The New Frontiers of Technology and Impact

Manuella Cunha Brito Society is at a crossroads, facing two
“singularities”. This means we will see events where the depth
of changes around us become exponential and thus our
current way of thinking does not apply anymore — like the effects
of gravity in a black hole. First, is the intensifying system
crisis : climate change, food and water insecurity, extreme
economic, social and gender inequality. The UN made a
framework to help us fight those big challenges, the 17
Sustainable Development Goals we need to tackle before 2030.
Second, is the technological acceleration driven by exponential
technologies: synthetic biology, machine learning, robotics or
blockchains. The WEF states that we are
living the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”. This brings
many promises, but also grand challenges: what is the future of
work when automation is everywhere? How do we ensure that the
benefits reaped are fairly distributed across society? Will our
consumption of natural resources be exponential too, or will
circular economy principles prevail? How do we guarantee the safety
of these technologies? The question is: can we harness this second
singularity, to prevent the first one, and regenerate society and
the planet? What are the signs of hope, and the challenges that lie
ahead? Answering these questions is the work of the Good Tech
Lab, which will be presented by Manuella Cunha Brito in this
session.