From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Child labour is one of the worst violations of human rights, it's an affirmation that we don't respect the freedom and dignity of children in our society.
While people have been worried about AI being embedded in humanoid robots from the science fiction world, our lives have been shaped and influenced by AI which makes tens of billions of decisions each day about what we see, and how we communicate.
For four decades, real wages for Americans haven't experienced any significant growth. Prior to the pandemic, it was reported by the Brookings Institute that 53 million Americans were trapped in low wage jobs, where their earnings failed to adequately cover their needs.
To fight back, you have to first identify the enemy and right now, the enemies are corporations and the culture of consumerism. Brands work on the principle that if you break down people's confidence, they will be much more vulnerable to advertising, and much more likely to go out and consume.
Consider the adoption rates of various technologies: for telephone and electricity, it took approximately 15 years to jump from a 50% to 75% market share. With the advent of the internet and computers, that span dropped to 10 years. Television achieved this in only 5 years. But smartphones? They shattered all records with a mere 3-year period.
We're such a 'more is better' culture and we have to redefine what we value, what creates satisfaction, and the 'currency' of our lives. In America, what are we told are the two most important things we need in life? Money and fame, baby! That's fine, but you can't chase those goals at the expense of your own character, that makes you a paper tiger, a fool.
What we give to alleviate the need, suffering and sorrow of others, whether we know them or not, is charity. What we give to prevent and correct social and environmental problems and improve life and living conditions of people and creatures we don't know and who have no claim on us is philanthropy.
When I entered the telecom scene in India, in the early nineteen eighties, we had two million telephones for seven hundred and fifty million people. It used to take fifteen years to get a telephone connection. In a very short space of time, just twenty five years, we have seven hundred and fifty million telephones. We are adding ten million every month, month after month, and for the first time in the history of India- we are a connected nation of over a billion people.
At the end of this century 40-50 years from now, the proportion of our world's population who live in the developing world will have gone from 15%, 200 years ago, to over 85% – we'll be left with a very different planet.
The difference between rap, jazz, blues, rock & roll, pop, r&b and all that is that the hip-hop artists held on to it…. MTV didn't play any people of colour until hip-hop came along. They had Michael Jackson then they had Run D.M.C. Run D.M.C's 'Rock Box' and these records were honest and real reflections of what came from these people's communities- from a poetry and music standpoint.
The reality is that you are looking at your private emails and Facebook and so on at work, and at home you will look at your work emails. We split our private life and work life in a different way than we did in the past. Now, these areas of our lives are totally mixed together.
If you're doing anything for legacy, you might as well forget about it – even your great grandchildren will have no idea who you were or what you did. Legacy lasts 50 years maximum.