No matter what side of the aisle you sit, this video talk by Gerd Leonhard should be worth your time.

Here are a few of the points made:

There are 3 Revolutions in play

  • Digital / AI
  • Sustainability / Climate – 100x of digital/AI
  • Purpose (people, planet, prosperity, purpose)

In short, Leonhard believes our climate problems will cost some money and we will have pain for the next 20 years, but they are solvable. 

He feels the Digital / AI problem will be harder to solve, as machine learning is growing exponentially and we have no controls in place.

The Purpose (People, Planet, Prosperity, Purpose) Revolution will not be driven by governments and corporations, but by citizens demanding change.

As to the Digital / AI Revolution

  • There are four subsets – Info tech, Bio tech, Energy / Climate tech, AI tech
  • Person using AI will be more efficient / This will allow companies to reduce workforces
  • Machines will take our routines / Any job that can be automated, will be
  • AI will reduce/eliminate these jobs: bank tellers, clerks in many industries, administrative assistants, record-keeping, accounting, payroll, bookkeeping, legislators, officials, finance, insurance, sales
  • Fastest growing jobs: Anything in sustainability / climate, AI and machine learning, information security, fintech engineers, scientists, robotics engineers, business intelligence, electrotechnology engineers, agriculture equipment operators, digital transformation
  • AI will bring garbage, lies, distortion and damage – it fabricates truth
  • We won’t know if the anchor person on the news is real or a fabrication – a synthetic world
  • Social media will feed on AI, as social media promotes bad news 7x good news – why? We watch
  • GBT4 will have more knowledge than a human and can reason – We should want machine competence, not machine consciousness
  • We will have Unlimited technology firepower by 2030 (6.5 years from now) – What about Safety? Security? Ethics? Control?
  • Research on how AI aligns with human values lags far behind progress on technical capabilities – In short, it is growing faster than our ability to manage it within our values – chart

As to the Sustainability / Climate Revolution

  • Within 20 years all the middle countries in the globe will be uninhabitable due to heat – chart
  • Climate Change will cost 2-3% of global GDP, or $150T/year, for the next 10-15 years
  • We will soon have a carbon tax
  • We have the necessary technology to correct the climate problem…if we want to
  • The next 1000 unicorns will come from sustainability / climate
  • Sustainability / climate will have 100x the jobs of Digital / AI
  • +100 million new jobs will be created for Sustainability / Climate

As to the Purpose Revolution

  • Driven by heat, we will see hundreds of millions of climate change refugees migrating north
  • There will be Extinction Rebellion uprisings around the world
  • Coal, Oil and Gas will have a harder time surviving
  • Banks that support fossil fuels will also see brand rejection
  • New stock markets will emerge, supporting Purpose investing
  • Gen Y, Z and Alpha will drive change