One on One: Ayesha Khanna, Futurist

 

One on One: Ayesha Khanna, FuturistAyesha Khanna is the director of the Hybrid Reality Institute, a think tank that explores the practical implications of what she refers to as “human-technology co-evolution in the Hybrid Age.” The following is an edited transcript of an interview with Ms. Khanna.
Joshua Brustein: What is the hybrid age?

Ayesha Khanna: Humanity has had four technological revolutions. We had the Stone Age, the Agrarian Age the, Industrial Age and the Information Age. I believe we have entered a new era, the Hybrid Age.

Just like we had stone tools and the wheel, or the personal computer in the Information Age, the Hybrid Age has biotechnology and nanotechnology. There will be a proliferation of technology of all sizes and shapes, the increasing intelligence of technology, and the emergence of technologies as a social actor.

When you say technology is a social actor, you’re talking about how we may interact with artificial intelligence in situations where we once interacted with other human beings?

Exactly. As human-machine interaction becomes voice-based and gesture-based it becomes more natural. And the machines that we’re dealing with have some sort of mechanism by which they respond. Maybe it is a little robot that flutters its eyes, or walks towards you, or responds to something you need. Our tendency as human beings in that situation is to feel very nurturing towards them.

 

Is this something to be excited about, or worried about?

I’m a techno-optimist. I worked in villages and jails in Pakistan, that’s where I grew up. When I started working in technology I saw its potential, but also its ability to lock people away from social mobility in certain ways. So I began to think of access to technology as a human right.

 

How does technology lock people away from social mobility?

We have to think of technology as beyond just the Web. If you just look at biotechnology, immediately you have this greater gap. DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] is already doing things like its super soldier program, where it is developing biological enhancements for soldiers. If these things were to come to market, then the wealthy will be able to buy these things. When some people live longer and are stronger and they’re fitter it will be very hard for other people to compete with them. Such innovations will be luxuries in the beginning.

 

Is that something you’re talking about for five years in the future, 10? 20?

I would say the beginnings will be happening in the next 10 years. An interesting thing will be whether it happens in the U.S. or in China or East Asia. If other places start doing it first it will be very interesting.

In general our tendency in thinking about emerging technologies is to be very U.S.-centric. But the divide between haves and have-nots might not be the rich in America versus the poor in America. It might be the Chinese versus the U.S.

We really just need to expand the way we think about these things. I think we’ll see a lot of interesting innovations and paradigm-shifting business models come out of Africa and East Asia, and out of South Asia as well.

 

 

Africa is always cited as the laboratory for mobile innovation. Why is Africa so ripe?

Mainly because they have constraints. They are very un-banked –- they have more mobile phones than they have bank accounts. Much of Africa also has underlying infrastructure issues. But at the same time they don’t have these legacy systems that we have. So they can do things like mobile payments, whereas here it is taking a very long time. In Africa they exchange money through text messages all the time. They can leapfrog.

 

 

Do you think it’s getting harder to see things only within the bubble of the U.S.?

Yes, and we have to look at the larger implications of things. Take 3-D manufacturing. Is this trend good or bad, economically? The U.S. doesn’t rely on low-level manufacturing, things that could get printed from a 3-D printer. So it is probably good because small business entrepreneurs can spring up.

Who loses? Well, Chinese factory workers, maybe. We don’t really care. But where does the money that the Chinese workers earn by making plates, glasses and toys? U.S. Treasury Bonds. There are a lot of cascading scenarios you have to think about. Something that seems obvious is murky if you go deeper.

 

What role does your organization play in these debates?

I think what is unique about this new institute is its focus on social implications. Many people who think about technology just talk about the science without fleshing out how we get to the future, or what are we will have to go through. Our approach is not futurism for futurism’s sake. Let’s think about what the future economies can look like, or what does a city look like? Or what citizenship should mean in 20 years?

 

So you want to be able to come up with concrete things that we could do to adapt to these fundamental technological changes?

Yes. Let’s take education. I think kids should have an intuitive sense of technology just like you have an intuitive sense of the economy. That doesn’t mean you need to know programming, just like you don’t need to know accounting. You just need to have a feel for it because every day of your life you’re going to be interacting with it.

 

What potential pitfalls are you most focused on?

My fear is that much of this is very manipulative. What happens when objects decide what choices you should have in life based on your habits and your digital footprint? If we go to the Web and we’re pushed things based on our habits or our digital profile, that’s worrisome.

A colleague, Adam Greenfield, talks about a vending machine in Japan where it can tell what your age and gender are, and based on that it tells you what drinks you want.

A lot is going to be determined by our choices over the next 20 years. These choices are not going to be about less technology or more technology; I don’t think less is an option.

That’s what is so interesting about the hybrid age.