This is me, a few days ago, on a short family break, sitting in a 600-year-old pub in front of a 600-year-old fireplace. This building started life as a farmhouse 5 centuries ago and now I am sitting in the very living room of the family that built it and happily lived here. What were their hopes, desires, dreams and goals, I was pondering.
The setting evoked in me a feeling of nostalgia and this sense of continuity. How is it come to be that I am now sitting here over 500 years later. I am sure the family never imagined that this would one day be a reputable place for the public to enjoy great food and drink.
We have been coming here, as a family, for about 20 years as the setting is sublime beyond words. This pub sits on an ancient hill once where the Romans ruled and roamed, and the surrounding rolling countryside has changed little in 2000 years. A 30-minute drive from where I sit you can find worked flint tools and arrowheads by neolithic man, circa 10000 years ago in a giant and deep glacial valley which makes one feel small if not insignificant.
I get this overwhelming sense of continuity from the ancient to the old to the modern, as I place my iPhone on the Victorian era table.
As humans, we want to advance but we also want to be reminded of the legacy of those who came before us. What were they like? Were they just like us? Did they feel the same, hope the same and dream the same, 600 years or 2 or 10 millennia ago. What impact was their “technology” having on them?
As AI transforms the present and shapes the future what will continuity look like? In other words, what will it mean to be human in the future?
We are being copied, mimicked, “downloaded” and analysed by technologically advanced machines and software at a seemingly blistering pace. We are on the cusp of a human-machine merger and even the very last vestiges of what it means to be human such as contemplating the past, imagining the new and our deep visceral emotions are no longer the sole domain of human beings.
We are being dragged on a journey that we don’t know where it will end nor how it will end?
What are your thoughts on this matter? How do you see the future of humanity evolving alongside AI? Let’s engage in this important conversation about our collective future.
You can read more about this in my Newsletter – The Nexus. My featured article (in the latest edition) is entitled: The Emotionally Intelligent AI: Bridging the Gap Between Technology & Humanity. Here is the link: https://lnkd.in/g2u4vb3v
The Nexus Newsletter. The Nexus of Technology + Culture + Leadership + Talent for the discerning professional.
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