KOLOA, Kauai–A broad, intriguing, sometimes frightening and at other times encouraging overview of how technology is changing lives and cultures was shared with credit unions here.
Nick Thompson, the CEO of The Atlantic and a former editor of Wired and the New Yorker and who often writes on technology issues, said the famous Moore’s Law continues to be proven true as the processing power of computers is still doubling every two years. And predictions Moore’s Law would eventually prove unsustainable are not only wrong, but Thompson believes processing speeds are about to get even faster and will be better than humans in an increasing number of ways, especially if advances in quantum computing finally come to fruition.
Speaking to Co-op Solutions’ CEO Conference here on the theme, “The Way Technology Will Change Everything About Us,” Thompson said the technology world in which younger Americans have grown up has forced them to adjust in many ways, including to an existence in which there is a lack of privacy.
In response, he said, many younger people are protecting privacy by creating fictional characters and personas in social media. It’s a reality that has ramifications for any business, including credit unions, that might mine social media for behavior and histories.
Here are some of the many other themes touched on by Thompson during his remarks:
The Pandemic’s Effects
“Another thing super-important today is young people have grown up in the pandemic and been educated in the pandemic and it’s going to completely change the way they think about work,” he said. “It’s going to change profoundly the way they think about how they learn, where they choose to live and the ways cities are designed.”
A Misconception
While phones are often viewed as “distraction machines” and criticized for creating bite-size attention spans, Thompson said technology has actually made it easier to absorb really complicated information. He noted that many successful publications have prospered by dedicating themselves to serving people with a long attention span.
Technology & Democracy
When it comes to politics, Thompson said algorithms of social media have driven people to the extremes, which generates clicks and engagement and makes advertisers happy. That trend has created a serious downside, however, said Thompson, adding he was initially a believer that the Internet would be the great field leveler and the end of authoritarianism due to the free flow of information.
But that hasn’t been the case.
“Democracy is in decline and authoritarianism is on the rise, in part because authoritarians can control the Internet much more than I thought,” said Thompson.
Meanwhile, “Democracy is tearing itself apart. This is one of the most distressing trends, but I don’t think it’s inevitable.”
The Future of Work
Thompson offered the slide, below, as an illustration of jobs that will exist in the future vs. those that will not.
Future of Journalism
An issue close to his heart, Thompson noted print journalism “started off in an awesome business model. We wrote stories, put them in newspaper or magazine, put that in the mail, and sent them. It was great for advertisers. For a brief moment in time, print publications had an amazing position when it came to advertising.
“Then along came the Internet,” he continued. “And better ad products were built; targeted ads could be bought. You don’t need to buy ads in publications. Now, you can just buy an ad on Facebook. It took us a while to notice this. Ultimately, what happened was that to survive you had to figure out new business models.”
One “crucial” lesson among publishers, according to Thompson, is that the journalism doesn’t have to be supported by advertising; it can be put behind a paywall, and pricing often isn’t an issue.
What’s Coming? ‘Huge Implications’
Self-driving cars are coming. Really, said Thompson. “If you put together self-driving cars, electric cars, and ride sharing, you get huge implications for how society is organized. We can make cars more comfortable. We won’t need gas stations or parking lots in cities, raising questions over what to do with that land.”
Quantum Computing
“Regular computers make decisions in ones and zeroes. Quantum can have information in multiple states at the same time. We are getting there. There is real optimism that this is happening. We are going to make machines that are a million times faster than now. That has both good and bad implications. The biggest fear, the scariest thing, is that hackers are extricating data now so when quantum computers come they can hack it.”
An Implication for CUs
“One of the big implications for you is when you train on historical data it has built-in biases. The interesting question is how can we have no biases in every AI data set. Drawing the line on where you let the algorithm have bias is going to be a really complicated question and a profound one.”
The Blockchain
Where does Thompson stand on the need to be building on the blockchain right now? He offered the handy graphic at right with an answer.
Text Generation
AI getting better at generating text and handling consumer questions, said Thompson, before cautioning it is also getting easier to manipulate information using Open AI.
The Big Threat
“The biggest trend happening in technology and the thing that worries me the most is the split happening between the Untied Stated and China. China will probably surpass us as richest nation on earth. The U.S. and China tech centers are splitting apart. No U.S. technology company can really go into China now. I am very concerned that in the immediate term we will have a cold war where countries have to choose if they want to use western technology or Chinese technology. Every trend suggests this is going in the wrong direction.”
The Future of Retirement
There is an assumption, Thompson said, that retired people will increasingly be taken care of by robots. He agrees with that analysis.
“I think we’re going to end up with lots of robots taking care of us and we will even have deep emotional relationships with robots,” Thompson said.
The Main Point
The main point of all of that, said Thompson, is this: “We are heading off into an amazing, crazy future. It will be destabilizing and confusing. It’s mostly going to be good. We will want organizations we can trust to make sense of it all. I think a lot about this with your businesses. Trust. If you can build it and maintain it, that should be a core thing to focus on. It’s very easy to lose the trust of younger people if they don’t know anything about you.”