First published on Technorati: http://technorati.com/technology/article/schmidt-at-techonomy-conference-ready-for/]
On the 4th of August at the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe, CA, Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated that “Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003″ This humongous number is mainly due to user generated content (pictures, messages, tweets etc.).
Schmidt’s opinion is that while technology is neutral, he doesn’t believe people are ready for what’s coming. “I spend most of my time assuming the world is not ready for the technology revolution that will be happening to them soon” he was quoted saying.
I find this statement by Schmidt odd and somewhat disturbing. And I do not agree with it.
Technology is something we have created. It evolves with us and we evolve with it. Our information processing skills evolve with it. As I always tell my clients when I speak at corporate seminars, and I state numerous times in my books, it is our responsibility not to let technology overwhelm us, but to learn to use it as a tool, a servant to our needs. If the next few years will bring another, even more powerful, technology revolution in terms of how we exchange information, we are certainly ready for it.
We are living and breathing our technology, and we are creating that revolution ourselves, in our daily choices with digital interaction. I do not believe that we should feel at any moment that we are powerless in front of technology. We have created that technology, and it is such a great, powerful tool that it has broken every ultimate barrier between the individual and information and it has enabled us to be in touch instantly with anyone at every end of the world.
Why should we be not ready for the next level?
Dear Stefania
I wouldn’t assume mankind is always able to control what it creates just because it has been able to create it; there is no logical reason to do that and in fact there are evidences of the contrary. For instance Jared Diamond in its book “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed” gives many cases illustrating how actual communities collapsed because of their inability to cope with what they had created (including technology).
We are complex and powerful beings that sometimes produce complex stuffs we proof we struggle to manage and control (as individuals and as communities). Complexity is a very difficult beast to tame; technologies that magnify “humans” ability to generate complexity then pose additional critical challenges, beside opportunities of course.
I would welcome proactive and provocative thinking on complex socioeconomic systems to generate effective approach in managing and them, in particular by forefront technology leaders in case of technology driven revolutions.
Stefano L.