The Only Future We Need to Fear is the One We Create

There is a lot of research that talks about the fearful future – for example  Elon Musk is afraid of us being taken over by robots andBill Gates says that he sits in the middle of the debate  – this article here is more of an optimistic look at the types of futures we can create – how as humans WE control how we program our robots and how we serve the human race overall.

What we have to remember is that WE are in control of how we program our robots, our AI, and how we automate. WE can decide what is best handled by a machine or what is better handled by a human and WE get to sort out the morality of those choices.

The recent Facebook security issue clearly demonstrates that the perils of progress as it relates to communicating and sharing on open platforms – loss of privacy and greater risks of identity theft and more. Sheryl Sandberg COO of Facebook openly admitted that Facebook has work to do to increase public security and trust in their open platform.

A fearful perspective would be that we are losing our privacy which is actually true, the minute we as a global culture ‘opened’ to technology it created an open access portal that there is not going back on. A pragmatic mindset would be that as users of technology we need to be very discerning about how we use the open platforms.

To me there are two separate issues – there is the issue of loss of privacy which we do have control over as to what we post and who we share it with. The other issue is lack of security with credit card data being stolen which we do not have control over and does need to be solved by data security specialist.

The fact that fake users were able to influence an election is concerning in that Facebook allowed that to happen. On the flip side is because of the discovery of the data breach it will cause far reaching solutions that will impact all data sharing companies moving forward.

If we look at the future as fearful we will make choices based on fear whereas if we look at the future as ‘abundant’  as Peter Diamandissays – is to look at the future as amazingly good for all of humanity. Diamandis implores all of us to create big and grand ‘moonshots’ of what we want to see in the future and then leverage the technology and resources to create it.

He is the guy behind X Prize foundationand many other major projects focused on making exponential progress towards creating a better world for all.

If we look at the technologies that are making a world the better place there are many examples of radical positive impact.

A list of futures being created by ‘abundant’ creators:

1. A cure for blindness using ‘gene’s
2. Delta to increase safety of workers with exoskeletons
3. 3 D Printing to print everything including a house
4. Glove turns sign language for hearing impaired
5. Wearables that can increase safety for women and men

These are just a few of the innovations that have been created out of desire to solve a big problem for people and for the world.

It is time for all of us to increase our ability to think with abundance and to focus on how we can make the world a better place rather than focus on the fear of living in a robot overrun world.

The risks of privacy and security are real and they are opportunities for creative thinking and solutions about how to increase security and protect privacy while allowing progress through people and technology to continue.

The people that come up with the solutions to privacy and security will be the superheroes of the future!

WE can decide how we use the technology and WE can create the future that ultimately benefits the entire planet.