Afterword
A material that’s the thinnest ever found and the strongest ever measured (150 times stronger than steel), that’s as pliable as rubber and offers “mobility” (the speed at which an electrical charge flows across a semiconductor) 250 times faster than silicon. A mind-reading device that attaches to your jaw and reads neuromuscular signals triggered by the words you say in your head.
A robot dog that enforces social distancing in the parks of Singapore.
By any yardstick in the known universe, human inventions and discoveries are impressive. When we finally encounter extraterritorial life, these beings will likely look at Alphabet’s machine, at graphene, at AlterEgo, at Spot, and go, “∴𝙹∴, ℸ ̣ ⍑ᔑℸ ̣ 'ᓭ ᓵ𝙹𝙹ꖎ” (translation: “Wow, that’s cool.” )
But here we are, approaching the midpoint of our technologically advanced year of 2020, and we stand humbled by something that is 125 nanometers big. (Or small). An infinitesimal bug – technically, a pleomorphic spherical particle with bulbous surface projections – that has laid the world low.
If we are the lion, we await our Androcles.
As the articles in this special report illustrate, technology is central to beating the virus and mitigating the damage it is doing. From the use of artificial intelligence in the search for a vaccine, to the creation of healthcare data interoperability, to the scaling up of telemedicine, to changes in our diet and how global supply chains are managed, every aspect of how we deal with this current challenge, and prevent future ones, rests on combining the smart use of smart technologies with behavioral change.
Technology may be our Androcles.
As well-known tech journalist Kara Swisher put it in 2015, “In Silicon Valley, there’s a lot of big minds chasing small ideas.” But as we paraphrased in our 2017 book What to Do When Machines Do Everything, “We’re entering an era of big brains focused on big ideas … using technologies to transform how we are educated, fed, transported, insured, medicated and governed.”
True then, even truer now.
If it is universally acknowledged that extraordinary challenges produce extraordinary leaders, then this is the moment for leaders in technology and business to be extraordinary, to use this moment of crisis as a catalyst for creating better medicines, better healthcare, better development of goods and services, better education, better protection, better distribution of opportunity. Do this, and as the crisis passes, we will in time look back and remember the good that came from terrible times. Fail to do this though, and … well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.
For some time now, corporate leaders have grappled with the twin tests of reinventing both technology and capitalism. How does a mature, traditional company operate at internet speed? How does an organization beholden to its shareholders serve the other constituents with a stake in its future? Missing in both these endeavors is a compelling, overarching sense of what the mission objective is. Beyond simply making money, what are we trying to achieve? Such are the private musings of those whose conscience roams unbound in the wee, wee hours of the morning.
The existential challenge that floats in the air (hopefully not too close to where you’re standing) provides an answer to that question. What are we trying to achieve? Health. Equity. Opportunity. Fairness. Hope. Security. An achievable path to a better future. Wealth? Of course – but as a means, not the end.
At this moment of peril, when we can see how fragile we really are – our systems, our tools, our ideas, ourselves – it is important that we remember what the point of all this – life – really is. When you run into that ET (in the socially distanced line in the supermarket as you queue for toilet paper), will you be able to answer if asked, “What are you doing?” Metaphorically, not literally. Will you be able to explain the role – as an organization and an individual – you are trying to serve? To make things better?
Those of us who work in technology have a huge role to play and are blessed that the road rises to meet us.
This is not a coda. We are coders.
This afterword was written by Ben Pring, co-founder and head of the Cognizant Center for the Future of Work. Read more about Ben.
