TECNOLOGÍA. (La Promesa Digital)
El documental aborda el impacto de la cibercultura en los últimos veinticinco años, un tema directamente relacionado con el festival Artfutura.
En 1990, para informarse de algo, se acudía a la biblioteca; para ver una película, se iba al cine. La tecnología no tenía la importancia que puede tener ahora, aunque ya se vaticinaba una promesa, la idea de que algo cambiaría gracias a la revolución cibernética. En esos años se avecinaba, como ya había pasado en los sesenta, el sueño de una sociedad más libre, avanzada y democrática, impulsada por las nuevas herramientas tecnológicas, en especial, internet.
En 1990, para informarse de algo, se acudía a la biblioteca; para ver una película, se iba al cine. La tecnología no tenía la importancia que puede tener ahora, aunque ya se vaticinaba una promesa, la idea de que algo cambiaría gracias a la revolución cibernética. En esos años se avecinaba, como ya había pasado en los sesenta, el sueño de una sociedad más libre, avanzada y democrática, impulsada por las nuevas herramientas tecnológicas, en especial, internet.
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00:00This device, equipped with liquid crystal monitors, allows us to intuit the so-called
00:24virtual reality.
00:27In the early 90s, a great fever was unleashed by computers.
00:31It began to talk about cyberspace and virtual reality.
00:38Advertising promised a better and easier world, thanks to technology.
00:57Or send someone a fax.
01:03From the beach?
01:05You will.
01:14Others warned of the dangers of being manipulated and oppressed by that same technology.
01:20People really saw in these new technologies a liberating element.
01:25Regardless of what we expected and what we did not expect.
01:41The digital promise is an optimistic vision of the future.
01:45A fallacy.
01:46Evolution.
01:47Meaningfulness.
01:48Still amazing.
01:49Poignant.
01:50Challenge.
01:51Dangerous.
01:52Voluptuous.
01:53Beware.
01:55Re-evaluate.
01:56Future is bright.
02:14Global net selected.
02:24But the world at that time was not exactly aware of virtual reality.
02:54The comic Philip Proctor said, the 90s are nothing more than the 60s backwards.
03:15I never understood why the culture of the 90s, the technoculture, stank of patchouli and had a rancid tuff, as a hangover from the 60s.
03:46In the 60s, the interest of our group for the use of drugs was to find out how the consciousness of the individual responded to these stimuli and thus grow as a person.
03:58Now, in the 90s, we have a new method of expanding consciousness and making us smarter for our own benefit, through the computer.
04:07I had just stopped using psychedelics and I was introduced to digital technology and I thought, oh, this is the next step of the same journey.
04:20In the 90s, psychedelia and classical rock returns.
04:26Lenny Kravitz seems to want to be Jimi Hendrix.
04:29A new edition of the Woodstock Festival is celebrated.
04:32Some are determined to travel to Vietnam again.
04:36And you might think that the Grunge are the new hippies.
04:40Welcome to Art Futura 90.
04:53In a time without internet and libraries, in a city like Barcelona, festivals like Art Futura connect us with distant, invisible realities in a different way.
05:13I think Art Futura was interesting in the sense that the world then, we are talking about the 90s, we communicated by letter.
05:28We didn't even have fax in the first edition.
05:31And it was very difficult to have access to all this type of communication.
05:36The writer William Gibson, guru of cyberpunk, was one of the mentors of the festival.
05:43In his novel Neuromante coined the term cyberspace when almost no one connected to the network.
05:49He drew a super technological future, desolate but fascinating.
05:54I think the future has already arrived.
05:59The problem is that it is not equally distributed.
06:03Some of us live in the 21st century and some of us are living in the fifth.
06:15In that future, the sensory is replaced by digital simulation.
06:19And the human being can escape from the physical world thanks to the machine.
06:33Hello, my name is Lori Anderson.
06:43I just arrived here in Barcelona.
06:46And I've been asked to speak about the future.
06:51What does it mean to make art?
06:55Why do people bother to do this?
06:59I mean, to have something to hang in people's living rooms?
07:03To create yet another copy of the real world?
07:08All this speculation doesn't really matter.
07:11Art tends to anticipate the future.
07:29In those years, companies hire artists to challenge their engineers,
07:33when a minute of computer animation can take months of work.
07:37I think artists were largely responsible for our cultural appreciation of those technologies.
08:07In some cases, it seems that they are limited to making mere technological demonstrations.
08:38In others, they offer us images of a great beauty.
08:56I think that digital technology in art is contributing a lot of things.
09:01But art is not always in sync with reality.
09:18Experimentation is always a minority.
09:21But without it, what came next wouldn't exist.
09:24Art is a constant mutation.
09:29We constantly need new forms of expression.
09:39Cyberculture cannot be understood without interactivity.
09:43Artists strive to include it in their discourse.
09:46Net art is the most radical example of this new form of expression,
09:50practically in oblivion.
09:54Net art is interesting because it is the last artistic movement.
09:58There has been no new artistic movement after net art.
10:01Therefore, now it is fantastic and a historical artifact,
10:04but evidently it is very difficult to display.
10:11The show continues with...
10:14The Fura.
10:24Some artists, coming from the most organic,
10:27take the step to incorporate technology into their work
10:30and open a door that will never be closed again.
10:35When I went to see the show of the Fura,
10:38for me it was the same as virtual reality, but in the physical world.
10:43The audience had to move around the three-dimensional space.
10:46They were all lying on top of the audience. It was very interactive.
10:59I remember that in 1989 we started working with Rebeca Allen.
11:03She taught us the secrets of video.
11:06It was a time when there was a future in Barcelona.
11:09We met Timo Teller and Gipson, the author of The New Lover.
11:12We saw that everything they announced in their books,
11:15or Timo Teller himself, who had experimented with LCD,
11:19and then when his heart died connected to the Internet
11:23so that everyone could see his own death,
11:26opened a series of windows for us.
11:40From the most modern theater they move to the most classic, to the opera.
11:44Technology is already part of their way of understanding the staging.
11:51It's boringer than seeing a guy walking on stage and talking,
11:55which is what I see almost always.
11:57Digital technology has brought to the opera the scenographies of light.
12:01We were in the world of cardboard.
12:09We have made operas where a singer or narrator
12:13was not in the audience's place, but thousands of kilometers away.
12:17And he spoke from another place.
12:19And he was integrated in the same place.
12:21All these things are possible now with technology.
12:26BABBAGE
12:38Many consider Charles Babbage as the first computer designer.
12:44In his book, How Music Works, David Byrne states that Babbage's computer was musical,
12:50claiming the always pioneering role of music.
12:56How Music Works
12:59David Byrne addresses how technology changes the way of composing music,
13:03but also of listening to it.
13:05It changes the way of consuming it in public and in private.
13:09After the Walkman, digital portable devices multiply.
13:14Music floods the world, and silence is strange.
13:19Music can be the spearhead of certain technical advances,
13:23first in terms of volume, which is probably one of the most global and popular arts.
13:28Music is in the streets, music is in the celebrations,
13:31music is, let's say, in everyone's home.
13:43In the 80s, in the midst of the explosion of the visual culture,
13:47video clips appear.
13:54With video clips, musicians can appear on multiple TV channels at the same time.
14:00Their physical presence is no longer needed, and they have a great impact.
14:04Thanks to technology, they become sophisticated and surprising.
14:24The image is the new goddess,
14:27and among musicians the multimedia takes a lot of importance.
14:35The visual is also imposed in live concerts.
14:41The electronic musician is someone on a stage, still,
14:45manipulating a computer or some tiny buttons.
14:49He needs a visual envelope, something that completes the show.
14:53Videojockey is born, and the visual envelope is imposed beyond electronic borders.
15:05Curiously, so much technical sophistication
15:08refers in many cases to the primitive rhythms of techno.
15:11Raves are the ultimate expression of electronic hedonism, without complexes.
15:20Digital change is a very important change on a stage level.
15:24To give an example, right now, artists are sometimes more complex
15:27in the digital framework they are asking for,
15:30of wire connection between stage, sound, video and light controls,
15:35than the cables of yesteryear.
15:37And then, in the show itself,
15:39I think there are more and more artists who play with the idea of the cloud,
15:44the idea of direct interaction with the public through digital devices.
15:49The experimentation also has its place,
15:52and includes the creation of new instruments.
15:59It has never been easier to compose and record music.
16:09I think that digital tools have allowed
16:12access to the means of production of younger people,
16:16people with much smaller means,
16:19who do not have to depend on a producer or a classical production system
16:23to be able to realize that dream, that idea.
16:32Platforms with huge catalogs
16:34that allow you to listen to music without interruption and at low cost
16:37corner piracy.
16:40It is a time of enormous musical consumption,
16:43in which many musicians depend on their performances to survive,
16:47because what they perceive by their recordings is tiny.
16:55The record companies do not react,
16:57and now there are other companies that enter the cake delivery.
17:02Burn and other musicians charge against the distribution of music on the Internet,
17:06saying that it attacks creativity.
17:10In terms of industry, the digital change has been a huge change.
17:14I am very much in favor of access to content,
17:17and I believe that this has benefited the public and the creators,
17:21and I am critical of the way and the process in which this has happened.
17:28The creator has benefited from technology,
17:31and now he is self-sufficient to obtain a final product.
17:34The money continues to flow into other hands,
17:37not exactly the same as 20 years ago, but there is no difference.
18:02The transformation of creation into money,
18:04the negotiator behind the work, is what causes the change.
18:15They arrive at the cinema later,
18:17but they seem to be repeating the same stages that music went through.
18:21The special effects, which were a mere complement to the story,
18:24become the main object of it.
18:51However, the revolution in animation movies is also in the scripts.
18:55Double levels of content are included,
18:58so that adults watch the movies, not as mere companions of their children.
19:02The producer Pixar has a fundamental importance in this process.
19:22I think there has been an abuse, in a way,
19:25but above all, in saturating the viewer's retina with digital information through the effects.
19:30That is why it is often said, this movie is boring.
19:33Maybe the new generations, more accustomed to video games, etc.,
19:38no, but the middle and older generations do not take this type of cinema.
19:52Cinema also follows the steps of music in terms of the way of enjoying it.
19:58From the social event that was supposed to go to the cinema,
20:01we go to the individual consumption, first at home, and then anywhere.
20:11New demands are needed, technological advances like 3D,
20:15to bring the public to the theatres.
20:22In movies, the special effect becomes the protagonist,
20:25about the story even, and many things have become demos of technology,
20:29of what can be done, a technological race to see who makes the most amazing effect.
20:34But it has also cut the difference between trick and reality,
20:38so the viewer's thirst, what the viewer put of magic on the screens, has disappeared.
20:52From a very successful video game, the movie Final Fantasy was born,
20:57an attempt of photorealism that required a huge effort,
21:01and dragged to ruin its promoters.
21:08The intention, in this case, is to transfer the language of manga and video game,
21:14in a very literal way, to a more mainstream cinema,
21:17something that I have not just been well conjugated.
21:20Second, Final Fantasy tried to do this personalism through digital effects,
21:24which resulted in a very fake dessert.
21:30At the moment, the idea of creating virtual stars,
21:33digital actors always available, unattainable to fatigue and other human weaknesses,
21:38and without astronomical economic claims, is out of the question.
21:51Video games are the first cultural expression,
21:54or purely digital, interactive entertainment,
21:57without an already written ending, and fully participatory.
22:01Initially aimed at children and teenagers,
22:04these digital natives have grown up with them.
22:11The video game industry exceeds cinema in business volume.
22:20In the 21st century, the world of video games will be compared to the world of cinema.
22:25It could be compared, the world of video games,
22:29to the world of cinema in the 20th century.
22:32Because, surely, video games end up being the typical art of the 21st century,
22:39just like cinema was in the 20th century.
22:42In video games, it will be the virtual unfolding of the personality that is so popular in cyberculture.
22:47Being able to be another, a racing driver, a mythical warrior,
22:51an alien killer, a sexual athlete.
22:55The second major factor of its digital DNA is interconnection,
22:59the ability to relate to many others at a distance,
23:02which is sublime with multiplayer mass games.
23:06Being another, having multiple personalities,
23:09goes through the entire network and the digital world.
23:13How can you be in two places at once?
23:16They got almost everything right,
23:19because when you are in two places at once,
23:22you have a feeling of being part of something.
23:25You have a feeling of being part of something.
23:28You have a feeling of being part of something.
23:31You have a feeling of being part of something.
23:34You have a feeling of being part of something.
23:42One of the things that the network allows you is to really disperse your identity.
23:46And that's one of the first things I studied,
23:49that people had many identities for many purposes,
23:52and they thought that was the wonderful thing that the net allowed.
23:57So, for example, you were a woman,
23:59but you wanted to experience being a man,
24:02and you wanted to go into a space on the net
24:05where you could have the experience of being a man.
24:27In cyberculture, where everything seems to dematerialize,
24:30there is, however, a great obsession with the body.
24:33After all, it is logical to want to be another,
24:36not only in the virtual world.
25:01The digital world is like a big black cave,
25:04and you have to probe the walls and the rocks on the ceiling to discover it.
25:08and you have to probe the walls and the rocks on the ceiling to discover it.
25:11And for me, one way to do it is using my own body.
25:14And for me, one way to do it is using my own body.
25:31Convinced that the extension of the body is also that of the mind,
25:34Stelarc enlarges his body with prostheses,
25:37looking for new functionalities,
25:39and sculpting what he believes to be the human being of the future.
25:42and sculpting what he believes to be the human being of the future.
25:45And he does it with a great cyberpunk paraphernalia,
25:48making his body subject and artistic object.
25:51making his body subject and artistic object.
25:54Technology has always been connected to the human body.
25:57Technology means being human.
26:00We should not have a frankensteinian fear of manipulating the human body.
26:03We should not have a frankensteinian fear of manipulating the human body.
26:18I think the idea of the prosthesis, and especially the prosthesis,
26:21I think the idea of the prosthesis, and especially the idea of the cyborg,
26:24was part of this utopia.
26:26And it is a utopia that has been diluted.
26:29First, because we are all a bit cyborgs.
26:32We have assumed this fact from dental prostheses,
26:35We have assumed this fact from dental prostheses,
26:38the operations of cataracts, the marcapassos,
26:41in its latest extensions certain drugs, etc.
26:47The French artist Orlan takes it to the limit.
26:50It is no longer a matter of adding prostheses or manipulating the body,
26:53but of subjecting himself to authentic surgical operations.
26:56but of subjecting himself to authentic surgical operations.
26:59And he does it by giving him the category of television show,
27:02in which Orlan wants to modify his face and become himself in a work of art,
27:05while claiming that he is fighting against DNA.
27:11Something that does not seem far from the current aesthetic surgery.
27:14Something that does not seem far from the current aesthetic surgery.
27:20An idea, that of the costume under which, being another,
27:23we can allow ourselves different behaviors,
27:26be transgressors, explore new paths.
27:29be transgressors, explore new paths.
27:51The idea of separation between mind and body
27:54entangles a certain contempt for what authors like William Gibson call
27:57entangles a certain contempt for what authors like William Gibson call
28:00meat prison.
28:03And yet, voices like those of Marvin Minsky,
28:06father of artificial intelligence,
28:09affirm that man and machine have already converged,
28:12and that it is an irreversible process.
28:15The first robots are conceived in the image and likeness of the human being.
28:18The first robots are conceived in the image and likeness of the human being.
28:27They are designed to fulfill tasks related to servitude,
28:30while trying to apply a patina of sympathy.
28:33while trying to apply a patina of sympathy.
28:37And the artists recreate themselves working those similarities and differences.
28:40And the artists recreate themselves working those similarities and differences.
28:48Or in extreme cases, like the shows of Survival Research Laboratories,
28:51Or in extreme cases, like the shows of Survival Research Laboratories,
28:54which in the 90s impacted spectators with their war robots.
29:01But the most effective robots have been for many years
29:04those without resemblance to the human body.
29:07On the one hand, industrial robots programmed for routine or dangerous tasks,
29:10On the one hand, industrial robots programmed for routine or dangerous tasks,
29:13that carry out without rest and with little margin of error.
29:17On the other hand, there are the most powerful robots.
29:20They are invisible, intelligent and purely electronic.
29:23And they put their enormous computing capacity and secret algorithms
29:26And they put their enormous computing capacity and secret algorithms
29:29at the service of trade, espionage and political control.
29:35The military is always at the origin of almost all new technologies.
29:38The military is always at the origin of almost all new technologies.
29:41Optical fiber, GPS, Internet, artificial intelligence.
29:47In the contemporary war, the military recruits its drone pilots
29:50among the best video players.
29:53There seems to be no difference between killing in a game
29:56or thousands of kilometers away, because everything happens on a screen.
29:59or thousands of kilometers away, because everything happens on a screen.
30:03The electronic robot is on the path of artificial intelligence,
30:06giving reason to those who say that evolution
30:09is no longer a matter of Darwin, but of technology.
30:17When Garry Kasparov was defeated by the supercomputer Deep Blue,
30:20When Garry Kasparov was defeated by the supercomputer Deep Blue,
30:23some considered it an anecdote.
30:26Today, any cheap software can beat a chess master.
30:29Today, any cheap software can beat a chess master.
30:40Another supercomputer, named Watson,
30:43beat the very human task of participating in a television contest.
30:46beat the very human task of participating in a television contest.
30:53Mathematician Alan Turing, one of the fathers of computing,
30:56designed a test to determine whether a machine can think or not.
30:59designed a test to determine whether a machine can think or not.
31:02Many say that soon they will.
31:05Others, such as the professor of robotics Hiroshima Ishiguro,
31:08affirm that without emotion there is no true intelligence.
31:11affirm that without emotion there is no true intelligence.
31:14Can a machine have sense of humor?
31:17That would be a much more complex thing to do.
31:20That would be a much more complex thing to do.
31:23But the quick answer is yes,
31:26anything you can imagine will happen in a machine.
31:29Artificial intelligence,
31:32the possibility of a non-human brain,
31:35has great detractors and defenders.
31:38The release of artificial intelligence and the so-called post-humanism
31:41announces the arrival of singularity for 2029.
31:44announces the arrival of singularity for 2029.
31:47Then the cybernetic brain will surpass the human.
31:50It is no coincidence that Kurzweil is the director of engineering at Google
31:53and the creator of the University of Singularity,
31:56where it is intended to educate, inspire and empower leaders
31:59to apply exponential technologies
32:02to face the great challenges of humanity.
32:05I think people who predict that we will have artificial intelligence very soon,
32:08I think people who predict that we will have artificial intelligence very soon,
32:11even if they are right about the trend,
32:14they are wrong about the speed.
32:18I believe artificial intelligence is and will be a dangerous path.
32:21I believe artificial intelligence is and will be a dangerous path.
32:24Artificial intelligence basically imitates human intelligence.
32:27With the scale of supercomputers and big data
32:30you can access a lot of information instantly
32:33and also the data and information are ubiquitous
32:36in such a way that they can come and go from one place to another
32:39at any time with any purpose.
32:45The car without a driver, already very perfected,
32:48could avoid accidents and make our lives much more comfortable.
32:52Computers are not only able to perform more or less mechanical tasks,
32:55such as translating,
32:58but they can already write texts on their own.
33:04Other functions are more worrying,
33:07such as stock market transactions
33:10carried out by computers without any human intervention
33:13and that have already caused more than one surplus in the financial markets.
33:16and that have already caused more than one surplus in the financial markets.
33:26The ghost of a super brain haunts us
33:29from the beginning.
33:33The fear was that computers were superhumans,
33:36that they were going to be more intelligent than us,
33:39that they would take away the jobs
33:42and in some cases it has been true.
33:47This idea that machines will leave people without work,
33:50emerged during the industrial revolution,
33:53gains strength again.
33:56Let's let them replace all things,
33:59people are worried and say, robots will take away our jobs
34:02and I say, let them do all the tasks that do not involve a superior intelligence,
34:05let them do the things they can do better
34:08and let humans do what they know how to do well.
34:12In the future there will be two types of work,
34:15there will be people who will tell computers what to do
34:18and people to whom computers will tell them what to do.
34:22Writers like James Barrett go beyond a labor issue.
34:27Barrett predicts the end of humanity
34:30with a super artificial intelligence
34:33capable of altering its original programming,
34:36impossible to stop.
34:41In that line, an eminence like Stephen Hawking
34:44affirms that it is a very real danger.
34:48After all, the most technologically advanced tribe always wins.
35:01The end of technology
35:20Technology is indistinguishable in our lives,
35:23it has penetrated all stages of human activity
35:26at all times and everywhere.
35:29It is as broad as the world itself,
35:32the very idea of the World Wide Web.
35:47We live by Moore's law,
35:50so everything will continue to improve,
35:53the economy will grow, our data will be denser
35:57Previous technological revolutions
36:00sought the extension of our bodies.
36:06In the digital revolution,
36:09we witnessed the expansion of our brains.
36:26In the 90s,
36:29it was talked about things designed by the computer,
36:32as if that were a value in itself.
36:35Today, no one would speak like that
36:38if he does not want to be the subject of a joke.
36:4125 years after the eruption of virtual reality,
36:44between what a 3D movie of the 90s promised us like this
36:47and the nature of this,
36:50there is an abyss.
36:54A quarter of a century that seems an eternity,
36:57although we are only at the end of digital childhood.
37:00The creatures of Theo Janssen
37:03approach the idea of artificial life.
37:06They were born in the guts of a computer.
37:09The idea of a computer is a fantasy
37:12that is a reality,
37:15a fantasy that is a reality
37:18and that is a reality
37:21and that is a reality
37:24and that is a reality
37:27and that is a reality
37:30something that is not any longer of lower importance.
37:37Everything seems to work inside of you differently
37:39Economy, health, security,
37:42communication, work, education
37:45leisure, culture, consumption.
37:48There are new initiatives that defy the old customs.
37:57But in reality, the logic that moves the world has not changed.
38:13We are already interconnected, we are already global.
38:16Does that mean that greater equality has been achieved,
38:19or that we have been unified as pieces of a global market?
38:28The permanent presence of multi-screens
38:30symbolizes that state of constant interconnection
38:33that produces an immeasurable amount of data.
38:52The classic temples of knowledge full of books
38:55have given way to septic rooms with air conditioning
38:58that house millions of terabytes, which is increasingly cheaper to store.
39:02This enormous amount of information is known as Big Data.
39:10Only in 2009 the same amount of data was produced
39:14as in all the history of humanity until that moment.
39:17There is a great demand for Big Data for commercial and political purposes.
39:23Data provided by people, consciously or not,
39:26and by the millions of sensors scattered around the world.
39:32One of the main issues today in what I call the software culture is
39:36who is in command?
39:38There are two types of people,
39:40programmers and data analysts who can understand Big Data and look for patterns.
39:45We have the big companies that merge,
39:47and a lot of people who voluntarily or not provide data to the companies.
39:51The important thing is that there are more people who know how the data works,
39:55how to analyze it, program it.
39:57We have to instruct people in the culture of data.
40:03Data in many cases is intrascendent of everyday life.
40:07If something makes you laugh, you put LOL.
40:10If something shakes you, you put OMG.
40:13If you don't understand something, you put WTF.
40:16This makes me laugh, I put LOL, LOL.
40:20Superficial or not, that massive amount of data is analyzed by the most powerful computers
40:25to extract behavior patterns and make predictions.
40:30The big companies of the moment, which are no longer the industrial ones,
40:33combine their artificial intelligence systems with that information,
40:37with the trace of our preferences in the network,
40:40to launch new products or urge us to consume in a personalized way.
40:49Big Data
40:54Big Data is also a very useful tool for governments
40:58in their desire to control the population.
41:01We self-expose to the world,
41:03we offer our lives that are collected by commercial and political interests,
41:07and the conflict begins where the private and the public remains.
41:12The question is, who controls this data?
41:15And once again, how long do these data remain?
41:20The age of innocence is over.
41:22They tell us that to guarantee our security,
41:25we have to sacrifice our freedom.
41:28Heroes or villains, some rebel against that invasion,
41:32and in a wonderful and acrobatic loop,
41:34they reveal data that compromises those governments themselves.
41:45Dark Internet
41:51Of that huge amount of data that runs through the network,
41:54only a small part is within the reach of the searchers.
41:58Data that is found in the so-called Dark Internet.
42:03To navigate it, systems such as TOR are used,
42:06which protect the anonymity of users and prevent them from tracking it.
42:10Like so many other initiatives of the US government,
42:14it seems to have turned against what it intended.
42:17Designed to be used by its intelligence agents,
42:20it soon evolved into a system used by the defenders of privacy
42:24and freedom of expression.
42:28And quickly it also became a subsidiary for illegal activities.
42:33Drug traffickers, pederasts, arms traffickers,
42:36hired murderers,
42:38have on the Dark Internet an impenetrable communication
42:41and supply of their services and products.
42:44In the same way, the use of Big Data,
42:46which can provide so many benefits,
42:48if combined with the advances in the research of our DNA profiles,
42:52can lead to the absolute control of our future.
43:11That surveillance that we are subjected to causes rejection.
43:14A rejection that can lead to violence.
43:22The distrust of citizens towards governments and large corporations
43:26is still in a pulse to be decided.
43:30Although some do not seem to care at all.
43:42I think privacy is an illusion,
43:44and therefore I'm not as worried as others.
43:47In fact, I never thought that privacy existed.
43:50I think anything I put is public,
43:53and that's my philosophy on the Internet.
43:57An experiment carried out by Facebook,
43:59without the consent of users,
44:01in which they altered what they saw on their wall,
44:03puts back on the table the violation of privacy
44:06by some social networks.
44:10Some users did not like the initiative.
44:16In the geographical heart of the digital revolution,
44:19in Silicon Valley,
44:20where there are so many billionaires thanks to new technologies,
44:24is where there are more signs of rejection that spread to the real world.
44:37In this bar in San Francisco,
44:39a Google Glass user was assaulted.
44:42The use of these technologies revives the technophobia
44:44that has disappeared in the last years of the growth of the digital paradise.
44:55Leave!
45:01I think technophobia is closely linked to privacy,
45:04laws and regulations of the United States
45:08and most of the world.
45:10They just have not caught up.
45:14A paradise from which some want to flee,
45:16even if it's only for a while.
45:25Leave!
45:28The same technology that enables the control of citizens,
45:31offers tools to make fun of it.
45:36In protest after protest,
45:38what we see now is that people use these tools
45:41to synchronize their opinions.
45:43We all agree that January 25
45:45will be the day we occupy the Tajir Square in Egypt.
45:49Coordinate your actions.
45:51We will go down these streets and not those streets.
45:53And most importantly,
45:55they even document the results.
45:57And this is what autocrats fear the most,
46:00that the images of police violence come out.
46:09Social networks are in the foreground.
46:11What is a trend in them is taken into account in other media.
46:14In those same networks,
46:16they are criticized for their data storage policy,
46:19their high tolerance of violence
46:21and censorship without nuances of, for example,
46:23naked bodies.
46:37With any phone, you can record a video
46:39and post it on the Internet.
46:45Like this racist attack on the Barcelona subway.
46:52Social networks boil.
46:54The video is seen in all media and channels.
46:57The police search and arrest the author of the attack,
47:00who identifies thanks to the subway cameras.
47:04In this case, the author of the video has self-denounced,
47:07because he is an alleged accomplice of the attacker.
47:10The network turns against him
47:12and suffers a great virtual harassment
47:14with threats, insults and revelation of his home.
47:17The lynchings of this class
47:19are a common practice in the network,
47:22where people feel safe from a distance,
47:25belonging to the mass and anonymity.
47:28Nothing new under the sun.
47:32Virtual communities are one of the first experiences
47:35in the civil network.
47:37Social and artistic now have deeply penetrated society.
47:44There were not many important social changes,
47:46because people were talking about tools.
47:48These tools do not become socially interesting
47:51until they are not technologically boring.
47:58In these communities, the ideal of collaboration,
48:01in the genesis of the digital promise,
48:03takes a powerful life.
48:05A modest initiative like Wikipedia
48:07defeats the great entrepreneurial encyclopedic projects.
48:12People can actually dedicate their free time to creating new things.
48:16Wikipedia is the most famous example.
48:18But 15 years ago,
48:20I was studying the phenomenon
48:22peer-to-peer, Napster and all that.
48:24And one of the best examples was
48:26SETI at Home,
48:28which sought extraterrestrial intelligence.
48:30It was a first example of people
48:32who contributed their resources.
48:34In this case, they were personal computers
48:37who contributed their power
48:39to create a giant supercomputer
48:41made up of tiny parts.
48:43And I thought that humans could do that too.
48:52In our society, it is taken for granted
48:54that we all have access to these means and tools.
48:59The differences in access to medical advances
49:02are the clearest example of technological inequality.
49:06Thank God we have anesthesia.
49:09Thank God we have robotic surgery.
49:12All these things are positive.
49:14Who would want to go back to breast cancer surgery
49:16of the Victorian era?
49:18If you look at daguerreotypes,
49:20they are not beautiful to see, right?
49:22But technology is not something that happens in the vacuum.
49:25It is subject to history
49:27and is culturally bounded.
49:37Along with health,
49:38the other great pillar of democratic society
49:40is education.
49:42Nicolas Negroponte,
49:43one of the thinkers
49:44about the most influential digital society of the 90s,
49:47has dedicated the last years
49:49to fight against the digital gap,
49:51distributing portable computers
49:53to children all over the world.
49:57The real priority is learning.
50:00Clearly the most important.
50:02I think the digital world
50:04will also help education.
50:06And yes, a better world depends on education
50:09and economic growth.
50:13The elements of a happier and more just world
50:16are deeply rooted in the things
50:18that the digital world provides.
50:24In our case,
50:25we distributed 3 million laptops
50:28in 40 countries and 25 languages.
50:33The World Bank contributed zero.
50:36The African Development Bank, zero.
50:39The American government, zero.
50:41It was almost a billion dollars,
50:44a lot of money,
50:45which above all came from the treasure
50:47of those same countries.
50:57And the keys to access
50:58the new media are other.
51:01It is said that more democratic.
51:03But there are still rules
51:04with the same implacable
51:05commercial logic as always.
51:09I have a lot of experience
51:10in videos that have triumphed on the net.
51:12If you want to hire me
51:13to direct a video of your brand
51:15to make it popular, I can do it.
51:18But you can't order a viral video
51:20and say,
51:21okay, here you have it.
51:30Perhaps virality,
51:31the virtual mouth-to-mouth,
51:32is not as spontaneous a phenomenon
51:34as it seems.
51:40In reality,
51:41the big access highways
51:42remember when there were
51:44very few television channels.
51:46If the distribution is monopolized,
51:48it is warned that this distributor
51:50can condition the content.
51:52As an example,
51:53Amazon controls 60% of the book market
51:56in the United States
51:58and 90% of the e-book.
52:02If someone thinks they control,
52:04I think it's an illusion.
52:06Because there is a very changing
52:08distribution of who controls.
52:10That's what I love.
52:15Equality in access to content,
52:17the so-called neutrality,
52:19had already been questioned
52:20by the practices of search engines
52:22and large content distributors.
52:24Now it will be faster and easier
52:26to reach a content if it is paid.
52:28It is the awakening of the dream
52:30of believing that there are free things.
52:36I think that in the United States
52:38and all over the world
52:39it would have to be considered
52:40as a public company.
52:41In such a way that the wide band
52:43that comes to your house
52:44would have to be regulated by the government,
52:46like the water or electricity
52:48that comes to your house.
52:50I'm Fred Sherman.
52:52She's from PS1, I guess.
52:54And there's Sharon Fox.
52:56Yeah, she's the executive director of PS1.
52:59Josh Harris,
53:00an imaginative and extravagant entrepreneur,
53:02became rich in the era of the dot-com
53:04before the explosion of the Internet bubble.
53:07There's going to be a TV, a camera,
53:10a microphone, and that's the experiment.
53:13We don't really know what they're going to do.
53:15In 1999, he launched
53:17what he called an experiment,
53:19locking 100 people in a basement in New York
53:22to live together 24 hours a day.
53:27Multiple cameras transmitted on the Internet
53:29everything that was happening.
53:31Bedrooms, dining room, washrooms,
53:33the entertainment room,
53:35the amazing shooting gallery.
53:41In a short time,
53:42the city police ended the experience.
53:48At the same time,
53:49the big brother TV show was launched
53:51with a similar approach.
53:54Exposing the most private in public
53:56becomes something common,
53:57as if no one had to have secrets anymore,
53:59as if everything had to be shared.
54:03People spend their life very connected,
54:05but also very lonely.
54:07And that in some way reminds me
54:09of living in a big city
54:11where you have a lot of superficial relationships,
54:14a lot of loop ties with a lot of people,
54:17but on the basis of high-highs,
54:19high-highs, high-highs,
54:21high-highs, high-highs,
54:23high-highs, high-highs,
54:25high-highs, high-highs,
54:27high-highs, high-highs,
54:29high-highs, high-highs,
54:31high-highs, high-highs,
54:32but at the end of the day,
54:33you think,
54:34who do I know well?
54:36Who is a real friend?
54:43People are much more willing
54:45to share digital data than analog data.
54:48If you want me to give you a book,
54:49I don't have the book anymore.
54:51If you want me to give you a digital copy of the book,
54:53I think it's a different way of sharing.
54:57Of the digital utopia,
54:59there is this possibility of virtual unfolding.
55:02Again, the idea of the costume,
55:04of being able to be another.
55:11On the net, you can edit,
55:13you can get it right,
55:15because the profile on social media
55:18is not you.
55:20It's a performance.
55:22The teenager who writes a profile,
55:24that profile is the product of hours of work.
55:30We present ourselves as we would like to be,
55:33in a space where we don't have conversations,
55:36just small doses of communication.
55:43But aunt, I don't know,
55:45I express what I feel,
55:47not like you, so much filter and so much shit,
55:49that you are a fake.
55:50Darling,
55:51but who cares how it is done in reality?
55:53It's about selling qualities that can attract your possible clients.
55:56What clients?
55:57Don't you see that all the guys who fly you
55:59don't know you at all?
56:00Hey, hey, don't mix me up, this has nothing to do with it.
56:02All those dreams we had of cyberspace
56:04as a place to go
56:06were not imaginative enough.
56:09What really happened
56:11is that cyberspace ended up being something
56:13that got inside of us.
56:15You can't separate that network from real life anymore.
56:24The digital is added to the real.
56:26There is no substitution.
56:27They interact.
56:28They enter into competition.
56:31The analog and the digital coexist in a single world.
56:34That's how it is.
56:45Since the invention of the first tools
56:48and the discovery of how to make fire,
56:50there have been several technological revolutions.
56:53Some changes that were not simple improvements,
56:56but resounding ruptures.
56:58Now we find ourselves in the epicenter of a transformation
57:01that can be more radical than all the previous ones.
57:08I think that people didn't realize,
57:11I didn't realize
57:13to what extent these technologies
57:16would affect the most powerful aspects,
57:19the most intimate and personal aspects
57:22of our heart,
57:25of our personal decisions,
57:27of our lives, of our relationships,
57:30and that we had to be careful
57:33because we are very vulnerable.
57:44Some talk about the extinction of those who don't adapt,
57:47as it happened to metabolize other technological revolutions.
57:55Everybody changes in the same way
57:57that everyone changed during the industrial revolution.
58:00Even the people who stayed on the farm
58:02when the migration to the cities occurred,
58:05they changed their lives.
58:07Even the people who don't use computers
58:09or don't have a cell phone,
58:11who don't use the internet,
58:13their lives will be altered.
58:15That's the purpose of this change.
58:22Once the idealism is liquidated,
58:24within our reach,
58:26the practice of the promise of endless possibilities
58:29for a easier, more comfortable, better life is maintained,
58:32as long as we are permanently connected, hooked.
58:41I don't believe the world is collapsing.
58:43In general, if you review our history,
58:46we fix it to move forward.
58:49I'm optimistic and I've always been optimistic,
58:52partly because I'm optimistic from a historical point of view.
58:55I'm the most optimistic person I know.
58:58Would you disconnect voluntarily
59:00if everyone around you did it?
59:02Would you go back?
59:03I think almost nobody would.
59:06I think technology has improved our lives
59:08and it continues to do so.
59:11I believe digital promise is a double-edged sword.
59:15I believe it's playing with fire.
59:17Fire can warm us,
59:19fire can illuminate us,
59:21but fire can also burn us, it can kill us.