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REFLECTION QUESTIONS
Have you embraced the concept of human-centricity in your
organization and included social impact in your vision,
mission, and values?
Think of how you can make more impact by aligning your
strategies to the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
Which of the 17 goals are related to your business?

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CHAPTER 4
Digital Divide: Making Tech Personal,
Social, and Experiential
In the April 2000 issue, Wired published an article titled “Why the
Future Doesn't Need Us” by Bill Joy—a co-founder of Sun
Microsystems. The article postulated a dystopian scenario whereby
machines with superior intelligence would displace humans—known
as the Singularity era. In that final year of the 20th century, Wired
also released several other cover stories that explored the
combination of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) and predicted
how those advanced technologies would impact the future of
humanity.
After two decades, the predicted scenario has not yet materialized.
The Singularity is still a matter of debate. Elon Musk of Tesla and
Jack Ma of Alibaba famously had an argument on “human versus
machine” at the World AI Conference stage in 2019. Elon Musk
reiterated Bill Joy's concern that AI could end human civilization
while Jack Ma maintained that humans would always be far superior
to machines because of their emotional capacity.
Businesspeople have been wary of the threat of AI, from the loss of
jobs to the extinction of humanity. But many wonder whether the
danger is overrated. We imagined a long time ago futuristic AI-
powered automation, such as fully automated smart homes,
autonomous cars, and self-manufacturing 3D printers. But the
automation has only made them available in forms of limited
prototypes and has not managed to go mainstream.
Automation will indeed continue to take over some jobs. Brookings
Institution predicted that automation threatens to replace 25% of
jobs in the United States, especially the repetitive tasks. But AI has a
long way to go to catch up with human intelligence and to replace it
altogether. Even proponents of the Singularity believe that it will
take a few more decades for it to happen. Ray Kurzweil of Google and

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Masayoshi Son of Softbank predicted that the Singularity would only
come about by 2045–2050.