The Challenge of the Future: Rediscovering Values

The development of technology in recent years has radically changed the world and will continue to do so if we think about what awaits us: the role played by Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be very important, such as that of augmented reality and virtual reality, up to technologies that will be able to look more and more like human beings, imitating their ways of learning and approaching them.

Thanks to technology we will have new products and services, but also “new ways of doing things” which will represent structural changes in many sectors, new demands and needs, as well as a new culture.

The speed of our lives and the incessant technological development asks us to choose which world we want to create to lead the future.

The digitization process of the whole of society is now a fact. But perhaps it is not yet entirely clear that the deepest inequality in accessing and actively and consciously using the digital environment is given by the lack of digital culture, i.e. the lack of organic understanding of the great change underway which pertains to all of contemporary life, completely transformed by the revolution of new technologies.

In order to face change and find solutions in line with the changing needs of our society, it is, therefore, necessary to understand that digital, even before being a technology, represents a change of cultural paradigm and must be faced as such.

In fact, there can be no technological innovation without first investing in behavioral innovation and new business culture. If one doesn’t want to share this simple and basic observation, we will continue to perpetuate one of the biggest – and costliest – corporate misunderstandings of our time: the challenge for most companies is not being digital, as commonly thought, but having the capital human ability to manage the cultural revolution that digitization requires. Otherwise, we will continue to believe in the miraculous effects of stand-alone technology, once again forgetting the critical success factor: the human being!

As for Artificial Intelligence, it is essential to reflect on what we will be in the future and be aware of the risks, consequences, and opportunities of its applications.

Machines will replace us not only in low-value-added jobs but also in intellectual jobs and professions. The loss of employment will not only be an economic and social problem but will lead to the need to find a new dimension of meaning for people.

The innovations just mentioned, which are already and will increasingly become a reality, need to be “guided” by a human conscience that knows what to expect from them and how to make the best use of them.

Ethics, values, and solidarity will be the pillars of human rediscovery which paradoxically will be induced by the technological revolution and will have to go through a completely reformed training approach in favor of lateral thinking.

Without forgetting technological literacy, it is necessary to develop an awareness of these new processes of cultural and social change because the opportunities that can be generated for the dissemination of culture and the active involvement of the public are enormous.

However, if there is an unambiguous and unquestionable truth to which all these reasoning lead us, it is the “need for responsibility”. We are the ones who write, create, share, spread. So we need responsibility in recognizing that things are changing and in understanding that we can make a difference with our actions and with the same technological tools with which we must learn to live with.

So, even before asking ourselves what ethics machines have to respond to, we must try to ask ourselves about our ethics, our values, and what makes our lives rich and worth living and keeps us together as people and societies.