Yesterday, Debating Europe, along with our partner think-tank Friends of Europe, hosted a live event looking at some of the ways technology might affect Europe in 2050. Taking part in the debate were Professor Anne Glover, Chief Scientific Advisor to the European Commission President, and Dan Reed, Corporate Vice President of the Technology Group at Microsoft Research. Watch the full video from the debate below:
We covered a LOT of ground in the hour we had available. The issues raised included discussions on self-ironing clothing; intelligent vehicles that drive themselves; mobile phones that offer real-time translation between languages; how to cope with resource shortages when you’re immortal and the joys of dissecting virtual earthworms.
As well as some of the more far-future predictions, Professor Anne Glover reminded us that technology is already completely fundamental to everything we do:
Technology is sometimes invisible to us, and so it is worthwhile reminding ourselves how absolutely wedded we are to technology and how we’ve harnessed it in order to deliver us the present that we want. But, I suppose our challenge is how do we deliver the future that we want?
At the same time, the debate wasn’t just a rose-tinted look into a utopian future. As well as discussing the benefits of personalised medicine, smart energy grids, big data and “just-in-time” education, we also looked at some of the risks and dangers that might be facing us in 2050. We discussed vulnerability to cybercriminals; abuse of surveillance and censorship technologies by governments and big corporations; whether Europeans are “tech-phobic”; why scientists find it difficult to communicate with the public and how to bridge the “digital gap” and avoid excluding large parts of the population who can’t afford to keep up with the technology cycle.
Dan Reed also raised the issue of social disruption occuring due to the growing impact of technology:
The rate of technical change, as it continues to accelerate, is challenging the ability of many of our global social institutions to adapt on that timescale. We see that manifest in many ways; social disruptions and many of the things that accrue from that.
Watch the debate and let us know what YOU think. We asked a number of questions sent in from users, and covered a lot of issues. However, if there is an issue you think we didn’t cover (or, if you’d like us to go into more detail) then let us know in the form below. You can send us YOUR ideas and questions, and we’ll take them to experts, academics and policy-makers for their reactions.
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In the future the only way to secure growth and development will be in the technologic advances. Not in bubble economies, the financial sector, the banks, the property market. All of them together with tourism will be implementing the wealth, job creation, innovation, stability, influence and voice of Europe on the global stage, but technology and new industries will once again, like they did back during the industrial revolution will be the foundations of a new European financial “spring”…!! So what are we waiting for?
Thanks to technology I was able to watch this debating, and I agree that life is too short for ironing!
Thank you for the interesting debate. For me the main outcome was the appeal for more cooperation with social scientists, in order to explain better why technology will be needed to face the challenges ahead and how we all will have to adapt our daily habits.
However on those challenges I would like to hear more on how it can be avoided that technology will not create a wider divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’, between the countries where people already have better living conditions and those who are still far behind. This question is linked to another one, already briefly addressed: how to solve the problem of natural resources become very scarce. The security challenges will more and more be linked to the reduced resources. Will technology be able to find a way to improve living conditions with less resources?
Thanks for this interesting debate. In my opinion, the technology should be a help to improve the environment, cultural values of humanity and human rights and preserve above all ethics.
I show one of my works on issues of good governance practices in a primary care center in Catalonia. The care of humanity depends on our behavior and responsibility.