Ian Goldin: Navigating our global future

92,029 views ・ 2009-10-23

TED


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00:15
The future, as we know it, is very unpredictable.
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The best minds in the best institutions
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generally get it wrong.
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This is in technology. This is in the area of politics,
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where pundits, the CIA, MI6 always get it wrong.
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And it's clearly in the area of finance.
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With institutions established to think about the future,
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the IMF, the BIS, the Financial Stability Forum, couldn't see what was coming.
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Over 20,000 economists
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whose job it is, competitive entry to get there,
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couldn't see what was happening.
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00:45
Globalization is getting more complex.
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And this change is getting more rapid.
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The future will be more unpredictable.
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Urbanization, integration,
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coming together, leads to a new renaissance.
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It did this a thousand years ago.
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The last 40 years have been extraordinary times.
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Life expectancy has gone up by about 25 years.
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It took from the Stone Age to achieve that.
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Income has gone up for a majority of the world's population,
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despite the population going up by about two billion people over this period.
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And illiteracy has gone down, from a half to about a quarter of the people on Earth.
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A huge opportunity, unleashing of new potential
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for innovation, for development.
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But there is an underbelly.
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There are two Achilles' heels of globalization.
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There is the Achilles' heel of growing inequality --
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those that are left out, those that feel angry,
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those that are not participating. Globalization
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has not been inclusive.
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The second Achilles' heel is complexity --
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a growing fragility, a growing brittleness.
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What happens in one place very quickly affects everything else.
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This is a systemic risk, systemic shock.
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We've seen it in the financial crisis. We've seen it in the pandemic flu.
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It will become virulent and it's something we have to build resilience against.
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A lot of this is driven by what's happening in technology.
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There have been huge leaps. There will be a million-fold improvement
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in what you can get for the same price
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in computing by 2030.
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That's what the experience of the last 20 years has been.
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It will continue.
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Our computers, our systems will be as primitive
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as the Apollo's are for today.
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Our mobile phones are more powerful than the total Apollo space engine.
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Our mobile phones are more powerful than
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some of the strongest computers of 20 years ago.
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So what will this do?
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It will create huge opportunities in technology.
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Miniaturization as well.
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There will be invisible capacity. Invisible capacity in our bodies,
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in our brains, and in the air.
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This is a dust mite on a nanoreplica.
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This sort of ability to do everything in new ways unleashes potential,
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not least in the area of medicine.
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This is a stem cell that we've developed here in Oxford,
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from an embryonic stem cell.
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We can develop any part of the body.
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Increasingly, over time, this will be possible from our own skin --
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able to replicate parts of the body.
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Fantastic potential for regenerative medicine.
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I don't think there will be a Special Olympics long after 2030,
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because of this capacity to regenerate parts of the body.
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But the question is, "Who will have it?"
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The other major development is going to be
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in the area of what can happen in genetics.
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The capacity to create, as this mouse has been genetically modified,
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something which goes three times faster,
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lasts for three times longer, we could produce,
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as this mouse can, to the age of our equivalent of 80 years,
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using about the same amount of food.
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But will this only be available for the super rich,
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for those that can afford it? Are we headed for a new eugenics?
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Will only those that are able to afford it
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be able to be this super race of the future?
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03:38
(Laughter)
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So the big question for us is,
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"How do we manage this technological change?"
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How do we ensure that it creates
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a more inclusive technology,
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a technology which means
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that not only as we grow older,
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that we can also grow wiser, and that we're able to support
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the populations of the future?
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One of the most dramatic manifestations of these improvements
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will be moving from population pyramids
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to what we might term population coffins.
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There is unlikely to be a pension
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or a retirement age in 2030.
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These will be redundant concepts. And this isn't only something of the West.
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The most dramatic changes will be the skyscraper
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type of new pyramids
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that will take place in China and in many other countries.
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So forget about retirements if you're young.
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Forget about pensions. Think about life and where it's going to be going.
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Of course, migration will become even more important.
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The war on talent, the need to attract people
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at all skill ranges,
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to push us around in our wheelchairs,
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but also to drive our economies. Our innovation will be vital.
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The employment in the rich countries
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will go down from about 800
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to about 700 million of these people.
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This would imply a massive leap in migration.
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So the concerns, the xenophobic concerns of today,
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of migration, will be turned on their head,
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as we search for people to help us sort out
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our pensions and our economies in the future.
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And then, the systemic risks.
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We understand that these will become much more virulent,
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that what we see today
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is this interweaving of societies, of systems,
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fastened by technologies and hastened by just-in-time management systems.
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Small levels of stock push resilience into other people's responsibility.
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The collapse in biodiversity,
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climate change, pandemics, financial crises:
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these will be the currency that we will think about.
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And so a new awareness will have to arise,
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of how we deal with these, how we mobilize ourselves,
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in a new way, and come together as a community
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to manage systemic risk.
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It's going to require innovation.
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It's going to require an understanding that the glory of globalization
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could also be its downfall.
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This could be our best century ever because of the achievements,
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or it could be our worst.
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And of course we need to worry about the individuals,
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particularly the individuals that feel that they've
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been left out in one way or another.
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An individual, for the first time in the history of humanity,
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will have the capacity, by 2030,
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to destroy the planet, to wreck everything,
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through the creation, for example, of a biopathogen.
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How do we begin to weave these tapestries together?
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How do we think about complex systems in new ways?
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That will be the challenge of the scholars,
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and of all of us engaged in thinking about the future.
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The rest of our lives will be in the future. We need to prepare for it now.
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We need to understand that the governance structure in the world is fossilized.
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It cannot begin to cope with the challenges that this will bring.
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We have to develop a new way of managing the planet,
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collectively, through collective wisdom.
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We know, and I know from my own experience,
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that amazing things can happen,
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when individuals and societies come together
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to change their future.
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I left South Africa, and 15 years later,
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after thinking I would never go back,
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I had the privilege and the honor to work in the government of Nelson Mandela.
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This was a miracle. We can create miracles,
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collectively, in our lifetime.
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It is vital that we do so.
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It is vital that the ideas that are nurtured in TED,
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that the ideas that we think about
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look forward, and make sure that this will be the most glorious century,
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and not one of eco-disaster and eco-collapse.
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Thank you. (Applause)
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