IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020 - 39

Earth in 2050. Digitally enabled
communication infrastructures,
virtual spaces, and the opportunities of hologram techniques drive
and multiply - at a transnational scale - interactions between
people, joint learning processes,
joint routines, and connectedness.
They trigger and shape common,
cross-border mindshifts, heuristics,
frameworks, and narratives. All of
this could enable the emergence of
a culture of global cooperation -
rooted in a web of deep transnational interconnectedness between
humans, which has never before
existed in human history. During the last few centuries, horses,
trains, cars, airplanes, as well as
telephone infrastructures, shrunk
distances and redefined the importance of geography for human interaction. These innovations made the
emergence and stabilization of larger scale human communities (such
as nations, the European Union,
global value chains) possible. During future years and decades, the
Internet, multiple global and cheap
communication structures, and the
rising importance of virtual realities and spaces (which are adding
a fourth dimension to our threedimensional world that humans
learned to live with during the last
250 000 years) will exponentially
drive dense transnational network
building and deep connectivity
across national borders. Immanuel
Kant, living and working in Königsberg all his life (1724-1804), "invented" the idea of a "world population"
and "world citizenship." The digital drivers of transnational human
networks could "create" an interconnected, interactive world community, potentially being able to
interact densely in multiple ways -
regardless of physical borders.
Third, this new generation of
technical systems and infrastructure will shape our world views and
JUNE 2020

transform our human self-image
profoundly. It began with the first
photos of the fragile, blue planet,
made by Apollo Missions in the
1960s, which changed humans'
perspectives of the Earth system
and of humans as a species. Digital innovations and tools now allow
humans to monitor, track, visualize,
analyze the planet and the universe,
local and global ecosystems, societies and individuals, the metabolism
of local, national, and global economic activities, local and transnational infrastructures, and local and
global knowledge flows, much more
comprehensively than ever before.
Satellites can create pictures of
the planet every day in real time,
observing and analyzing Arctic ice
sheets, refugee flows, the Amazon
forest, transnational infrastructure,
and shrinking and growing human
settlements. Humans can now
"look" at the whole planet, observe
it, zoom into local spaces, and discuss all of this with others in virtual
spaces, regardless their physical
location. The new opportunities of
looking at (macro structures) of the
planet as a whole and zoom into its
pieces, is being complemented by
digital instruments which open up
the doors to the micro and nano
world. Digital cameras and robots
can visit our human bodies and
make visible atomic structures. In
addition, individualized and personalized AI systems might support
us in understanding ourselves better, in day to day decision making,
and in life-long learning [24]. Telephones, trains, and cars created the
technical infrastructures to build
modern nation states, related to the
emergence of "national consciousness" and the idea of an international system. "World consciousness,"
"Earth system consciousness,"
"humans as one species consciousness," "humans, interwoven with
the planetary bio-sphere conscious∕

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

ness" [6] might now emerge - and
help humans and societies to cope
with the challenges of the Anthropocene in the digital age.
Fourth, it is uncertain whether and
when something like "universal AI"
will succeed [23], [25]. Nevertheless,
it is already clear that AI will surpass
the cognitive capabilities of humans
in an increasing number of areas.
This might open up opportunities for
renewing the human self-image. The
emerging "competition" between
humans and technical systems in the
field of cognitive and analytical skills
could help us to focus (more than in
the past) on the human characteristics (human "Eigenart") which clearly
distinguish us from machines. Social
intelligence and emotional capabilities - which drive attitudes like
empathy, altruism, solidarity, love -
(neglected in the Era of Enlightenment with its focus on reasoning,
rationality, and cognition; see above)
have likely been as important for
the process of human civilization as
the cognitive eloquence of our species [32], [34]. Or as the WBGU [6, p.
6] puts it: "AI would possibly grant
us a certain amount of emancipation from the latter (cognitive tasks)
and allow us to focus more on skills
such as empathy, care and solidarity.
In contrast to the "hard clichés" of
the superhuman with the computer
brain in a world of steel, this would
delineate a "soft" vision of societal progress."

Renewed Humanism
We are at a crossroads. On one hand,
AI and digital technologies, ungoverned, threaten to undermine privacy, democracy, freedom, human
rights, and dignity. On the other, digital transformations offer the potential
for enhanced self-knowledge, revolutionary machine-human interactions,
and global interconnectedness.
As we move forward, the need to
es--tablish the basis for a Renewed

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020

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