When talking about business and technologies, the focus is often on digital technologies such as AI, 3D printing, AR, VR, but what is also important is talking about the technologies between people.
One of the world's top female futurists, Nancy Giordano explains why she is excited to explore the potential of these technologies. Based out of Austin Texas, Giordano has spent her career building, shaping and evolving a portfolio of $50 billion worth of major global brands. She was the first global TEDx licensee and currently leads a youth-led team to produce one of the globe’s largest TEDx event.
According to Giordano, this idea about curiosity and connectivity are the two social technologies that will allow us to keep up with the digital ones. Check out the Q&A below to learn how we can ensure that the human capacity keeps up with the digital capacity.
Q: How will we level up in order to stay on par with the technological shifts?
A: At the end of the day it's superhuman - really human. The idea about fostering our own creativity and connectivity - those are the things that allow us to exist and flourish with machines. I'm much more focused on the human technological shifts that need to happen rather than the digital ones. We will be overrun by the digital ones if we don't think about the others. We need to ensure that we become in harmony with them and accelerate with them so we're not overwhelmed. There is so much that can be released inside humans that we haven't even begun to discover. The fact that we can delve more into that in the future is really cool to me. We can have an amazing society moving forward.
Q: What are you most afraid of about the future?
A: We sometimes take old mindsets and apply them to new, much more powerful capacities. Also, I think that If people are really afraid of this stuff they won't harness it in a way that is really empowering. This is the idea of wonder vs. resist and think about what the possibilities are and feel more sense of agency, then we will be able to do some really great things. People's fear could create a lot more danger moving forward.
Q: What are people fearful about?
A: Not being included in the digital economy. I think it's important to create more inclusivity to decrease the income/experience/education divide. I spend a lot of time developing those technologies that allow everyone to have a piece of the future. People might be fearful of not having work. A lot of people put value on the fact that they get a paycheck. People are worried about the ethical components. We're going to have so much power.
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Q: Do you have an example of an ethical dilemma we might face in the future?
A: I saw a talk recently about moving consciousness from one being to another and we can start to do that. Imagine what that will look like. Forget what we can do with gene editing, we're looking at just the tip of the iceberg of what's possible.