We are destined for an irreversible end, machines are only for our reversible ends.
5. AI HELPS HUMAN BEING TO DO BETTER AND TO DO NEW THINGS
Artificial intelligence supports humans in two directions:
a) Doing things we could already do, but now we can do better. Machines are faster, cheaper, easier, with higher precision; among the examples, the mechanization of agriculture has generated the development of industry; subsequently, automation in industry generated the development of the tertiary sector; and finally today the automation of the service sector, thanks to AI, is generating new jobs.
The AI systems with the collected data allow us to better understand the market, the plants and the final customers, among others. It is not difficult to imagine algorithms that help commercial departments to develop strategies, product launches, marketing plans, purchasing or financial policies.
b) Doing new things that could not have been done before. When everything changes quickly, the more you experiment, the more likely you are to succeed and the odds increase only for those who take into account that they can make mistakes.
Making mistakes in digital has an almost zero marginal cost. It is a fortunate situation that we must grasp. In factories, for example, thanks to affordable technologies, it is possible to sensor and connect machines, systems and processes to extract data and make forecasts that were once long and expensive.
The technicians, with their awareness, identify the correct data to collect; in this way they will be able to best express all their potential by improving themselves, the company and the whole society together.
To us humans, therefore, the fundamental task of the judgment on the elaborations, the noble part, what a person can do best.
In fact, if we let the machines do what they are suitable for, we will give people the possibility of being less and less “Manpower” and more and more “Testadopera”, that is, to take advantage of the use of our best resource: the head.
Artificial intelligence is to the head what leverage is to the hand: it allows us to do quickly and better what we humans aim to do.
6.WHAT WE CAN DO, WHAT WE HAVE TO DECIDE, HOW WE WANT TO BE
Artificial intelligence is not a Pandora’s box, it does not have an ineluctable destiny: it is in the hands, hearts and heads of human beings to decide how to use it, and how to ensure that it protects people and their privacy.
For Alvin Toffler, the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn. None of us can afford not to learn, because “re-learning” is no longer a luxury: it is a necessity, because machines are necessarily illiterate, people can no longer be.
The big changes, the ones that made us leap forward, did not come from a business idea or a desire to make money, but from the minds that explored knowledge far and wide for the pleasure of doing it and for the desire. to release the still unexpressed human potential.
This continuous process will free up time for people, will allow for better working and living conditions; it will also be necessary for the legislator to ensure that it is also transformed into widespread prosperity and well-being.
Consequently, leaders and policy makers themselves must have a good understanding of the implications of AI.
7. HOW WE ACT, SO WE BECOME
We Italians, in order to save the humanistic culture and spread it, we must on the one hand recover the lost ground in terms of widespread computer skills, on the other hand to leverage our peculiarities deriving from our history, from the ability to bring out beauty, from empathy , by the faculty of judgment.
In the age of artificial intelligence, the answers are easy and convenient, but the intelligent questions are few and difficult. For this reason we invite people with multidisciplinary skills to reflect together on these issues. So when the future finds us, we will be ready, because as we imagine our future, so we act; how we act, so we become.
Massimo Chiriatti is chief technology officer of Lenovo Italy, Nicola Intini is manager and entrepreneur, Corrado La Forgia is vice president of Federmeccanica, Paola Liberace expert in digital skills