Last week, Ideacity hosted their 19th annual conference dubbed Canada’s “Premier meeting of the minds”, with Ricoh Canada as a proud supporter.
Over the course of three days, media icon Moses Znaimer brought together a line-up of some of the brightest minds on the planet, including thought-leaders and visionaries in digital technology and artificial intelligence. The speakers reminded us that, although it is important to always weight the pro's and con's before implementing any new technology, it is equally important to keep an open mind and realize the potential at our fingertips.
This year, attendees were treated to an exceptional head-to-head talk with Peter H. Diamandis, Founder of XPRIZE Foundation and Singularity University, and Diane Francis, Editor-at-Large at the National Post, who both spoke during "The Great Debate - Digital Technology: Promise or Peril?" to discuss the future of digital technology and what lies ahead. Here are some of the highlights from their session:
- Although 85% of polled attendees said that technology is not always good for humanity, 74% agreed that, through technology, each of us is more empowered than ever to solve challenges.
- Peter Diamandis, who is pro digital technology, urges us to simply look at the data in order to see how technology and science have created a world full of abundance when it comes to energy, water, health and learning.
- In 1956, a 5 MB hard drive would cost $120,000. In 2005, 128 MB was $99 and by 2014, 128 GB had the same price tag of $99. Today, 1 TB still maintains that low price point which is a 10 trillion-fold price performance volume improvement.
- Between 2022 and 2025, we will have approximately 4.2 billion new minds coming online.
- Exponential growth of technologies and tools are the force that uplift humanity to take us from scarcity to abundance and allow us to live during the most peaceful time in human history.
- Access to information gives us the power to do and that empowerment allows us to handle and solve more problems then ever before.
- Despite all this growth, there are perils to be aware of. As Diane Francis warned, technology and science will make the world a better place, but only if there is ethical transformation.
- Using the NASA ethics model of "put a man on the moon, but do not lose a life", we should use discipline and diligence in order to apply security-based engineering when developing transformative technologies.
There's no question that technology, in any form, has been rapidly accelerating and shifting our world and the legal technology landscape. While change is a constant and it forces us to adapt by challenging our norms, we also have an opportunity to be influential and call on our pioneering spirit to make a positive impact on our industry.
