Human Potential

Experience a new breed of ‘humane’ systems with Infosys at WEF 2018

If you plan to visit the World Economic Forum #WEF18 at #Davos, whether physically or digitally, the book "Shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution" is a perfect read. It not only educates you about the emerging and new technologies that will change our future but also brings thought provoking ideas on the steps we can take as business leaders, government bodies or just citizens to play an important role in shaping the impact these technologies may have on the human race.

Lessons learnt from the 2nd and 3rd Industrial revolution show that we often pay for development with an unequal distribution of wealth or other ‘inhuman’ impact. We must learn to create systems that don’t just think about saving costs or time but take into consideration human values in order to ensure development that is more inclusive and sensitive to the overall human welfare. Infosys One with Digital Lab at WEF18 presents a cool opportunity for people to check out their emotional mapping to the new/emerging technologies.

Are we really making ‘progress’ when half the world is deprived?

We need to learn quickly as the world is set to change dramatically because of the rapid technological advances. According to a study, 50% of today’s work activities can be automated by 2055. This could possibly impact human beings adversely compelling them to cope up with learning new skills.

Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, makes an argument that we can reduce the negative impact of technology right at its root by designing systems that are human-centric with bake in values as a feature and led by a process of Design Thinking.

This is quite profound and extremely challenging to put together in practice. One could argue that Design Thinking led system development approaches can come to the rescue as a good foundation to begin with, but I believe there is much that is desired and needs to be built on top.

We were eager to make a start and made an attempt at human-centric design and empathy - the two most difficult aspects of Design Thinking that is extremely hard to quantify and even harder to visualize.

‘Infosys One with Digital Lab’ – Rewire machines for a human feel

We built the #OneWithDigital Lab to quantify and visualize human empathy. The purpose of the #OneWithDigital Lab is to begin a process and spark a debate about how we reconnect humans and systems focused on human values and empowerment.

When we build digital systems, it’s easy to just focus on maximizing profits and lose sight of their purpose: to amplify and extend human potential. Let’s be more humane in our quest for development and this is the first step towards that.

We illuminate what’s happening at the cutting edge of technology by engaging our audience with content that aims to provoke an emotional reaction. We capture that reaction using emotion tracking technology and use it to discover how people feel about the next wave of technology. Are they comfortable with where we’re heading: happy, angry, sad? The visualization of that emotional data is the endpoint of the experience. Each participant’s experience generates a unique piece of art which they can explore and share online.

This is only a beginning. Many such techniques need to come together to help us design and build systems that will help us achieve the benefits of the #4thIR without falling into the traps that our previous generations fell into.

If you are attending #WEF18, stop by Infosys at The Escher, Promenade 115 to experience this first hand.