chilly and relax on your measures, only to find in autumn that you gained weight again.

Autumn: Time to take responsibility

Autumns… I love them. The weather is fantastic. Not too hot, not too cold. The colors of the trees are a wonderful spectacle; all those gorgeous colors of fading greens, intense orange, reds and yellows.

Autumn in the human life sense of living, means… take responsibility. We overcame the winter, we flourished during our springs, we defended what we earned during summer, and now it’s time to take full responsibility of what we have built. It is time to keep maintaining that weight, to keep working on that important project, to keep improving ourselves. It is also time to embrace new beginnings, as the year is coming to an end; this is the perfect time to leverage what we have learned and go on and plan for what is coming.

As Rohn rightly says: “Accepting full responsibility is one of the highest forms of human maturity- and one of the hardest- is when you officially pass from childhood to adulthood”.

Autumns are times to accept, that everything that happened to us was our own making and thus our own responsibility. But that has also a liberating feeling: When something is fully our responsibility, it means we have the full power to change it.

Acting in flow with the life natural seasons, makes us much more aware and alert of our environment and of our own personal growth.

Back to Basics 2: Stay present. Say good bye to social media… at least for a while

It is not surprising that we spend much more of our time looking at screens than ever before. At the moment you wake up, you check your phone for the newest feed notifications. What does the weather look like today? No need to go up from bed and open the window; you just need to open your weather app, and it will tell you how cold or warm it is.

What happened while I was sleeping? This is no mystery anymore. Just open any social media app and you will see what was going on while you slept: That hot diet that everyone is doing, the latest election results in that remote country you’ve never been to, who got married and who had a new baby… everything you want (or don’t want ) to know, is at the click of the screen.

In the online world, there is not seasonality; no time to reflect.  Everything is hot, everything is urgent, everything is breaking news for an instant… everything is fast and frenzy. You have to be fully involved 24/7 or you miss it… you miss the online Disneyland…and whereabouts of people.

This is obviously not natural. Our brains are not wired to be receiving such vast and annoying amounts of information that sends us to oblivion. Our online persona disconnects us from the real world, from what is happening NOW.

So, an absolute back to basics during these busy and unpredictable times: Disconnect yourself from social media. Give it a break. Find yourself again. Find that internal voice that has not changed by external opinions and that still stands against massive manipulation from the online social morality standards.

As I discussed in a previous post, networking in mass quantities is not only useless but also dangerous. You want to feel you belong somewhere and maybe when you post a photo of yourself or an experience of your life you get some likes. But what is the satisfaction on it? A merely enjoyment of few seconds of fame. Five minutes later you are history for the Instagram and Facebook newsfeed.

In my opinion, it is better to forge fewer but very deep relationships, face to face, than trying to reach hundreds or thousands virtual people with nothing.

Back to basics 3: Connect again with your craft

There was a time, when one of the human’s greatest gifts was weighted on what you could do with your hands. There were no high tech devices, no outsourcing services… no one that did the job for you. So, people learned to craft things for themselves. We harvested our own food. Cooked it. We designed and sewed our own clothes. We built our own homes. People used to take pride on what they were capable to do with their bare hands. 

I think this still is as relevant today as it used to be in the past. We lost a bit our sense of craftmanship and love for what we could do with our own hands, because the current modernity delivers everything already made for us, at the exchange for some paper money or electronic money. We have let other people do the craftmanship for us, in the name of “Convenience”. I think actually, this is a step back for any human.

We pride ourselves for our craftmanship- our ability to create and design something by ourselves. Let it be a table, a house, a painting or a book- craftmanship is the highest expression of human creativity.

I really believe we should go back to that. Instead of getting ourselves lost in an online world where everything is defined for us and pushes us to be just consumers; we should aim again for crafting as much as we can. To create, to express our humanity through our craft.

At the end, we are not machines. We are humans. Let’s venerate our humanity.  Let’s go back to it.

Let’s go back to our basics!

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Networking: ¿Parte de la Solución o Parte del Problema?

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Esta es definitivamente la era del Networking. Casi todas nuestras actividades diarias están relacionadas de una manera u otra con diferentes tipos de “Networks” o redes. Gracias a nuestra forma modernizada de vivir, ahora dependemos de redes de suministro sofisticadas para satisfacer hasta nuestras necesidades más básicas.

Todavía a finales del siglo XVIII, los humanos nos organizábamos en pequeñas comunidades. La familia era el núcleo y ésta funcionaba de forma autosuficiente- Ellos mismos se encargaban de cosechar, y producir sus propios alimentos, se confeccionaban sus propias ropas y resolvían otros problemas propios del humano como educación, seguridad y salud discutiendo entre ellos y llegando a acuerdos. No existían “expertos” especializados en algo en particular- todos los miembros de la comunidad participaban en todas las actividades relacionadas con la vida y sociedad de la misma.

Con la llegada del siglo XIX también comenzó la era de industrialización masiva y por ende una nueva forma de vida, que cambió permanentemente la tradicional vida de comunidad y familia como núcleo principal de la sociedad, dándole paso a el estado y corporaciones globales como responsables centrales de abastecimiento y suministro de todas las necesidades básicas de la nueva sociedad.  Éstos son los comienzos de la era “Networking”.

A partir de mediados del siglo XIX y en específico después de la segunda guerra mundial, las nuevas sociedades no necesitaban formar a las personas en todos los ámbitos posibles. Ya no era necesario enseñar a nuestros hijos a cosechar su propia comida, a observar detenidamente la naturaleza y aprender de ella para conseguir subsistir. Ya no era necesario saber tejer, ni cocinar, ni entender de mecánica, física o leyes para poder serle útil a la comunidad. Las grandes corporaciones y el estado se encargan de suministrar todo lo necesario, a cambio de que los miembros de la familia salgan a la escuela, trabajo de fábrica y paguen por el servicio, y paguen los respectivos impuestos.

En la vida moderna, ya no es importante formarte como un ser humano completo. Hoy en día, prácticamente no tienes ninguna presión de aprender a sobrevivir. Puedes elegir dedicarte a un trabajo que sirva en una industria específica y “consumir” el resto- dejar que alguien cocine por ti, haga la ropa por ti, cuidar a tus hijos y hasta darte el suministro de amor propio que no haz logrado desarrollar tú mismo. Los likes en facebook e instagram hacen el trabajo por ti.

He escuchado en múltiples ocasiones que el Networking es la panacea en la vida social y los negocios de hoy en día. Sin ser parte de un Networking, básicamente estaríamos aislados y perdidos. Hoy en día hay redes sociales de todo tipo: Profesionales, educacionales, religiosas, deportivas, de raza, de género… en fin, la lista es infinita. Puedes pertenecer a una infinidad de redes.

La pregunta aquí es, si la existencia y pertenencia a todas estas redes, ¿Nos ha beneficiado más para buscar una unidad real como seres humanos, o nos ha alejado más?

Con la evolución de la tecnología, estas redes se han trasladado a ser virtuales. Antes, había un cierto grupo de personas que se juntaban un par de horas ciertos días de la semana/mes/año para intercambiar ideas, opiniones, ayudarse mutuamente en problemas, o simplemente convivir. Ahora con la aparición de las redes sociales virtuales, básicamente no hay límite en el número y escala de personas que pueden unirse a la red.

Si el Networking es tan beneficioso como dicen, ¿Qué estoy haciendo mal?

No sé cuál sea tu experiencia siendo parte de distintas redes. En mi propia experiencia, puedo decir que al principio cuando me unía a un grupo de Networking que me interesaba, me sentía energizada y con muchas ganas de aprender de los demás y formar lazos de amistad que trasciendan las 4 paredes del lugar. Sin embargo, con el paso del tiempo, me daba cuenta que confiar en el mecanismo puro del Networking me ha dejado una sensación de vacío; Los problemas se discutían una y otra vez, pero no llegábamos a solución alguna. Los lazos de amistad eran difíciles de hacer, tomando en cuenta la cantidad limitada de tiempo que cada uno de nosotros le dedicábamos al grupo. Aveces, me daba la sensación de que la gente se unía no solamente por una causa y un objetivo común, si no que habían propias agendas y propios intereses, y esperaban que siendo parte de la red sus problemas específicos puedan ser solucionados, pero no se interesaban por tus problemas. Siendo honesta, al final creo que eran más bien reuniones superficiales y burdas.

En mi punto de vista, creo que nos han vendido demasiado la idea de Networking como la herramienta número uno para resolver nuestros problemas humanos, y no dudo de sus ventajas, pero es peligroso cegarnos ante los efectos negativos.Las grandes redes, incluso las mejor intencionadas, drenan la verdadera vitalidad de las relaciones humanas: Las relaciones familiares y de comunidad. Las grandes redes, prometen soluciones mecánicas y en base de números (i.e. entre más somos, mejor), a complejos e intrínsecos problemas humanos; Para realmente poder resolver nuestros problemas, se requiere de una intensa interacción de diferentes experiencias de vida, aunados de una intensa cooperación entre un limitado grupo de humanos que están mutuamente relacionados y conocen a fondo la situación.

Hace más de dos mil años, Aristóteles dijo que la participación total en todo el rango de complejas relaciones humanas de todo tipo, era la única manera de desarrollarse como un humano completo. En este caso, las redes de hoy en día dejan mucho qué desear.

Las redes sociales de nuestros días estratifican más y más las actividades humanas; sobretodo, las “redes especializadas” y “profesionales”. Demasiadas redes sociales y de otras índoles, causan confusión y desfragmentación como humanidad. En cada red social, doy una parte de mi: De mi experiencia, de mi historia, de mi vida. Como yo, otros cientos o hasta miles, hacen lo mismo. ¿Cuál es el resultado esperado?  ¿Facebook me ayudará a conseguir más amigos verdaderos?, ¿Linkedin me ayudará a conseguir el trabajo de mis sueños?

Al final, creo que urge como sociedad que no perdamos la vista en lo que realmente es importante: La familia. El núcleo familiar se está perdiendo. La familia y la comunicad local, es el mejor lugar para ejercer nuestra humanidad a fondo: El auto-conocimiento, auto-descubrimiento de uno mismo se da mejor cuando te identificas con un lugar, con una comunidad, con un grupo de personas en donde tienes la libertad y capacidad de expresar todos los aspectos que nos hacen ser humanos.

La globalización nos ha sido vendida como utopía, pero la verdad, como dice Wendel Berry: “No creo que -pensar global- sea fútil, creo que es imposible. No puedes pensar en algo que no conoces, y nadie conoce por completo este planeta. Algunas personas conocen sólo algunas partes y algunas experiencias. La gente que cree que piensa global, trata siempre de reducir el mundo de forma abstracta y a base de estadísticas que básicamente reduce al mundo a verlo sólo en cantidades numéricas simplificadas, lo cual es totalmente ilógico”.

Las redes sociales tal vez nos han dado la ilusión de que los problemas humanos los podemos resolver de forma fácil en cuanto más seamos:  Conseguir trabajo fácil, dinero fácil, amistades fáciles, conseguir salud fácil, conseguir belleza fácil. Ver a la humanidad como una maquinaria gigante que en conjunto entregará los resultados mágicos que funcionen para todos. Es una ilusión y es un problema, que nos valgamos de extensas redes sociales para resolver nuestros problemas- y que la solución se adapte a nuestras necesidades únicas como individuos.

Es urgente reconsiderar y recuperar nuestra total humanidad. Me gustaría finalizar con una frase de John Taylor Gatto, que resume muy bien esta propuesta: “Las personas no pueden estar completas, a menos que decidan juntarse voluntariamente en grupos y almas en armonía. Unirse para aspirar a sueños individuales, familiares y de comunidad, los cuales son consistentes con su propia humanidad y que los hace sentirse completos. Sólo los esclavos son reunidos por otros. Y estos sueños tienen que escribirse localmente, porque el aspirar a más grandes ambiciones sin esta base es perderse de las cosas que realmente dan significado a la vida: El ser, la familia, los amigos, el trabajo y la comunidad íntima”.