by Klaus Schwab
As with almost all the impacts addressed in this section, it is clear that the fourth industrial revolution brings great opportunities while also posing significant risks. One of the key tasks the world faces as this revolution emerges is how to gather more and better data on both the benefits and challenges to community cohesion.
3.5 The Individual
The fourth industrial revolution is not only changing what we do but also who we are. The impact it will have on us as individuals is manifold, affecting our identity and its many related facets – our sense of privacy, our notions of ownership, our consumption patterns, the time we devote to work and leisure, how we develop our careers, cultivate our skills. It will influence how we meet people and nurture relationships, the hierarchies upon which we depend, our health, and maybe sooner than we think, it could lead to forms of human augmentation that cause us to question the very nature of human existence. Such changes elicit excitement and fear as we move at unprecedented speed.
Until now, technology has primarily enabled us to do things in easier, faster and more efficient ways. It has also provided us with opportunities for personal development. But we are beginning to see that there is much more on offer and at stake. For all the reasons already mentioned, we are at the threshold of a radical systemic change that requires human beings to adapt continuously. As a result, we may witness an increasing degree of polarization in the world, marked by those who embrace change versus those who resist it.
This gives rise to an inequality that goes beyond the societal one described earlier. This ontological inequality will separate those who adapt from those who resist – the material winners and losers in all senses of the word. The winners may even benefit from some form of radical human improvement generated by certain segments of the fourth industrial revolution (such as genetic engineering) from which the losers will be deprived. This risks creating class conflicts and other clashes unlike anything we have seen before. This potential division and the tensions it stirs will be exacerbated by a generational divide caused by those who have only known and grown up in a digital world versus those who have not and who must adapt. It also gives rise to many ethical issues.
As an engineer, I am a great technology enthusiast and early adopter. Yet I wonder, as many psychologists and social scientists do, how the inexorable integration of technology in our lives will impact our notion of identity and whether it could diminish some of our quintessential human capacities such as self-reflection, empathy and compassion.
3.5.1 Identity, Morality and Ethics
The mind-boggling innovations triggered by the fourth industrial revolution, from biotechnology to AI, are redefining what it means to be human. They are pushing the current thresholds of lifespan, health, cognition and capabilities in ways that were previously the preserve of science fiction. As knowledge and discoveries in these fields progress, our focus and commitment to having ongoing moral and ethical discussions is critical. As human beings and as social animals, we will have to think individually and collectively about how we respond to issues such as life extension, designer babies, memory extraction and many more.
At the same time, we must also realize that these incredible discoveries could also be manipulated to serve special interests – and not necessarily those of the public at large. As theoretical physicist and author Stephen Hawking and fellow scientists Stuart Russell, Max Tegmark and Frank Wilczek wrote in the newspaper The Independent when considering the implications of artificial intelligence: “Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all…All of us should ask ourselves what we can do now to improve the chances of reaping the benefits and avoiding the risks”.60
One interesting development in this area is OpenAI, a non-profit AI research company announced in December 2015 with the goal to “advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return”.61 The initiative – chaired by Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator, and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors - has secured $1 billion in committed funding. This initiative underscores a key point made earlier – namely, that one of the biggest impacts of the fourth industrial revolution is the empowering potential catalyzed by a fusion of new technologies. Here, as Sam Altman stated, “the best way AI can develop is if it’s about individual empowerment and making humans better, and made freely available to everyone.”62
The human impact of some particular technologies such as the internet or smart phones is relatively well understood and widely debated among experts and academics. Other impacts are so much harder to grasp. Such is the case with AI or synthetic biology. We may see designer babies in the near future, along with a whole series of other edits to our humanity – from eradicating genetic diseases to augmenting human cognition. These will raise some of the biggest ethical and spiritual questions we face as human beings (see Box H: On the Ethical Edge).
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Box H: On the Ethical Edge
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Technological advances are pushing us to new frontiers of ethics. Should we use the staggering advances in biology only to cure disease and repair injury, or should we also make ourselves better humans? If we accept the latter, we risk turning parenthood into an extension of the consumer society, in which case could our children become commoditized as made-to-order objects of our desire? And what does it mean to be “better”? To be disease free? To live longer? To be smarter? To run faster? To have a certain appearance?
We face similarly complex and on-the-edge questions with artificial intelligence. Consider the possibility of machines thinking ahead of us or even out-thinking us. Amazon and Netflix already possess algorithms that predict which films and books we may wish to watch and read. Dating and job placement sites suggest partners and jobs – in our neighbourhood or anywhere in the world – that their systems figure might suit us best. What do we do? Trust the advice provided by an algorithm or that offered by family, friends or colleagues? Would we consult an AI-driven robot doctor with a perfect or near-perfect diagnostic success rate – or stick with the human physician with the assuring bedside manner who has known us for years?
When we consider these examples and their implications for humans, we are in uncharted territory – the dawn of a human transformation unlike anything we have experienced before.
Another substantial issue relates to the predictive power of artificial intelligence and machine learning. If our own behaviour in any situation becomes predictable, how much personal freedom would we have or feel that we have to deviate from the prediction? Could this development potentially lead to a situation where human beings themselves begin to act as robots? This also leads to a more philosophical question: How do we maintain our individuality, the source of our diversity and democracy, in the digital age?
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3.5.2 Human Connection
As the ethical questions raised above suggest, the more digital and high-tech the world becomes, the greater the need to still feel the human touch, nurtured by close relationships and social connections. There are growing concerns that, as the fourth industrial revolution deepens our individual and collective relationships with technology, it may negatively affect our social skills and ability to empathize. We see this already happening. A 2010 study by a research team at the University of Michigan found a 40% decline in empathy among college students (as compared to their counterparts 20 or 30 years ago), with most of this decline coming after 2000.63
According to MIT’s Sherry Turkle, 44% of teenagers never unplug, even while playing sports or having a meal with family or friends. With face-to-face conversations crowded out by online interactions, there are fears that an entire generation of young people consumed by social media is struggling to listen, make eye contact or read body language.64
Our relationship with mobile technologies is a case in point. The fact that we are always connected may deprive us o
f one of our most important assets: the time to pause, reflect and engage in a substantive conversation neither aided by technology nor intermediated by social media. Turkle refers to studies showing that, when two people are talking, the mere presence of a phone on the table between them or in their peripheral vision changes both what they talk about and their degree of connectedness.65 This does not mean we give up our phones but rather that we use them “with greater intention”.
Other experts express related concerns. Technology and culture writer Nicholas Carr states that the more time we spend immersed in digital waters, the shallower our cognitive capabilities become due to the fact that we cease exercising control over our attention: “The Net is by design an interruption system, a machine geared for dividing attention. Frequent interruptions scatter our thoughts, weaken our memory, and make us tense and anxious. The more complex the train of thought we’re involved in, the greater the impairment the distractions cause.”66
Back in 1971, Herbert Simon, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1978, warned that “a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” This is much worse today, in particular for decision-makers who tend to be overloaded with too much “stuff” – overwhelmed and on overdrive, in a state of constant stress. “In an age of acceleration, nothing can be more exhilarating than going slow,” writes the travel essayist Pico Iyer. “And in an age of distraction, nothing is so luxurious as paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still.”67
Our brain, engaged by all the digital instruments that connect us on a 24-hour basis, risks becoming a perpetual-motion machine that puts us in an unremitting frenzy. It is not unusual for me to talk to leaders who say that they no longer have time to pause and reflect, let alone enjoy the “luxury” of reading even a short article all the way through. Decision-makers from all parts of global society seem to be in a state of ever-increasing exhaustion, so deluged by multiple competing demands that they turn from frustration to resignation and sometimes despair. In our new digital age, it is indeed difficult to step back, though not impossible.
3.5.3 Managing Public and Private Information
One of the greatest individual challenges posed by the internet, and our increasing degree of interconnectedness in general, concerns privacy. It is an issue that looms larger and larger because, as the Harvard University political philosopher Michael Sandel has observed “we seem to be increasingly willing to trade privacy for convenience with many of the devices that we routinely use”.68 Spurred in part by the revelations of Edward Snowden, the global debate about the meaning of privacy in a world of greater transparency has only just begun, as we see how the internet can be an unprecedented tool of liberation and democratization and at the same time, an enabler of indiscriminate, far-reaching and almost unfathomable mass surveillance.
Why does privacy matter so much? We all instinctively understand why privacy is so essential for our individual selves. Even for those who claim that they do not particularly value privacy and have nothing to hide, there are all sorts of things said and done that we may not want anyone else to know about. There is abundant research showing that when someone knows he is being watched, his behaviour becomes more conformist and compliant.
This book, however, is not the place to engage in a lengthy reflection about the meaning of privacy or to respond to questions about data ownership. I fully expect, however, that a debate about many fundamental issues such as the impact on our inner lives, stemming from the loss of control over our data, will only intensify in the years ahead (see Box I: Wellness and the Bounds of Privacy).
These issues are incredibly complex. We are just starting to get a sense of their possible psychological, moral and social implications. On a personal level, I foresee the following problem related to privacy: When one’s life becomes fully transparent and when indiscretions big or small become knowable to all, who will have the courage to assume top leadership responsibilities?
The fourth industrial revolution renders technology an all-pervasive and predominant part of our individual lives, and yet we are only just starting to understand how this technological sea-change will affect our inner selves. Ultimately, it is incumbent upon each of us to guarantee we are served, not enslaved, by technology. At a collective level, we must also ensure that the challenges technology throws at us are properly understood and analysed. Only in this way can we be certain that the fourth industrial revolution will enhance, rather than damage, our wellbeing.
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Box I: Wellness and the Bounds of Privacy
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What is currently happening with wearable wellness devices provides a sense of the complexity of the privacy issue. An increasing number of insurance companies are considering making this offer to their policyholders: If you wear a device that monitors your wellness – how much you sleep and exercise, the number of steps you take each day, the number and type of calories you eat, etc. – and if you agree that this information can be sent to your health insurance provider, we will offer you a discount on your premium.
Is this a development we should welcome because it motivates us to live healthier lives? Or is it a worrisome move towards a way of life where surveillance – from government and companies alike – becomes ever more intrusive? For the moment, this example refers to an individual choice – the decision to accept wearing a wellness device or not.
But pushing this further, let us assume that it is now the employer that directs each of its staff to wear a device that reports health data to the insurer because the company wants to improve productivity and possibly to decrease its health insurance costs. What if the company requires reluctant employees to abide or else pay a fine? What previously seemed like a conscious individual choice – wearing a device or not – becomes a matter of conforming to new social norms that one may deem unacceptable.
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The Way Forward
The fourth industrial revolution may be driving disruption, but the challenges it presents are of our own making. It is thus in our power to address them and enact the changes and policies needed to adapt (and flourish) in our emerging new environment.
We can only meaningfully address these challenges if we mobilize the collective wisdom of our minds, hearts and souls. To do so, I believe we must adapt, shape and harness the potential of disruption by nurturing and applying four different types of intelligence:
– contextual (the mind) – how we understand and apply our knowledge
– emotional (the heart) – how we process and integrate our thoughts and feelings and relate to ourselves and to one another
– inspired (the soul) – how we use a sense of individual and shared purpose, trust, and other virtues to effect change and act towards the common good
– physical (the body) – how we cultivate and maintain our personal health and well-being and that of those around us to be in a position to apply the energy required for both individual and systems transformation
Contextual intelligence – the mind
Good leaders understand and master contextual intelligence.69 A sense of context is defined as the ability and willingness to anticipate emerging trends and connect the dots. These have been common characteristics of effective leadership across generations and, in the fourth industrial revolution, they are a prerequisite for adaptation and survival.
To develop contextual intelligence, decision-makers must first understand the value of diverse networks. They can only confront significant levels of disruption if they are highly connected and well networked across traditional boundaries. Decision-makers must possess a capacity and readiness to engage with all those who have a stake in the issue at hand. In this way, we should aspire to be more connected and inclusive.
It is only by bringing together and working in collaboration with leaders from business, government, civil society, faith, academia and the young generation that it becomes possible to obtain a holistic perspective of what
is going on. In addition, this is critical to develop and implement integrated ideas and solutions that will result in sustainable change.
This is the principle embedded in the multistakeholder theory (what the World Economic Forum communities often call the Spirit of Davos), which I first proposed in a book published in 1971.70 Boundaries between sectors and professions are artificial and are proving to be increasingly counterproductive. More than ever, it is essential to dissolve these barriers by engaging the power of networks to forge effective partnerships. Companies and organizations that fail to do this and do not walk the talk by building diverse teams will have a difficult time adjusting to the disruptions of the digital age.
Leaders must also prove capable of changing their mental and conceptual frameworks and their organising principles. In today’s disruptive, fast-changing world, thinking in silos and having a fixed view of the future is fossilizing, which is why it is better, in the dichotomy presented by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin in his 1953 essay about writers and thinkers, to be a fox than a hedgehog. Operating in an increasingly complex and disruptive environment requires the intellectual and social agility of the fox rather than fixed and narrow focus of the hedgehog. In practical terms, this means that leaders cannot afford to think in silos. Their approach to problems, issues and challenges must be holistic, flexible and adaptive, continuously integrating many diverse interests and opinions.
Emotional intelligence – the heart
As a complement to, not a substitute for, contextual intelligence, emotional intelligence is an increasingly essential attribute in the fourth industrial revolution. As management psychologist David Caruso of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence has stated, it should not be seen as the opposite of rational intelligence or “the triumph of heart over head – it is the unique intersection of both.”71 In academic literature, emotional intelligence is credited with allowing leaders to be more innovative and enabling them to be agents of change.
