(by Sandro Zilli, Innovation Manager, Resp. Aidr Innovation and Digital Growth Observatory) Never before has the development of exponential technologies, the use of the network and mobile devices brought radical changes in our lives and in companies. In fact, everything is changing: the way we understand work, to design, to produce, to communicate, to sell, etc ... It is no longer just about growth and well-being, but about the evolution and transformation of the scenario. If on the one hand technology is useful and extraordinary to improve our life, on the other there is the risk that it may involve risks of extreme dependence.
The starting point of a series of reflections on the theme stems from a simple but fundamental question: "How can we remain 'human'
in an increasingly technological world? " The answer is certainly not obvious and let's see why resorting to the concept of Digital Humanism.
It is common opinion that digital technology, despite having had a profoundly positive impact on society, has nevertheless been a source of complications in our modern life. The difficulties arose because the "ultra-social animal" man par excellence found himself face to face with "technology" which, in addition to not being at all social, also presupposes an almost total absence of human interaction. Since the introduction of modern smartphones in 2007 and then of tablets in 2010, we have found ourselves radically changing our model of social relationship. It often happens to see absent adults, who do not interact with other people because they are taken from their mobile phones, or children who do not dialogue with their parents as they are busy with mobile devices. Recent studies show that an increasing number of teenagers are spending up to 9 hours a day on these devices; if you consider 7-8 hours of sleep, these numbers go to highlight how technology has entered the daily activities of all of us, leaving very little time for our interactions with others.
Analyzing the phenomenon with a more careful eye, what is evident is that the problem is not simply attributable to the advent of a new technology. For generations we have grown up in the midst of new inventions, such as radio and television, and we have always been concerned about what the price was to pay in terms of limiting our "human being". What is extraordinarily different today, compared to yesterday, is the speed of diffusion of these devices and their invasiveness which foreshadows a dramatic reduction in the opportunities for social interaction.
The risk is that of losing and limiting the great potential of the human mind, which is a fascinating and extraordinary universe. All the more it is overloaded with emotions and stimuli of different grades (joy, sadness, desire, regret, anger,
etc.) the more it returns sensitivity and heightened perceptions.
Living and embracing fully all the situations that life presents to us, without putting the filter of rationality in an attempt to restore order, leads us to be deeply receptive to everything we live, read, analyze.
EVERYTHING IS A PHYSICAL ORDER
The second digital revolution has its roots in the exponential diffusion of new technologies, very easy to tell realities but with which it is difficult to deal with especially when you are children of the analog universe. It follows that there is a cultural change taking place and that it is precisely the analog world that is being challenged. The latter is the world in which we work, play, live; a reality made up of thoughts, relationships, reasonings, similarities between models and more. In the digital way everything turns out to be traceable to a number, or better to say, to different series of binary numbers "0 and 1" that make the world we know decodable through an algorithm, easily assimilable to an information; although apparently non-physical, ethereal and immaterial information is always embodied in a physical entity. “Information, wrote Cesar Hidalgo (young Chilean physicist) is a fundamental characteristic of nature, older than life itself. Think of the replication of molecules rich in information such as DNA and RNA: it is not the matter that is reproduced, but the information that is contained in it ". It therefore follows that information is intrinsic to all that is created. Machines, houses, clothes, objects of all kinds, are all made of information and not because they are born from an idea but because they embody a physical order. For example, the objects that are part of everyday life are containers of a large amount of information that has been accumulating through generations and that has allowed us to shape the material so that it could respond meticulously to our needs, to our aesthetics , to our visions of the world.
The knowledge and know-how necessary to shape the material and obtain even the simplest objects are often so articulated and complex as to transcend the skills of an individual. Let's try to clarify it with an example: at this moment only few of us would be able to produce a complex object, like a cylinder head of an internal combustion engine, based on our own knowledge; today all this is possible through technology: with a simple 3D printer and modeling software, it is possible to produce more or less complex objects, full of information assembled over the years.
We can therefore assert that information is the way in which matter is organized and is first of all physical order and then meaning.
Never as in this moment is it clear that the physical order is nothing more than the "new order" of things which does not foresee the supremacy of the machine / technology over man, let alone the dictatorship of man over the machine itself. The new order of things provides for the collaboration between man and machine in a 1: 1 ratio. An example is collaborative robotics, or a new way of using industrial robots, which provides for the close collaboration between man and robot in the production process. Collaborative robots, also known as "cobots", are tools designed to interact with people within the company so as to release them in the performance of dangerous, demanding and repetitive activities.
VALORIZE HUMAN POTENTIALS IN THE RELATIONSHIP WITH MACHINES
Man's ability to transform imagination into reality and shape the environment to respond to the need for adaptation makes it possible to preserve favorable individual differences and destroy negative ones, leading to a form of "natural selection" or "survival of the most suitable ".
In light of this new selection of the species, the new order of things will see the "fusion" between man and machine carried out in the form of synergistic work: the machine will process data in real time to allow man to ADAPT to the context. The management of data and information will allow man to obtain a fluid and immediately modifiable vision of reality so that he can choose the best performing solution every time. From this symbiotic collaboration, the ongoing industrial revolution, better known as "INDUSTRY 4.0", has already been born, which has its core precisely in the adaptability process.
The information generated in the digital world is therefore complex and difficult to replicate by man without the aid of technology. The objects that are part of our life are imbued with information resulting from centuries of errors and studies, which we would not even be able to reproduce if we did not have processing systems available. The more information contained in the product, the greater its value and its innovative capacity and therefore the greater the computational capacity of information analysis must be. In the new order of things, human creativity combined with the computational power of the machine will create increasingly complex information made of highly organized matter and energy. Matter and energy that immediately bring us back to the idea of dynamism, a key concept in Renaissance humanism and a starting point for digital humanism.
Digital humanism is therefore destined to re-propose, with a new interpretation and new main subjects, what has already happened in the XNUMXth century, in an attempt to bring man back to the center of the world, using technology to help him express everything its potential through the creation of a "DIGITAL-IO".
The forecast for a near future sees the development of a new mindset capable of facilitating the achievement of goals unthinkable today and the definition of alternative ways in which the objectives can be achieved, all supported by a performing technology and at the service of the 'man.