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Originally published at magazine.impactscool.com on January 14, 2019<h3>Future’s study is deeply linked to ethical reflection and the concept of responsibility. Both because it is an activity that characterizes the human being and its actions, and because it represents an act of altruism for a future self or towards an unknown third person in the present.</h3>Emanuel Kant, in his reflection on sensitive knowledge, identified during the first period of his philosophical production, some forms of thought that inevitably interfere with the perception of the sensible.We would not be able to know things as they are in themselves since we necessarily modify them in the perceptual process by adapting them to the forms of our intuition.These forms, for the philosopher, are space and time, and exist a priori in our mind. It could be said, tracing a reductive parallel to the extraordinary complexity that characterizes our brain and the human being, that space and time are the operative system of thought.Time, according to the philosopher, holds an apical position in the definition of human thought since space, external sense, cannot exist without time, internal sense, being itself perceived through the latter.The fundamental intuition here is that our thinking is inevitably permeated by the concept of time which then becomes central in a broader reflection on the human being.Anthropology today tells us that our abilities to think about time and plan the future are at the base of our evolution, differentiating ourselves from other animals and enabling human beings to become producers of technology, farmers, skilled strategists, hunters and much more.Looking for the substance of the futureBut what does it mean to think about the future?Let’s try for a moment starting from the observation of a child and his ability to perceive and think about time, using it as a tool for his/her own intuition. According to some recent studies, children during their first years live in the present, in a suspended time in which “yesterday” becomes anything that happened in the past and “tomorrow” anything that has yet to happen. The separation from the parent who goes out in the morning to go to work, a bump or a skinned knee are present and intense pains because the child does not know the duration nor the solution for them: in the early times, he has not enough experience to know that the pain will cease and that the parent will return home. Only when the child is three or four years old, he/she begins to imagine the future by engaging a growth process that develops up to the age of sixteen, when the image of the future is enriched with details and starts to look more like that of an adult. The elderly, on the contrary, seem to have a remarkable ability to “travel” in time, ranging between past and future with their own thoughts.Studies suggest that these differences arise from the fact that the substance of the future would be contained in our memories. The child cannot imagine the future until he/she has “stored” enough memories as the older man or woman has a great capacity for imagining time thanks to the greater quantity of memories and experiences that he has, so to speak, “accumulated”.Therefore, our brain would carry out an intense activity of gathering and categorizing memories and experiences to be used as needed to create images of the future to be placed at our disposal.Future as a responsibilityBut available for what? What is this intense work for? The answer is: to make decisions and, ultimately, to take action. Without the ability to imagine the future we would not be able to make choices, let alone act. So future and time are fundamental keys for our actions and for our human nature.Thinking about the future and building possible mental scenarios, giving us the opportunity to make more informed decisions, gives us freedom.But freedom and decision-making bring with them the weight of choice and responsibility and inevitably lead us into the practical field of moral philosophy.Talking about the future means, therefore, talking about the moral value of our actions by combining the intention on the one hand and, on the other, a responsibility to evaluate the possible results and impacts of the choices that have been made.Here is the first deep connection between the study of the future and that of ethics.But it is not the only one.Let’s try now to address the discourse from another point of view to explore other possible links between ethics and the future.Future as a competitive advantageWe can define a creative person as someone who is able to see a different future not foreseen by the majority and realize it. Let’s take the example of Steve Jobs: when first rumors announced that Apple would launch a mobile phone, the international community was skeptical and did not understand the scope of the innovator’s proposal. But Steve had anticipated a future to come and had decided to realize it as a pioneer by guiding everybody else to its discovery.When Elon Musk decided to invest a fortune in making a luxury electric car and started the Tesla adventure, he received criticism, smiles and irony. Once again he was someone who had imagined a plausible, but not common for our imagination, future and who had decided to take action in that direction.This type of advantage can also arise from the ability to react with respect to an undesirable, but still manifesting, scenario. Let’s think about this example: after the energy crisis in the Eighties, Shell got up quicker than other companies. The reason should be sought in Shell’s recent habit to develop its strategies thought Scenario Planning. By constructing a variety of future scenarios and developing strategies for each of them, although not able to establish the timing of the crisis, Shell had been able to imagine it as a possible future development and was ultimately ready to react accordingly.Therefore, we can see future as a competitive advantage that brings ability to create new opportunities, to catch them or react to critical scenarios with greater speed.The first two mentioned cases are radically different from the last being examples of an active and intentional action as compared to the last that is a case of re-action, it is somehow passive, even if only possible thanks to a preventive preparation.Both types interest us, however, because they share a fundamental aspect: having imagined a different future, whether it was the one in which we are always connected through our mobile devices, or a future in which even electric motors can have performance and efficiency comparable to the traditional ones, or even a future in which the dependence of the global supply system is too concentrated on some geographical areas, was the first fundamental step in these three stories.If I have not imagined a certain future, I could hardly act to push it in that direction, or prepare specific plans in case it occurs.A shared future: the social role of the imaginaryPrecisely because thinking about the future is the foundation for action, as a society, we engage more in this activity usually when we are dissatisfied with the present.A concept of the future that only predicts predictions and reactions can be considered incomplete. A future, however, which also contains goals, a strategic plan and the intention to make the effort to achieve it is complete and above all useful to the community.So, when things do not go as planned, we begin to imagine how they could be, with the result of inspiring us and moving in a new direction.Being able to imagine, share and create a better future for society is a huge choice in terms of the social impact that can be made by a single pioneer or a multitude of people, today thanks to the linking capacity offered from technologies.Here is the second reason why talking about the future is an ethical choice with social impacts that go beyond one’s own and individual well-being but can extend to the whole community defining the fate of human beings.This is also why when we question ourselves about the future, we can never lose sight of the values and the centrality of the human being with the aim of preserving them and taking them with us on our journey towards a new time.However, there is no single way of approaching this activity, we can certainly say that the most useful, those to be pursued, are those that place the responsibility on each one of us.In fact, there are ways of treating the future that, on the contrary, invite to immobility: oracles and horoscopes risk being nothing but a way of avoiding the burden of responsibility by drowning in a destiny already written on which we have no power, we are not responsible for any failures and in which there is no room for our freedom.Better or worse futures?All the other forms of the future are instead worthy of being designed and explored in a creative way. They all have a role in determining our actions.The so-called dystopias present to us possible scenarios in which something or everything went wrong, and they help us to visualize the possible negative implications of our choices or “non-choices” of today. Without dystopias we would not take the weight of our responsibility.Utopias, though probably unrealizable by definition, are instead a model to be pursued that guides us as a compass in our daily actions. Without them we would be paralyzed in a timeless time.This is one of the main problems of our time: there are no shared visions of future to be set as a plausible and preferable goal at the collective level and that can transport us towards the next era.Far away futures, unlike what may seem, are also a fantastic way to catch clearer and more marked differences than the present. After all, if we think about the future, we cannot fail to think about change and broader time frames allow us to notice the differences better.The future as a moral responsibilityTaking care of the future is an act of pure altruism: the consequences do not fall on us but on a hypothetical human being of the future that we have no way of knowing.In times like this, in which we experience a crisis of vision and we risk finding ourselves in sightless navigation in the absence of a clear and shared goal, we have the responsibility and also the opportunity to reflect on the consequences of our actions, to choose the values that we want to see in the society of our children and grandchildren and to act accordingly.We can become “future makers”: designers and builders of intentional futures.

Ethics and reflection on the future: why we should become #futuremakers

Originally published at magazine.impactscool.com on November 3, 2017<h3>The book and the movie The Circle, released in April 2017, poses us moral questions centuries’ old, and the time has come to try and answer them. </h3>They will present it as a science fiction film because that’s how the book from which it is based was also written, published in 2013 by Dave Eggers and published in Italy by Mondadori. But do not be fooled: The Circle does not talk about the future but about our present.Only a few months have passed since Mark Zuckerberg launched his manifesto for a better world and the film The Circle could not come out at a more appropriate time to focus on what really is written on those pages.The vision of Facebook on transparency as a mean to make people become a better version of itself is not new: in the book by David Kirkpatrick published by Hoepli in 2011, in the chapter dedicated to the topic of privacy, we read, citing an interview of 2009:Like some of his colleagues, Zuckerberg also believes that we will fight to create a healthier society, if we openly acknowledge who we are and if we behave the same way with all our friends. In a more “open and transparent” world, people will have to respond to the consequences of their actions and will be easier to act in a responsible world. “Bringing people to that higher level of openness is a big challenge,” says Zuckerberg, “but I think we will succeed. But I think it will take time. The idea that the world will be a better place if we share more is a thought that sounds strange to many people, and comes into conflict with privacy concerns.”Even if the film of The Circle is not yet in theaters (we can have a taste thanks to the trailer), the book offers us a lot of food for thought on our present touching a theme on which we questioned ourselves for centuries and to which we have applied the most diverse solutions.The question is put very clearly in the book: “Who would commit a crime knowing that they were being monitored at all times, everywhere?”. And again: “But my point is: and if we all behaved as if we were observed? It would lead to a more moral way of life. Who would do something immoral or illegal if he knew he was being observed? Or that the illegal transfer of money is easily traceable? Or that the caller’s phone call is promptly registered? Or that the assault on the service station is filmed by a dozen cameras, and the retinas of criminals identified during the robbery? Where is the behavior of the womanizer documented in a dozen ways?”However, the answer is much less clear and obvious: we go from the extreme optimism of those who are convinced that technology can be the answer to all our problems (“[…], this will be the beginning of a new golden age for young people: an age without worries.”) to the alarm of those who believe that men are not destined to know everything and that we would end up being false in every single gesture of our day, that not all our activities can be object control and measurement and it is deeply wrong to go in this direction, considering that, in addition to everything, systems like Facebook are not really the community, but are in the hands of individuals who have the potential to manipulate information and present a filtered reality to their users.It is not the first time that we are faced with this theme that, although with different shades is the center around which the first episode of the third series of Black Mirror, dedicated TV series and all the dark sides of technology, as well as in the great classic “1984” of Orwell.But this is an ancient dilemma that we have been asking for several centuries, triggering discussions on the true nature of man.Already in the fifth century BC, the sophist Crizia spoke to us of the invention of the gods as a form of control over human actions, where laws and institutions could not arrive: only with the idea that there is someone who sees everything we do, we would be brought to follow the moral rules that allow society to live in harmony, going against our true nature. The gods would therefore be a brilliant invention that allows us to achieve this goal.Today we live in a world where, with technology, we can really get to control everything that happens, and some believe that with it, we can replace that god, as a collective. Again, in Eggers’s book you can read:“Now all human beings will have the eyes of God. Do you know this passage? “All things are naked and open under the eyes of God”. […] “Now we are all God. Soon each of us will be able to see and judge everyone else. We will see what He sees. We will articulate His judgment. We will inculcate His wrath and grant His forgiveness. At a global and constant level. All religions awaited this moment, the moment in which every human being becomes a direct and immediate messenger of the will of God. […]”.And then we open the newspapers today, and we find disconcerting news. We read about individuals and groups of people, who commit atrocious crimes and do it in the light of the sun, they film it, and put it online, challenging the rules of common sense. Assassins, rapists, harassers: they have no qualms about going out into the open and uploading to Facebook or other platforms the overwhelming evidence of their guilt, as if to blame the fact that punishment is not a deterrent to their actions, that being seen and controlled does not change the way they behave and can, indeed, become a tool to deliver to the world, amplifying it, their crazy message. Our ignorance, our inability to understand the human soul and to find a way of being a society that shares rules and values, inwardly and not only online, beats us in the face.Eggers also does this, which places us in front of a reality not very different from the current one, where those working at The Circle are convinced that “EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS MUST BE KNOWN”, where transparency becomes such a value that not only changes completely the concept of privacy, but, we get to consider it a damage to those around us, expressing this concept with the slogan: “Privacy is a theft”. Everyone in this world shares everything they do, say and think. The truth lives only online: if you go to a party and do not share it on social media, it’s like not being gone. All our actions, even the most intimate ones, are measured on the basis of the reactions of others, based on a review, a score.Are we sure we want to live in such a world? Are we sure we want to give more weight to the outer sphere of our actions, totally forgetting the inner one? Are we sure that it is right to replace our trust in religions or institutions with unbridled confidence in the technology and tools that it makes available to us? Personally, I like to think that what is inside us is worthy of being at the center, that our human qualities are what defines who we are more than any score or review, and that we need to find a new balance that takes into account of both spheres, the collective and the individual that today has broken and risks splitting society in two, between those embracing the new technological world and those who do not.

The Circle is not about our future, but about our present

Originally &nbsp;published at magazine.impactscool.com on May 10, 2018.In spite of the instrumentalization of the communist totalitarian regime, the thought of Karl Marx is able to grasp deeply some of the key themes of the modern debate on work and our economic system. 200 years after its birth, the media around the world are talking about the genius thinker by brushing up with the occasion his contribution, very current, to the field of political economy. Marx as a political activist perhaps failed to understand how to influence the future with his historical materialism, so much so that he found himself modifying his approach in the different phases of his thought, reacting to the course of events.We can’t deny, however, that one of his great gifts was certainly the acute ability to observe the present and to grasp its tendencies from small and great signs of change, of which he became an interpreter with his intellectual work.Marx, communism and artificial intelligence: a Chinese vision In a recent article published in the Washington Post, Feng Xiang, an experienced university professor of law, introduced the issue of unemployment arising from the increasing application of artificial intelligence in the following way: “The most momentous challenge facing socio-economic systems today is the arrival of artificial intelligence. If AI remains under the control of market forces, it will inexorably result in a super-rich oligopoly of data billionaires who reap the wealth created by robots that displace human labor, leaving massive unemployment in their wake”. This, according to his vision, would not be the only possible evolution and the answer would be in the hands of the Chinese socialist economy. In fact, “If AI rationally allocates resources through big data analysis, and if robust feedback loops can supplant the imperfections of “the invisible hand” while fairly sharing the vast wealth it creates, a planned economy that actually works could at last be achievable.” Artificial intelligence would, therefore, be the ideal instrument for putting an end to capitalism. Feng Xiang advocates a nationalization of artificial intelligence and the most innovative technological solutions as the only way to avoid mass technological unemployment.The article closes provocatively: “If properly regulated in this way, we should celebrate, not fear, the advent of AI. If it is brought under social control, it will finally free workers from peddling their time and sweat only to enrich those at the top. The communism of the future ought to adopt a new slogan: Robots of the world, unite!“.Marx and the machines If Marx certainly didn’t talk to us about artificial intelligence, having lived a century before its development, we can’t say the same of automation in general. But let us proceed in order to understand the thought of the political philosopher.According to Marx, capitalism has some macro tendencies intrinsic to the system and one of these is that of automation. He observes, in fact, that in order to increase profits, the capitalist is in a certain sense forced to increase productivity and can do so by adding total hours worked, or by investing his profits in the innovation of the production process. This means focusing on technology and automation that make the process more efficient and lower the cost of personnel.This creates a wave mechanism that frees up resources (workers) that become part of what Marx calls “the reserve industrial army”. This creates a mechanism that frees up resources (workers) that become part of what Marx calls “the reserve industrial army”. The workers are reabsorbed in a subsequent phase of increased production, until a new phase is grafted. The number of people reintegrated, however, is lower than that of the excluded workers in the first phase and the result, therefore, is that this army becomes bigger with time. To say it with the words of Stefano Petrucciani (Marx, Carocci Editore): «(…) the second tendency will prevail, that is the one towards the growing creation of surplus labor, but it will not be affirmed in a linear way, but through a process cyclical contraction and expansion of the excess labor force itself. ” Here the tendency to automation leads to the so-called “technological unemployment” so much discussed in the contemporary world. Marx, however, does not stop here and, among other things, draws from it the conclusion that a world now a slave to the law of capitalist accumulation can only lead to a centralization of capital in the hands of a few great actors. And it’s an undeniable trend.Address the problem by looking in the right direction But be careful: as Petrucciani reminds us, if we read the Capital we will be called to task. The equation would not be “more machines = more unemployment” but “capitalist system = unemployment and alienation”. The interesting point is that, according to Marx, we must look at the economic system and not at automation to find the real cause of the problem, as also mentioned by the two MIll, McCulloch, Torrens and Senior. We should, therefore, start from a careful observation of society rather than from technology to understand the problem. Capitalism or not what is important to emphasize in my opinion here is that, to analyze the problem of technological unemployment, we should start looking at men and not at the machine. Because it is only by trying to understand our nature that we can try to outline future developments by keeping our core values firmly in place. Important in this sense is precisely the vision of the future that we want to pose as an objective attainable. Returning to Marx, one of the most discussed aspects by Hannah Arendt compared to the system he built, is precisely the vision of the future. According to him, it would be contradictory to have identified in the work the main feature of human nature and to have outlined a constantly changing history, to then imagine and hope for a static future where man gets rid of work. According to Marx, in fact, in the final phase of history, we would find ourselves living in a world where, to quote Petrucciani again “poverty and antagonism cease and” free development of individualities “and” the reduction of the work necessary for society ” to a minimum, to which then corresponds the formation and the artistic, scientific development, etc. of individuals thanks to the time that has become free and the means created for all of them”.We can’t fail to notice that these words may have been pronounced today in Silicon Valley by one of the many supporters of the concept of income of universal citizenship, in order to provide financial support to those who lose their jobs in favour of algorithms and machines. Those of this philosophy, in fact, maintain that we will live in a world of abundance and that we will devote ourselves to art, knowledge and culture, finally free from work once and for all.But are we sure this is the only option? How many civilizations of the past had social classes perfectly able to dedicate themselves to personal growth in their free time and did not create innovation, art and culture? What is really human nature that would prevail in such a situation? Only by understanding if industriousness and work are a fundamental part of our nature can we really understand if we can imagine a society free from work and hard work. We must, therefore, look in the right direction to approach the problem.Let’s start again from human nature, from society and from the needs on the basis of which it has developed as it is today and try to imagine new forms of social interaction, new ways of doing business and conceiving work as an expression of our personality.When innovating it is always essential not to lose sight of the need to which a particular solution is able to respond in order to find new ones. When we talk about innovating the world of work we should start from the same premise, to be able to give an answer that is lasting and truly achievable. &nbsp;

Cristina Pozzi

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Ethics and reflection on the future: why we should become...

The Circle is not about our future, but about our present

Modern Utopias and work: “Robot of the world, unite!”