WEBVTT 00:00:09.480 --> 00:00:11.974 It is a delight to be here. 00:00:11.994 --> 00:00:15.101 I worked on my speech at 4 in the morning last night. 00:00:15.176 --> 00:00:16.415 (Laughter) 00:00:16.436 --> 00:00:19.202 And I think it's part of this criptic code. 00:00:20.008 --> 00:00:21.719 I want to talk about technology. 00:00:21.739 --> 00:00:24.815 Technology surround us, it's everywhere, 00:00:24.834 --> 00:00:26.660 it fills our lives, 00:00:26.681 --> 00:00:29.867 a lot of us work at making more tachnology. 00:00:30.393 --> 00:00:34.131 The first [letter] of this conference, TED, 00:00:34.152 --> 00:00:36.084 stands for technology. 00:00:36.104 --> 00:00:38.529 And yet, I don't think we really know what it is. 00:00:38.600 --> 00:00:41.599 I want to talk about my investigations 00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:45.685 into what technology means in our lives - 00:00:45.767 --> 00:00:48.766 not just our immediate life, but in the cosmic sense, 00:00:48.800 --> 00:00:51.799 in the kind of long history of the world 00:00:51.800 --> 00:00:54.779 and our place in the world: 00:00:54.780 --> 00:00:56.779 What is this stuff? 00:00:56.800 --> 00:00:58.799 What is the significance? 00:00:58.800 --> 00:01:00.799 And so, I want to kind of go through 00:01:00.800 --> 00:01:02.799 my little story of what I found out. 00:01:02.800 --> 00:01:05.658 And one of the first things that I started to investigate was 00:01:05.678 --> 00:01:08.799 the history of the name of technology. 00:01:08.800 --> 00:01:11.705 And in the United States there is a State of the Union address 00:01:11.725 --> 00:01:14.360 given by every president since 1790. 00:01:14.380 --> 00:01:19.558 So we have 220 State of the Union addresses. 00:01:19.680 --> 00:01:22.679 And each one of those is really kind of 00:01:22.700 --> 00:01:24.699 summing up the most important things 00:01:24.700 --> 00:01:26.699 for the United States at that time. 00:01:27.303 --> 00:01:30.438 If you search for the word "technology," 00:01:30.478 --> 00:01:32.679 it was not used until 1952. 00:01:33.684 --> 00:01:37.155 So, technology was sort of absent from everybody's thinking 00:01:37.181 --> 00:01:39.746 until 1952, which happened to be the year of my birth. 00:01:39.746 --> 00:01:41.270 And obviously, technology 00:01:41.311 --> 00:01:44.004 had existed before then, but we weren't aware of it, 00:01:44.036 --> 00:01:46.129 and so it was sort of an awakening 00:01:46.130 --> 00:01:48.699 of this force in our life. 00:01:49.900 --> 00:01:54.662 I actually did research to find that the first use of the word "technology" 00:01:54.701 --> 00:01:56.963 was in 1829, 00:01:57.319 --> 00:02:01.422 and it was invented by a guy who was starting a curriculum, 00:02:01.500 --> 00:02:03.499 a course, bringing together all the kinds 00:02:03.500 --> 00:02:06.499 of arts and crafts, and industry - 00:02:06.500 --> 00:02:08.499 and he called it "Technology." 00:02:08.500 --> 00:02:10.500 And that's the very first use of the word. 00:02:10.912 --> 00:02:14.563 Obviously this thing in our life has been going on a lot earlier. 00:02:14.620 --> 00:02:16.599 So, what is this stuff 00:02:16.600 --> 00:02:19.599 that we're all consumed by, 00:02:19.600 --> 00:02:21.916 and bothered by? 00:02:22.068 --> 00:02:24.384 Alan Kay calls it, "Technology is anything 00:02:24.424 --> 00:02:26.599 that was invented after you were born." 00:02:26.600 --> 00:02:27.599 (Laughter) 00:02:27.600 --> 00:02:31.599 Which is sort of the idea that we normally have about what technology is: 00:02:31.600 --> 00:02:33.599 It's all that new stuff. 00:02:33.600 --> 00:02:35.599 It's not roads, or penicillin, 00:02:36.330 --> 00:02:39.599 or factory tires; it's the new stuff. 00:02:39.600 --> 00:02:42.574 My friend Danny Hillis says kind of a similar one, 00:02:42.629 --> 00:02:45.510 he says, "Technology is anything that doesn't work yet." 00:02:45.600 --> 00:02:47.648 Which is, again, a sense that it's all new. 00:02:47.668 --> 00:02:49.599 But we know that it's just not new. 00:02:49.600 --> 00:02:52.077 It actually goes way back, and what I want to suggest 00:02:52.097 --> 00:02:55.599 is it goes a long way back. 00:02:55.600 --> 00:02:58.348 So, another way to think about technology, what it means, 00:02:58.348 --> 00:03:00.359 is to imagine a world without technology. 00:03:00.359 --> 00:03:03.934 If we were to eliminate every single bit of technology in the world today - 00:03:03.934 --> 00:03:05.479 and I mean everything, 00:03:05.479 --> 00:03:09.199 from blades to scrapers to cloth - 00:03:09.200 --> 00:03:12.199 we as a species would not live very long. 00:03:12.200 --> 00:03:15.199 We would die by the billions, and very quickly: 00:03:16.846 --> 00:03:20.243 The wolves would get us, we would be defenseless, 00:03:20.300 --> 00:03:23.299 we would be unable to grow enough food, or find enough food. 00:03:23.300 --> 00:03:27.299 Even the hunter-gatherers used some elementary tools. 00:03:27.300 --> 00:03:29.299 And so, they had minimal technology, 00:03:29.300 --> 00:03:31.299 but they had some technology. 00:03:31.300 --> 00:03:34.299 And if we study those hunter-gatherer tribes 00:03:34.300 --> 00:03:38.122 and the Neanderthal, which are very similar to early man, 00:03:38.143 --> 00:03:41.539 we find out a very curious thing about this world without technology, 00:03:41.559 --> 00:03:44.299 and this is a kind of a curve of their average age. 00:03:44.300 --> 00:03:48.130 There are no Neanderthal fossils that are older than 40 years old 00:03:48.599 --> 00:03:50.099 that we've ever found, 00:03:50.100 --> 00:03:52.099 and the average age of most of these 00:03:52.100 --> 00:03:54.503 hunter-gatherer tribes is 20 to 30. 00:03:54.524 --> 00:03:57.523 There are very few young infants 00:03:57.544 --> 00:04:00.973 because they die - high mortality rate - and there's very few old people. 00:04:01.017 --> 00:04:04.813 And so the profile is sort of for your average San Francisco neighborhood: 00:04:04.845 --> 00:04:06.115 a lot of young people. 00:04:06.147 --> 00:04:09.184 And if you go there, you say, "Hey, everybody's really healthy." 00:04:09.184 --> 00:04:11.094 Well, that's because they're all young. 00:04:11.094 --> 00:04:14.144 And the same thing with the hunter-gatherer tribes and early man 00:04:14.144 --> 00:04:16.299 is that you didn't live beyond the age of 30. 00:04:16.299 --> 00:04:18.279 So, it was a world without grandparents. 00:04:18.279 --> 00:04:20.073 And grandparents are very important, 00:04:20.073 --> 00:04:23.440 because they are the transmitter of cultural evolution and information. 00:04:23.461 --> 00:04:26.460 Imagine a world and basically everybody was 20 to 30 years old. 00:04:26.486 --> 00:04:28.317 How much learning can you do? 00:04:28.317 --> 00:04:30.638 You can't do very much learning in your own life, 00:04:30.659 --> 00:04:31.915 it's so short, 00:04:31.949 --> 00:04:34.740 and there's nobody to pass on what you do learn. 00:04:36.134 --> 00:04:37.333 So, that's one aspect. 00:04:37.354 --> 00:04:38.627 It was a very short life. 00:04:38.675 --> 00:04:41.511 But at the same time anthropologists know 00:04:41.624 --> 00:04:44.134 that most hunter-gatherer tribes of the world, 00:04:44.219 --> 00:04:46.931 with that very little technology, actually did not spend 00:04:46.989 --> 00:04:49.844 a very long time gathering the food that they needed: 00:04:49.865 --> 00:04:52.044 three to six hours a day. 00:04:52.100 --> 00:04:55.942 Some anthropologists call that the original affluent society. 00:04:56.649 --> 00:04:59.038 Because they had banker hours basically. 00:04:59.101 --> 00:05:02.602 So, it was possible to get enough food. 00:05:03.500 --> 00:05:05.499 But when the scarcity came 00:05:05.500 --> 00:05:07.643 when the highs and lows and the droughts came, 00:05:07.663 --> 00:05:10.499 then people went into starvation. 00:05:10.500 --> 00:05:12.500 And that's why they didn't live very long. 00:05:12.520 --> 00:05:14.499 So, what technology brought, 00:05:14.500 --> 00:05:19.499 through the very simple tools like these stone tools here - 00:05:19.500 --> 00:05:21.499 even something as small as this - 00:05:21.500 --> 00:05:23.548 the early bands of humans were actually able 00:05:23.568 --> 00:05:26.499 to eliminate to extinction 00:05:26.500 --> 00:05:30.499 about 250 megafauna animals 00:05:30.499 --> 00:05:33.927 in North America when they first arrived 10,000 years ago. 00:05:33.948 --> 00:05:36.512 So, within several generations, 00:05:36.532 --> 00:05:38.532 a couple thousands of years, 00:05:38.552 --> 00:05:42.515 that little bit of technology eliminated all those animals, 00:05:42.535 --> 00:05:46.380 so we've been actually affecting the planet on a grand scale 00:05:46.400 --> 00:05:48.400 from a very early age. 00:05:51.480 --> 00:05:53.479 So, long before the industrial age 00:05:53.500 --> 00:05:56.499 we've been affecting the planet on a global scale, 00:05:56.500 --> 00:05:58.499 with just a small amount of technology. 00:05:58.500 --> 00:06:01.499 The other thing that the early man invented was fire. 00:06:02.500 --> 00:06:04.500 And fire was used to clear out, and again, 00:06:04.520 --> 00:06:08.499 affected the ecology of grass and whole continents, 00:06:08.500 --> 00:06:10.472 and was used in cooking. 00:06:10.507 --> 00:06:13.083 It enabled us to actually eat all kinds of things. 00:06:13.104 --> 00:06:15.773 It was sort of, in a certain sense, in a McLuhan sense, 00:06:15.773 --> 00:06:17.313 an external stomach, 00:06:17.334 --> 00:06:20.959 in the sense that it was cooking food that we could not eat otherwise. 00:06:21.004 --> 00:06:23.970 And if we don't have fire, we actually could not live. 00:06:24.094 --> 00:06:27.499 Our bodies have adapted to these new diets. 00:06:27.500 --> 00:06:30.499 Our bodies have changed in the last 10,000 years. 00:06:30.500 --> 00:06:33.248 So, with that little bit of technology, 00:06:33.317 --> 00:06:35.629 humans went from a small band of 10,000 or so - 00:06:35.692 --> 00:06:37.740 the same number as Neanderthals everywhere - 00:06:37.760 --> 00:06:39.499 and we suddenly exploded. 00:06:39.500 --> 00:06:42.109 With the invention of language around 50,000 years ago, 00:06:42.109 --> 00:06:43.829 the number of humans exploded, 00:06:43.829 --> 00:06:46.879 and very quickly became the dominant species on the planet. 00:06:46.879 --> 00:06:50.499 And they migrated into the rest of the world at two kilometers per year 00:06:50.500 --> 00:06:53.499 until, within several tens of thousands of years, 00:06:53.500 --> 00:06:55.787 we occupied every single watershed on the planet 00:06:55.787 --> 00:06:57.619 and became the most dominant species, 00:06:57.619 --> 00:06:59.499 with a very small amount of technology. 00:06:59.500 --> 00:07:02.499 And even at that time, with the introduction of agriculture, 00:07:02.500 --> 00:07:04.499 8,000, 10,000 years ago 00:07:04.500 --> 00:07:06.499 we started to see climate change. 00:07:06.500 --> 00:07:08.499 So, climate change is not a new thing. 00:07:08.500 --> 00:07:10.499 What's new is just the degree of it. 00:07:10.500 --> 00:07:13.499 Even during the agricultural age there was climate change. 00:07:13.500 --> 00:07:15.500 And so, already small amounts of technology 00:07:15.520 --> 00:07:17.499 were transforming the world. 00:07:17.500 --> 00:07:19.616 And what this means, and where I'm going, 00:07:19.616 --> 00:07:23.499 is that technology has become the most powerful force in the world. 00:07:23.500 --> 00:07:25.499 All the things that we see today 00:07:25.500 --> 00:07:28.006 that are changing our lives, we can always trace back 00:07:28.006 --> 00:07:30.098 to the introduction of some new technology. 00:07:30.098 --> 00:07:33.499 So, it's a force that is the most powerful force 00:07:33.500 --> 00:07:36.383 that has been unleashed on this planet, 00:07:37.251 --> 00:07:40.788 and in such a degree that I think 00:07:40.979 --> 00:07:45.474 that it's become who we are. 00:07:46.150 --> 00:07:49.513 In fact, our humanity, and everything that we think about ourselves 00:07:49.513 --> 00:07:51.132 is something that we've invented. 00:07:51.158 --> 00:07:52.596 So, we've invented ourselves. 00:07:52.596 --> 00:07:54.746 Of all the animals that we have domesticated, 00:07:54.746 --> 00:07:57.082 the most important animal that we've domesticated 00:07:57.082 --> 00:07:58.319 has been us. Okay? 00:07:58.319 --> 00:08:01.271 So, humanity is our greatest invention. 00:08:01.500 --> 00:08:03.499 But of course we're not done yet. 00:08:03.500 --> 00:08:06.929 We're still inventing, and this is what technology is allowing us to do - 00:08:06.949 --> 00:08:09.499 it's continually to reinvent ourselves. 00:08:09.500 --> 00:08:12.044 It's a very, very strong force. 00:08:12.092 --> 00:08:15.282 I call this entire thing - us humans as our technology, 00:08:15.353 --> 00:08:19.064 everything that we've made, gadgets in our lives - 00:08:19.064 --> 00:08:20.404 we call that the technium. 00:08:20.404 --> 00:08:22.116 That's this world. 00:08:22.936 --> 00:08:24.819 My working definition of technology 00:08:24.830 --> 00:08:27.829 is "anything useful that a human mind makes." 00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:33.679 It's not just hammers and gadgets, like laptops. 00:08:33.759 --> 00:08:35.499 But it's also law. 00:08:35.519 --> 00:08:38.158 The system of law is a kind of technology. 00:08:38.179 --> 00:08:43.378 And of course cities are ways to make things more useful to us. 00:08:44.154 --> 00:08:47.525 But - and this is the point of my talk - 00:08:48.299 --> 00:08:50.585 While this is something that comes from our mind, 00:08:50.606 --> 00:08:53.299 it also has its roots deeply 00:08:53.300 --> 00:08:55.299 into the cosmos. 00:08:55.300 --> 00:08:56.639 It goes back. 00:08:56.639 --> 00:08:59.489 The origins and roots of technology go back to the Big Bang, 00:08:59.489 --> 00:09:03.285 in this way, in that they are part of this self-organizing thread 00:09:03.300 --> 00:09:05.299 that starts at the Big Bang 00:09:05.300 --> 00:09:08.299 and goes through galaxies and stars, 00:09:08.300 --> 00:09:10.010 into life, into us. 00:09:10.041 --> 00:09:12.359 And the three major phases of the early universe 00:09:12.383 --> 00:09:14.584 was energy, when the dominant force was energy; 00:09:14.605 --> 00:09:17.492 then as it cooled the dominant force became matter; 00:09:17.512 --> 00:09:21.030 and then, with the invention of life, four billion years ago, 00:09:21.030 --> 00:09:23.809 the dominant force in our neighborhood became information. 00:09:23.809 --> 00:09:26.069 That's what life is: It's an information process 00:09:26.069 --> 00:09:28.299 that was restructuring and making new order. 00:09:28.300 --> 00:09:31.965 So, those energy, matter Einstein show were equivalent, 00:09:31.965 --> 00:09:35.059 and now new sciences of quantum computing 00:09:35.059 --> 00:09:39.165 show that entropy and information and matter and energy 00:09:39.165 --> 00:09:42.492 are all interrelated, so it's one long continuum. 00:09:43.300 --> 00:09:46.299 You put energy into the right kind of system 00:09:46.300 --> 00:09:49.299 and out comes wasted heat, entropy 00:09:49.300 --> 00:09:52.299 and extropy, which is order. 00:09:52.300 --> 00:09:54.299 It's the increased order. 00:09:54.300 --> 00:09:56.872 Where does this order come from? Its roots go way back. 00:09:56.892 --> 00:09:58.299 We actually don't know. 00:09:58.300 --> 00:10:01.299 But we do know that the self-organization trend 00:10:01.300 --> 00:10:03.299 throughout the universe is long, 00:10:03.300 --> 00:10:05.299 and it began with things like galaxies; 00:10:05.300 --> 00:10:08.299 they maintained their order for billions of years. 00:10:08.300 --> 00:10:12.299 Stars are basically nuclear fusion machines 00:10:12.300 --> 00:10:15.539 that self-organize and self-sustain themselves for billions of years, 00:10:15.540 --> 00:10:17.958 this order against the entropy of the world. 00:10:18.375 --> 00:10:23.299 And flowers and plants are the same thing, extended, 00:10:23.300 --> 00:10:27.019 and technology is basically an extension of life. 00:10:29.226 --> 00:10:32.273 One trend that we notice in all those things is that 00:10:32.300 --> 00:10:34.726 the amount of energy per gram per second 00:10:34.800 --> 00:10:37.799 that flows through this, is actually increasing. 00:10:37.800 --> 00:10:42.132 The amount of energy is increasing through this little sequence. 00:10:42.153 --> 00:10:46.180 And that the amount of energy per gram per second that flows through life 00:10:46.196 --> 00:10:48.172 is actually greater than a star - 00:10:48.204 --> 00:10:51.203 because of the star's long lifespan, 00:10:51.308 --> 00:10:54.497 the energy density in life is actually higher than a star. 00:10:54.553 --> 00:10:57.552 And the energy density that we see in the greatest 00:10:57.585 --> 00:11:00.090 of anywhere in the universe is actually in a PC chip. 00:11:00.149 --> 00:11:03.148 There is more energy flowing through, per gram per second, 00:11:03.212 --> 00:11:06.211 than anything that we have any other experience with. 00:11:06.315 --> 00:11:09.314 What I would suggest is that if you want to see 00:11:09.335 --> 00:11:13.781 where technology is going, we continue that trajectory, 00:11:13.781 --> 00:11:17.005 and we say, "Well what's going to become more energy-dense, 00:11:17.053 --> 00:11:18.283 that's where it's going." 00:11:18.304 --> 00:11:21.219 And so what I've done is, I've taken the same kinds of things 00:11:21.243 --> 00:11:22.799 and looked at other aspects 00:11:22.800 --> 00:11:24.502 of evolutionary life and say, 00:11:24.542 --> 00:11:27.034 "What are the general trends in evolutionary life?" 00:11:27.074 --> 00:11:29.232 And there are things moving towards 00:11:29.300 --> 00:11:32.177 greater complexity, moving towards greater diversity, 00:11:32.225 --> 00:11:34.727 moving towards greater specialization, 00:11:34.791 --> 00:11:38.974 sentience, ubiquity and most important, evolvability: 00:11:39.148 --> 00:11:42.609 Those very same things are also present in technology. 00:11:42.630 --> 00:11:44.629 That's where technology is going. 00:11:44.648 --> 00:11:48.730 It is moving towards more complexity, diversity, specialization, 00:11:48.751 --> 00:11:50.751 more mindfulness 00:11:51.001 --> 00:11:52.771 more evolvability. 00:11:52.810 --> 00:11:57.161 In fact, technology is accelerating all the aspects of life, 00:11:57.522 --> 00:12:00.570 and we can see that happening; just as there's diversity in life, 00:12:00.613 --> 00:12:03.178 there's more diversity in things we make. 00:12:03.178 --> 00:12:05.310 Things in life start out being general cell, 00:12:05.319 --> 00:12:07.728 and they become specialized: you have tissue cells, 00:12:07.728 --> 00:12:09.200 you have muscle, brain cells. 00:12:09.200 --> 00:12:12.521 And same things happens with, say a hammer, which is general at first 00:12:12.521 --> 00:12:13.921 and becomes more specific. 00:12:13.921 --> 00:12:17.501 So, I would like to say that while there is six kingdoms of life, 00:12:17.522 --> 00:12:19.513 we can think of technology basically 00:12:19.534 --> 00:12:21.533 as a seventh kingdom of life. 00:12:21.593 --> 00:12:23.762 It's a branching off from the human form. 00:12:23.800 --> 00:12:25.799 But technology has its own agenda, 00:12:25.800 --> 00:12:27.799 like anything, like life itself. 00:12:28.809 --> 00:12:32.713 For instance, right now, three-quarters of the energy that we use 00:12:32.767 --> 00:12:34.863 is actually used to feed the technium itself. 00:12:34.920 --> 00:12:37.569 In transportation, it's not to move us, it's to move 00:12:37.615 --> 00:12:39.688 the stuff that we make or buy. 00:12:40.969 --> 00:12:43.577 On one hand, technology [unclear] 00:12:43.597 --> 00:12:46.649 on the other hand, it's blessing us with all kinds of things. 00:12:46.800 --> 00:12:49.835 I use the word "want." Technology wants. 00:12:49.922 --> 00:12:52.939 This is a robot that wants to plug itself in to get more power. 00:12:52.939 --> 00:12:55.760 Your cat wants more food. 00:12:55.843 --> 00:12:58.799 A bacterium, which has no consciousness at all, 00:12:58.800 --> 00:13:00.799 wants to move towards light. 00:13:00.800 --> 00:13:03.063 It has an urge, and technology has an urge. 00:13:03.084 --> 00:13:05.180 At the same time, it wants to give us things, 00:13:05.201 --> 00:13:07.658 and what it gives us is basically progress. 00:13:07.679 --> 00:13:10.584 You can take all kinds of curves, and they're all pointing up. 00:13:10.606 --> 00:13:12.680 There's really no dispute about progress, 00:13:12.760 --> 00:13:15.905 if we discount the cost of that. 00:13:15.982 --> 00:13:18.397 And that's the thing that bothers most people, 00:13:18.439 --> 00:13:20.397 is that progress is really real, 00:13:20.459 --> 00:13:24.458 but we wonder and question: What are the environmental costs of it? 00:13:24.478 --> 00:13:28.382 But there's no doubt about it, that it really is present and gives us. 00:13:28.403 --> 00:13:32.294 I did a survey of a number of species of artifacts in my house, 00:13:32.349 --> 00:13:33.348 and there's 6,000. 00:13:33.369 --> 00:13:35.368 Other people have come up with 10,000. 00:13:35.500 --> 00:13:38.499 When King Henry of England died, 00:13:38.500 --> 00:13:41.814 he had 18,000 things in his house, 00:13:42.300 --> 00:13:45.299 but that was the entire wealth of England. 00:13:47.100 --> 00:13:49.806 And with that entire wealth of England, 00:13:49.827 --> 00:13:53.021 King Henry could not buy any antibiotics, 00:13:53.052 --> 00:13:54.632 he could not buy refrigeration, 00:13:54.689 --> 00:13:56.737 he could not buy a trip of a thousand miles. 00:13:56.758 --> 00:13:59.769 Whereas this rickshaw wallah in India 00:13:59.814 --> 00:14:01.813 could save up and buy antibiotics 00:14:01.834 --> 00:14:03.721 and he could buy refrigeration. 00:14:03.738 --> 00:14:07.162 He could buy things that King Henry, in all his wealth, could never buy. 00:14:07.162 --> 00:14:08.854 That's what progress is about. 00:14:08.901 --> 00:14:11.655 So, technology is selfish; technology is generous. 00:14:11.655 --> 00:14:15.298 That conflict, that tension, will be with us forever, 00:14:15.298 --> 00:14:17.714 that sometimes it wants to do what it wants to do, 00:14:17.714 --> 00:14:19.911 and sometimes it's going to do things for us. 00:14:19.911 --> 00:14:22.326 And that's where we get this sort of feeling, 00:14:24.551 --> 00:14:28.099 we have confusion about what we should think about a new technology. 00:14:28.100 --> 00:14:29.800 Right now the default position 00:14:29.800 --> 00:14:32.079 about when a new technology comes along, is - 00:14:32.100 --> 00:14:34.243 people talk about the precautionary principle, 00:14:34.263 --> 00:14:36.567 which is very common in Europe, 00:14:36.588 --> 00:14:38.718 which says, basically, "Don't do anything. 00:14:38.762 --> 00:14:40.741 When you meet a new technology, stop, 00:14:40.782 --> 00:14:43.194 until it can be proven that there's no harm." 00:14:43.216 --> 00:14:45.559 I think that really leads nowhere. 00:14:45.580 --> 00:14:48.407 But a better way is to, what I call proactionary principle, 00:14:48.460 --> 00:14:51.002 which is: you engage with technology. 00:14:51.023 --> 00:14:52.375 You try it out. 00:14:52.401 --> 00:14:56.558 You obviously do what the precautionary principle suggests, 00:14:56.579 --> 00:14:59.299 you try to anticipate it, but after anticipating it, 00:14:59.320 --> 00:15:00.942 you constantly asses it, 00:15:01.005 --> 00:15:02.879 not just once, but eternally. 00:15:02.957 --> 00:15:05.956 And when it diverts from what you want, 00:15:06.700 --> 00:15:09.839 we prioritize risk, we evaluate not just the new stuff 00:15:09.862 --> 00:15:11.246 but the old stuff. 00:15:11.300 --> 00:15:14.299 We fix it, but most importantly, we relocate it. 00:15:14.900 --> 00:15:16.899 And what I mean by that is that 00:15:16.900 --> 00:15:18.879 we find a new job for it. 00:15:21.018 --> 00:15:24.489 Technologies are sort of like children. 00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:29.276 Nuclear energy, fission, is really bad idea for bombs. 00:15:29.316 --> 00:15:32.249 But it may be a pretty good idea - 00:15:32.384 --> 00:15:35.735 relocated into sustainable nuclear energy - 00:15:36.200 --> 00:15:38.825 for electricity, instead of burning coal. 00:15:38.890 --> 00:15:42.904 When we have a bad idea, the response to a bad idea 00:15:42.925 --> 00:15:45.924 is not no ideas, it's not to stop thinking. 00:15:46.980 --> 00:15:49.817 The response to a bad idea - 00:15:50.055 --> 00:15:51.999 like, say, a tungsten light bulb - 00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:53.999 is a better idea. OK? 00:15:54.999 --> 00:15:58.658 So, better ideas is really - always the response 00:15:58.679 --> 00:16:00.203 to technology that we don't like 00:16:00.243 --> 00:16:02.586 is basically, better technology. 00:16:02.636 --> 00:16:04.332 And actually, in a certain sense, 00:16:04.358 --> 00:16:08.008 technology is a kind of a method for generating better ideas, 00:16:08.016 --> 00:16:09.794 if you can think about it that way. 00:16:09.794 --> 00:16:12.850 So, maybe spraying DDT on crops is a really bad idea. 00:16:12.873 --> 00:16:16.094 But DDT sprayed on local homes, 00:16:17.506 --> 00:16:20.606 there's nothing better to eliminate malaria, 00:16:20.628 --> 00:16:24.154 besides insect DDT-impregnated mosquito nets. 00:16:24.382 --> 00:16:27.685 But that's a really good idea; that's a good job for technology. 00:16:27.720 --> 00:16:29.493 So, our job as humans 00:16:29.541 --> 00:16:32.024 is to parent our mind children, 00:16:32.754 --> 00:16:34.599 to find them good friends, 00:16:34.600 --> 00:16:36.429 to find them a good job. 00:16:36.472 --> 00:16:38.945 And so, every technology is sort of a creative force 00:16:38.993 --> 00:16:40.543 looking for the right job. 00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:42.599 That's actually my son, right here. 00:16:42.600 --> 00:16:44.079 (Laughter) 00:16:44.359 --> 00:16:46.843 There are no bad technologies, 00:16:46.864 --> 00:16:48.748 just as there are no bad children. 00:16:48.793 --> 00:16:51.535 We don't say children are neutral, children are positive. 00:16:51.535 --> 00:16:53.917 We just have to find them the right place. 00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:56.866 And so, what technology gives us, 00:16:56.896 --> 00:16:59.787 over the long term, over the sort of extended evolution - 00:16:59.811 --> 00:17:01.342 from the beginning of time, 00:17:01.378 --> 00:17:05.117 through the invention of the plants and animals, 00:17:05.142 --> 00:17:08.141 and the evolution of life, the evolution of brains - 00:17:08.162 --> 00:17:10.285 what that is constantly giving us 00:17:10.319 --> 00:17:14.173 what technology is giving us after we weigh the pros and cons, 00:17:14.387 --> 00:17:19.343 is increasing differences - which was mentioned this morning - 00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:22.409 it's increasing diversity, it's increasing options, 00:17:22.409 --> 00:17:24.499 it's increasing choices, opportunities, 00:17:24.500 --> 00:17:26.499 possibilities and freedoms. 00:17:26.500 --> 00:17:29.499 That's what we get from technology all the time. 00:17:29.500 --> 00:17:31.499 That's why people leave villages 00:17:31.500 --> 00:17:33.643 and go into cities, is because they are always 00:17:33.663 --> 00:17:37.499 gravitating towards increased choices and possibilities. 00:17:37.500 --> 00:17:39.916 And we are aware of the price. 00:17:39.916 --> 00:17:42.869 We pay a price for that, but we are aware of it, and generally 00:17:42.869 --> 00:17:45.026 we will pay the price for increased freedoms, 00:17:45.026 --> 00:17:46.943 choices and opportunities. 00:17:46.968 --> 00:17:49.967 Even technology wants clean water. 00:17:51.351 --> 00:17:53.350 Is technology diametrically opposed 00:17:55.369 --> 00:17:57.778 to nature? 00:17:58.735 --> 00:18:01.787 I have a couple of slides, two slildes left - 00:18:01.807 --> 00:18:06.018 I would say high technology needs clean water 00:18:06.038 --> 00:18:08.474 as much as we do, if not more than we do. 00:18:08.563 --> 00:18:11.399 Because technology is an extension of life, 00:18:11.400 --> 00:18:14.324 it's in parallel and aligned with the same things 00:18:14.364 --> 00:18:16.399 that life wants. 00:18:16.400 --> 00:18:18.399 So that I think technology loves biology, 00:18:18.400 --> 00:18:20.399 if we allow it to. 00:18:20.419 --> 00:18:24.652 So, all these things - complexity, diversity - are the long strand, 00:18:24.701 --> 00:18:29.731 the great movement that is starting billions of years ago 00:18:29.900 --> 00:18:31.948 is moving through us and it continues to go, 00:18:31.968 --> 00:18:34.295 and our choice, so to speak, 00:18:34.316 --> 00:18:36.843 in technology, is really to align ourselves 00:18:36.901 --> 00:18:38.949 with this force much greater than ourselves. 00:18:38.969 --> 00:18:41.899 So, technology is more than just the stuff in your pocket. 00:18:41.900 --> 00:18:43.234 It's more than just gadgets; 00:18:43.235 --> 00:18:45.378 it's more than just things that people invent. 00:18:45.398 --> 00:18:47.899 It's actually part of a very long story, 00:18:47.900 --> 00:18:50.610 a great story, that began billions of years ago. 00:18:50.610 --> 00:18:53.039 And it's moving through us, this self-organization, 00:18:53.039 --> 00:18:55.069 and we're extending and accelerating it, 00:18:55.069 --> 00:18:57.491 and we can be part of it by aligning the technology 00:18:57.491 --> 00:18:58.899 that we make with it. 00:18:59.664 --> 00:19:02.899 I really appreciate your attention today. Thank you. 00:19:02.920 --> 00:19:05.521 (Applause)