From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
We now have all the tools to do it. Computers are a billion times more powerful, the data is vastly better, our understanding of psychology is vastly better – we have all the elements we need now to do these things and to do them well.
The internet has had a tremendous positive impact because it's the most democratised and decentralised medium ever known. Along comes the internet, and it changes all that, it puts the power of communication in everyone's hand, at least everyone who can afford access.
There was a significant psychological barrier; people were afraid of making mistakes and ruining their work. But when they saw this engaging, simple game on the screen, they understood what to do and felt successful. It broke down that fear and made people more comfortable with computers.
Criminals are not looking for challenges, but opportunities. Every breach I've been involved with comes down to the fact that someone in the company did something they weren't supposed to or failed to do something they should have done.
In a world where everyone gets to play in social media, we're about to realise that the vast majority of people aren't good enough. Now we have an ecosystem where everyone gets out there and says they're great. The vast majority are not going to be great.
Humans haven't been able to survive in any of our environments 'raw' – we've made fire, made shoes, made hunting tools… we've never had to experience being adapted to an environment 'as it is,' and so there's no sensible definition of people without technology.
The things that are trivially easy for humans turn out to be extraordinarily difficult for machines, and vice versa. I cannot do the square root of a large number in my head, but my pocket calculator can do that instantly. But my pocket calculator still cannot make me a cup of coffee.
At the end of the day, the platforms will complain, but they exist to serve society—society doesn't exist to serve them.
I believe that if we want technological innovation to live up to its potential, we have to ensure that everyone has access to it. If technology is just for the privileged few, then it will concentrate power in the hands of those who already have it.
Design is the great 're-configurer' of problems for business… for example design takes an engineering solution for transmitting signals called a phone and reconfigures it into a hyper complex problem of glass and metal shapes, etc.
On the whole, science is seen as one of the most trusted professions- and we need to retain that trust. It is essential that the public knows how deeply science and technology affect their lives.
India boasts a robust workforce with nearly 5 million developers, a vast, young demographic, a burgeoning middle class, and a tech-enabled, English-speaking workforce. All these factors combine to offer what could be the opportunity of the decade for India.