Dubai: Technologists have a responsibility to make devices that allow people to live in the most human and natural way possible, Steve Wozniak, known as “The Woz”, co-founder of Apple Computer, told guests at the seventh International Government Communication Forum on Thursday.
Speaking at a panel discussion entitled ‘The current state of government communication and how to build flexible strategies’ at Expo Centre Sharjah, Wozniak said he doesn’t believe that technology will reach a level where it can replace CEOs, companies or government officials.
“Human versus technology has been the key element in my entire life in this digital revolution,” he said.
Pointing out that computers can be programmed to have artificial emotions “theoretically”, they will never be able to have human emotions. “Human feelings and emotions come from doing things like walking, being alone sometimes, going to the beach and feeling that breeze … but a computer has not lived such a life,” said Wozniak.
He also pointed out that while scientists can prove there are processing areas in the brain, they still are unable to understand how the brain is structured, making it more impossible to create a machine that is identical to a human.
Sharing his thoughts on the aspect of bidirectional communication between the government and their people, Wozniak said governments should be inclusive, and communication should be shared.
“As far as technology goes, it allows a political contribution to override the real facts. Some of these big technological giants are massive storehouses of data that sometimes espouse certain values, which are more often than not linked with business profits,” he said.
Wozniak pointed out this influences people in ways that shouldn’t be done.
“It manipulates their minds in subtle ways that make up their minds about things in a way that lacks individuality. That is the opposite of being dynamic,” he said.
Problems changing
Meanwhile, Thomas Koulopoulos, leading futurist and author, highlighted how the top-down, one-way channel government communication needs to give way to a more bidirectional model.
“Our behaviour changes due to the technology we use. Let me take you back to 1966, when philosopher, Karl Popper, said that we were moving from clock problems to solving cloud problems,” he said.
Koulopoulos’ point was that the clock is mechanical, it is easy to predict, understand and resolve its problems. Cloud problems on the other hand are constantly evolving and changing.
“We find ourselves today in an era of intense uncertainty where problems are constantly moving — they are not standing still long enough for us to make sense of them,” he said.
Koulopoulos pointed out that we have approximately 10 billion computers, and out of those about seven billion are comprised by smart phones and other digital devices.
“By 2100, these numbers will escalate exponentially. In these circumstances, how will our behaviour change? What we need to focus on is the humanity of change, not just the technology side of it,” he said.
Koulopoulos predicts the need for building an entirely new set of ways to facilitate bidirectional communication.
He pointed out the previous generation was used to broadcasting communication — as individuals, governments and organisations.
“Where I see artificial intelligence helping and augmenting us is opening ways for humans to make communication more instant, integrated, intelligent in some way and, most importantly, individualised. AI can help us scale successful models of bidirectional government communication,” he said.
No control on information
Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder, also addressed the significance of the information revolution driven by technology in the past decade.
“The idea that governments have control over information that citizens need access to has completely gone away, and that’s mostly a good thing. Wikipedia is blocked in China and in Turkey now for the past 10 months — something we hope to resolve soon,” he said, discussing the challenges in the field.
He pointed out that good governments are trying to adapt to these changes in a way to benefit their people, while other governments that cannot control the flow of information to people are trying to mislead them with claims like ‘fake news’.
“All of these things are still developing and that’s what makes this decade so interesting,” added Wales.
