Technological progress is likely to further widen the gap between rich and poor

We are living in a period of profound social transformation where we suddenly realized that the earth on which we live could collapse under the pressing and frenzied delirium of exploitation to which we have subjected it. 

On the one hand there is the blinding shimmer of money and on the other the reasonableness that tells us that we must change our way of life.

I remember that in 2015 the UN member states had reached an agreement to respect a series of sustainable development goals in order to reverse the trend towards global warming. Today little or nothing has been done and 2030, the year in which these objectives should have been achieved, is so close to the transformations that must be done.

The commitment to zero emissions by 2030 would require the rethinking of rubber mobility, energy networks,heavy industry,food, waste management, type of building construction and the use of clean chemistry.

This means a global, epochal revolution and a completely different lifestyle from that of today, which, it seems, in the past four years we have not changed in the least.

In fact, global warming has never been reduced strong, CO2 has not decreased, deaths due to health complications from pollution are not under control, the destruction of biodiversity and forests continues in the countries that conserve them and, finally, the problem of waste, in particular plastic waste, has not yet found a correct and shared solution.

We live in a period of inertia, fascinated by new technologies and artificialintelligence, from which we expect solutions to our problems.

The digital era that has just begun has the prospect of improving people’s lives, through the processing, at high speed, of data collected and stored, which can help make more correct decisions, to grow new businesses, that would have been unthinkable until recently and to strengthen research to create new products and solve technical problems.

The contribution of artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology we will be able to see it in an endless number of sectors ranging from medicine, through new diagnostic equipment, but also through the interpretation of data from laboratory and instrumental analyzes, which can help doctors reduce errors in the diagnosis phase.

We will be able to find advanced artificial intelligence in new systems for the marketing of goods and services, in technologies related to waste management, in clean energy storage systems, in the new frontiers of biotechnology applied to agriculture and intelligent mechanization of work.

There are excellent hopes that the new technological era can help us solve the problems that the world is still suffering from, but if on the one hand the road is marked and the application of artificial intelligence and technology will grow more and more, bringing improvements in the living conditions of citizens compared to the problems we have seen before, on the other hand, it will probably mark a deep furrow between the new and old world.

Understanding the new digital era, to which all vital activities will be connected, requires medium-high schooling in order to take advantage of new technologies.

But maybe we forget that there are about a billion people in the world who can neither read nor write, that a large number of people have such an elementary schooling that they would not be able to understand, today, the new world coming, that these people, including children, have physical and economic survival issues as a priority for their lives.

That a good part of the population, especially in Africa, does not have access to electricity, water, cannot take advantage of roads and lives on subsidies or starves to death.

They get up in the morning and think about how they can get there in the evening, for themselves and their families, no other academic or scientific reasoning.

Furthermore, the phenomenon of mass migration from South American or African countries, which horrifies our advanced societies so much, are a bell from the alarm of what people are willing to do to find a dignified life in which essential goods can be secured. to live.

In the part of the world where well-being is more widespread, artificial intelligence and robotics will lead to the destruction of a productive social fabric made by middle-aged people who is not and will not be able to manage and interpret technological transformations and above all, he will lose his job due to the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the systems.

Nobody cares about this, there are no public social networks that think they can protect the weakest from the challenges that await us. Nobody is worried about the scourge of unemployment, which could advance rapidly, even affecting state budgets.

I believe it is a duty for everyone that new technologies and artificial intelligence leave no one behind.

Automatic translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.