{"id":69980,"date":"2016-09-11T08:01:34","date_gmt":"2016-09-11T06:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/e52.nl\/?p=69980"},"modified":"2016-09-11T08:01:34","modified_gmt":"2016-09-11T06:00:34","slug":"tomorrow-is-good-towards-a-humanised-digital-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/tomorrow-is-good-towards-a-humanised-digital-society\/","title":{"rendered":"[TOMORROW IS GOOD] Towards a humanised digital society"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow is good.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>In a weekly column, alternately written by Lucien Engelen, Maarten Steinbuch, Carlo van de Weijer and Daan Kersten, E52 tries to find out what the future will look like. All four contributors are \u2013 in addition to their \u2018normal\u2019 groundbreaking work \u2013 linked to the SingularityU The\u00a0Netherlands, the organization that focuses on spreading knowledge about technologies that can provide solutions to the problems of our time. This Sunday, it\u2019s Maarten Steinbuch\u2018s turn.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Maarten Steinbuch<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"SU<\/a>In the past\u00a0week the Dutch universities restarted the academic year. Traditionally the rectors open with their\u00a0considerations. Unique this year was that in all openings on all Dutch universities the report ‘Digital Society<\/a>‘ played\u00a0an important role. The report was written by the VSNU, the association of cooperating universities in the Netherlands. The subtitle reads: “The Netherlands and universities: international pioneers of human-oriented information technology<\/em>“.<\/p>\n

The message of the report is completely in line with the thinking at Singularity University: the major social problems can actually be solved by the massive and rapid development of technology. At the same time new questions come up about the role of humans in the future of the digital society. With this addition, the\u00a0VSNU describes the uniqueness of the Dutch science field: the ability to cooperate across disciplines and domains\u00a0(alpha, beta, gamma) and to take a leading role in this unique time in history. This asks for some more\u00a0explanation, but first, let me describe\u00a0what Singularity University really stands for, where the word comes from, and why I’m involved.<\/p>\n

The concept of Singularity in mathematics is connected to\u00a0something with no solution, or to\u00a0something infinite, for example if you try to divide with 0 (zero). Another example is a desired trajectory of the tip of a robot arm which\u00a0you want to ‘translate’ into how each joint should be working; this\u00a0is not always\u00a0straightforward because there are often\u00a0many\u00a0more solutions (actually, in those cases usually an infinite\u00a0number of them). At the Singularity University, the term is used to indicate the moment\u00a0the computer will be\u00a0smarter than humans and we reach a situation in which different technologies have developed to a point in which they\u00a0converge and provide solutions to all existing\u00a0problems.<\/p>\n

Imagine a situation in which energy is\u00a0free, there is enough food, we could become very old and at the same time always\u00a0remain healthy, and everyone has enough income. We are not there yet, but the road to it has many challenges, and also deeper questions, such as: do we really want to become infinitely old, and what about the ‘humanity’ in such a situation? Singularity University was founded as a think tank to enhance this process and help realise it. It is done\u00a0this by organising workshops and seminars, and by\u00a0helping promising startups with their first steps.<\/p>\n

Without ASML there is no Moore’s Law<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The rapid technical developments towards the digital society are enabled\u00a0by Moore’s Law: it shows the doubling of processing power of computer chips in every two years. The remarkable thing is that with ‘our’ company ASML we are\u00a0at the heart of this law: without ASML there is no Moore’s Law! Because of the highly technical orientation of our region, the first\u00a0establishment of Singularity University outside the US ended up in Eindhoven, and was named SingularityU The Netherlands. We don’t call it a university\u00a0here, simply because it is not.<\/p>\n

I linked myself to SingularityU The Netherlands because I think it is important that everyone, individuals, companies, governments, institutions, get started with these rapid developments. We have to think about what it can do for us, and how each of us\u00a0can contribute to this transition to a better world. What fascinates me is to encourage young people and their aspirations for startups, and also to think about the implications for education, and how we do research at the university.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0my own research group, we are working on robots, and with the two startups Preceyes<\/a> and Microsure<\/a> we combine the strengths of our region: designing, making and controlling ultra-precise systems with possible applications in a highly evolving field: that of robotic surgery. I’m really proud to see the first successes<\/a>. And there is more: autonomous driving deserves all the attention from us. And home care is another important field of application of our robotic activities.<\/p>\n

Would\u00a0a robot be able to\u00a0fall\u00a0in love?<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Children sometimes ask me right after a lecture on robots: would\u00a0a robot be able to\u00a0fall\u00a0in love? Until now, I always reply that a human can be in love with a robot and a robot can pretend to be, but for itself it can’t really ‘feel’. But do I know for sure? How will\u00a0Artificial Intelligence develop itself, now that hundreds of millions of dollars are invested in it, for example to learn autonomous cars to\u00a0‘teach’\u00a0themselves? And what will the role of the driver be in all\u00a0this?<\/p>\n

All those questions need to be answered\u00a0in multiple disciplines, among which also a lot of\u00a0ethical ones. These are exciting times in which\u00a0we must take our responsibility. Onwards, to a humanised\u00a0digital society!<\/p>\n

Picture: PrecEyes<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow is good. In a weekly column, alternately written by Lucien Engelen, Maarten Steinbuch, Carlo van de Weijer and Daan Kersten, E52 tries to find out what the future will look like. All four contributors are \u2013 in addition to their \u2018normal\u2019 groundbreaking work \u2013 linked to the SingularityU The\u00a0Netherlands, the organization that focuses on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1572,"featured_media":50438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7809],"tags":[490,486,484,7478,827,829,7811,2519],"location":[],"article_type":[],"serie":[],"archives":[],"internal_archives":[],"reboot-archive":[],"class_list":["post-69980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-design-en","tag-geen-categorie-en","tag-innovation","tag-maarten-steinbuch-en","tag-start-ups","tag-technology","tag-tomorrow-is-good","tag-tue-en"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":{"subtitle":"","text_display_homepage":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Gastauteur","author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/gastauteur\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Preceyes-1-300x200.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Opinion<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Opinion<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["design<\/a>","Geen categorie<\/a>","innovation<\/a>","Maarten Steinbuch<\/a>","start-ups<\/a>","technology<\/a>","Tomorrow is Good<\/a>","TU\/e<\/a>"],"unlinked":["design<\/span>","Geen categorie<\/span>","innovation<\/span>","Maarten Steinbuch<\/span>","start-ups<\/span>","technology<\/span>","Tomorrow is Good<\/span>","TU\/e<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 10 years ago","modified":"Updated 10 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on September 11, 2016","modified":"Updated on September 11, 2016"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on September 11, 2016 8:01 am","modified":"Updated on September 11, 2016 8:01 am"},"featured_img_caption":"\u00a9 Preceyes","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1572"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69980"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=69980"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=69980"},{"taxonomy":"serie","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/serie?post=69980"},{"taxonomy":"archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archives?post=69980"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=69980"},{"taxonomy":"reboot-archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reboot-archive?post=69980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}