Human Intelligence. Authors: Adolfo Castilla and José María González del Álamo
In this new post we reflect on the digital revolution and its relationship with a possible evolution and increase in human intelligence. We recall the industrial revolutions that have taken place in our world up to the present one. This will bring with it, in addition to a multitude of other transformations, an increase in human intelligence, both individual and collective. We suggest that for this to happen, in addition to new technologies, new applications, new services and new phenomena, new tools are needed. Such as those provided by Collective Artificial Intelligence. (IAC) of our company, Innovation Wars, S. L./CiBUC. We indicate that we are supported in this direction by the results of the many works already carried out for different companies and institutions. We would like to point out our intention to refer to these results in the following posts, as long as the institutions for which they were done give their agreement.
Industrial revolutions
We are currently experiencing a revolution in intelligence, largely caused by the spread of digital technology in the world and the great transformation that this entails. The fourth industrial revolution, the digital transformation or the widespread digitization of our societies and their operating mechanisms are not minor changes. They do not only consist of the application of a certain technology. Everything can change and everything is changing. Neither business and its dynamics, nor companies and their management, nor the economy and its functioning will be as they are today in a few years. Everything will be done with much more intelligence, individually and collectively.
What does not await is A New Great Transformation, repeating here what we have said in other writings and using as a parallel reflection the work of Karl Polanyi 1944, The Great Transformation.
It is a work far removed from us in time, very popular in university environments in the United States in the years following its publication. It has recently been revitalized and republished as an analysis in terms of the great changes that occurred in the world after the First Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th century.
The book is a critique of economic liberalism and the market mechanism, but above all it describes the profound changes that took place in the world in just over two centuries. From the beginning of what we conventionally call the Contemporary Age (1776/1789) to the days in which it was written. With the formal appearance and strong expansion in that period of what we have called Capitalism.
The changes of the last three centuries
We all have in mind the impressive innovations that took place in the world in scientific, economic, business, social and political terms throughout the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. With facts described and reviewed in countless studies and publications. The steam engine and its use in transportation; the invention of the automobile and the massive use of fossil fuels; the introduction of electricity and the electric motor; the invention of the telephone; air transportation; radio broadcasting; the massive use of plastics and a thousand other inventions are in our minds like on a movie screen. Until, by the way, we reached what we call the Third Industrial Revolution in the 70s of the last century. Based on electronics and microelectronics, the appearance of the personal computer and the spread of data transmission networks.
We are now, and since, let’s say, 2016, in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a continuation of the changes underway in our societies closely linked to the Third, to the point of not daring, many technology professionals, to distinguish and separate them.
There are reasons to differentiate them, however, as our world is awash these days with inventions and innovations of great importance.
We are, in fact, dumbfounded witnesses to the new world that is emerging before us.
Digital in our lives
Using part of what is indicated in the General Report of a recent study made by our company, Innovation Wars, S.L./CiBUC, for a well-known public institution of social character of our country, the list of inventions and innovations is very long in our days. It includes inventions and phenomena such as the Internet and social networks; platforms of all kinds, the massive digitalization of the world and the digital transformation to which all our activities and institutions are subject; businesses based on Web platforms and Apps, as we have said; and the revolution in mobility and high transmission capacity that 5G technology will enable.
As well as industry 4.0 or interconnected industry; the Internet of things, services, and people; smart cities; the phenomenon analytics and the big data, or data science; the digital marketing and the user experience; artificial intelligence, the machine learning, deep learning and learning reinforcement; the blockchain; crowdfunding, crowdsourcing and sharing; and, in short, the entire fourth industrial revolution that we are increasingly entering.
Most of these phenomena, based on digital technology, allow a strong interconnectivity of people, greater collaboration among them and shared experiences of all kinds. This means an increase in the information available to everyone, collective action, greater creativity and improved decision making.
The revolution and evolution of human intelligence
There is one change that underlies all of the above, and that is the revolution in human intelligence and its foreseeable evolution towards a greater capacity of human minds to face their world.
In recent years, much progress has been made in knowledge about the brain, intelligence and artificial intelligence, which, combined with the digital revolution, networks and the interconnectivity of people can lead to a greater ability of man to perceive his world, to understand it and to better act upon it.
In addition to all the components and phenomena mentioned above, new concepts, new techniques and new methodologies are needed. All these dimensions are provided by Innovation Wars and its Collective Artificial Intelligence (CAI). This is demonstrated by the results of the work we have carried out for a wide range of companies and institutions. We would like to refer to some of them in this blog, always with the authorization of those involved.
The one we have mentioned, for the moment without naming the institution for which it was made, bore the title, “Pandemic as an adaptive tool”. He sought, in the midst of confinement by Covid-19, to discover the potential of the pandemic as an adaptive tool to the changes ahead. With the collective identification of the best possible actions to successfully face the new world ahead of us.
