Society 4.0

Our societies are witnessing a massive technological acceleration, their transformation is profound. Our personal data is the new oil. How do we accept to trade it, in exchange of what services? What do private companies and States do with our data?

Our social model, based on property, is now challenged by the dictates of immediate and unlimited consumption of services. What will tomorrow’s economy look like? Our way of interacting with each other, and even our brains, are beginning to change under the effect of screens. How to avoid the excesses of a 100% virtual life? What about the importance of the body in our dematerialized communications? If technology makes our lives easier, we must not let it take away what makes us human.

We have the opportunity to reshape our society, 4.0 version.

How do we want it and what will we pass on to our children?

Robotics

It is not science fiction anymore : robots will play a main role in our daily lives. We will share with them as much time, space and emotional bounds as we do with pets.

They will be our cooks, our nurses, our cleaning staff… and our prostitutes. Therefore, many ethical issues merge around robots : what can they do for us, what can’t we do to them?

How to size this huge opportunity of improving our daily lives, and particularly the lives of isolated people, elders or people with disabilities, without compromising nor our humanity neither our ethical boundaries?

Artificial intelligences, tomorrow, will flip the job market chessboard. They will be better and cheaper at completing all the boring tasks, from checking security cameras at the mall to compiling tons of files in a lawyer’s office. The automation of thousands other jobs, such as trucks or taxi driver, will lead to a radical change in the job landscape : millions of people will have to find another way, not only to earn their daily bread, but also of being useful in the society.

To avoid massive social crises, leaders will have to prepare this transition.

Augmented health & medicine

Innovations in the medicine and health fields are everything to be excited about.

From super precise diagnosis to never-tired surgeons robots, from personalised treatments based on your DNA,  nanorobots able to prevent heart attacks or the possibility of printing artificial organs : one sure thing is we will live longer and healthier. 

However, some ethical issues are to be considered.

What are the economical impacts on our healthcare systems?  What will be a doctor’s job tomorrow? Will we all live in augmented bodies?  If we come close to immortality, what will we do with all this time ahead of us?

The risk of sliding to transhumanism is not far : from making genetically modified babies in laboratories to solving death, to what extends can we play God?

Energy, Transportations & Smart city

The major part of humanity already lives in cities. The percentage of people migrating to towns will do nothing but increase, wether it is because of job hunting or climatic issues.

Surviving in a megapoles with millions of people implies that our cities become truly smart. How can we solve the traffic, produce and store sustainable energy, build quick and cheap housing and even grow greens in these urban jungles?

Technology is there to improve our daily lives and to allow us to save time : how transportations tomorrow will change the game? How will we go to work, travel and maybe… make long distance relationships a pastime memory?