We are in the midst of the largest social experiment in the history of humankind. Or more accurately, it is being conducted upon us. We haven’t recognized it yet as such, but we will. The experiment is subjecting a billion plus people to re-think one of the most fundamental and oldest of human behaviours: how we interact and connect with one another.
On a scale and with a speed beyond comprehension, the pandemic has forced us to reinvent how we communicate, how we learn and how we cope with missing out on the basic human actions of the hug. We have not begun to understand the implications. We will not – to use a phrase from my first book, Tip of the Spear – put that genie back in the bottle.
Since the dawn of human-time, our species has learned the power of socialization. It learned how cooperation changed our circumstances, our biology, and our wiring. We thrived. Our species emerged.
Our senses evolved – like those of all animals – into a set of reptilian processes that are able to instantly, perhaps ‘unconsciously’, light up that other ancient survival reaction: fight or flight. When we meet another human – whether for the first time or in the embrace of a long-standing relationship – we ignite a host of complex biological, physical, and meta-cognitive reactions. The pandemic has messed with that over an extended period of time, spanning every social-economic and physical boundary, and is rewiring us in real-time.
But as we know, there is a parallel, longer-running species level event happening at the same time.
In an atomic second in geological time, we have gone from writing on papyrus to wiring up the planet with the tools of the gods. But while we have evolved technologically, we are – as one of my dear friends likes to crudely (and very humorously) say – “… still just shaved apes”.
We have been slowly and somewhat chaotically learning the power of global connectivity. Pundits argue that it is all a mess. But in the long arc of human evolution, we were getting there.
Then the COVID circuit breaker hit.
The ah-ha for me – and what I believe is a species-level black swan event – is that these inevitable technological advances are now being met by a planet experimenting and redefining one of the most deeply embedded aspects of our DNA and a species-defining attribute: How we socialize, how we love, learn, fear, and evolve.
I am calling it the Future of Presence.
Presence Presented
Presence has traditionally been broken down into a function of time and space. When we are present, we “present” ourselves to one or more other humans. One to one; one to many; many to many. There is also a richer, deeper meaning of presence that many of us have examined during this global pandemic: what it means to “be” present – the conscious act of not only presenting oneself at a given moment in time, but in clearing the space in our minds. In that sense, presence transcends multiple layers and rituals of human connectivity. The conversation over coffee. The embrace of a loved one. The speech at a wedding. The presentation we gave. Real time and very human.
The easiest way to understand presence is with the axis of “time” and “space”. When we interact at the same time regardless of where we are physically, we are in synchronous communication. Deeply powerful and connected to our evolution, technology and art have traditionally advanced synchronous connections first. It was technology that gave us ‘same time, different place.’ First the telegraph, followed by telephone, email, video conferencing.
The performing arts give us ideas, movement, and sound. The power of live theatre compels unique responses for each audience member. The play elicits archetypal, base-level feelings of love, loss, power, and fear. The visceral feeling of a live concert or dance touches emotions deep within our psyche. Our need for physical presence is as old as fire. As a species, we are all drawn to it, we need it to thrive.
Synchronous communication has deep human connection.
When we move away from real time, we enter the world of asynchronous communications. Its evolution is no less provocative. Starting with the first written language, exploding with the democratization of the printing press and now with the arrival in the past 40 years or so with wide-spread email usage. This is the poor cousin to human-centered, synchronous presence. Yet we built a plethora of new systems and models around it for it has gifted us with the ability to ‘extend’ our presence to many times and many spaces.
A Black {Viral} Swan
The pandemic lit a rocket on this. It fueled an extrapolation of the plumbing that had been laid since the dawn of the Internet. Digital communications over time and space exploded. Zoom became a verb.
But if we really understand the power of exponential technological change, we will know that the current tools and capabilities we are now using everyday will feel to us like the dial-up modem of the nineties in five years. The investment capital is flowing. The engineering and entrepreneurial talent is paying very close attention. The biggest of our tech giants are turning their balance sheets to this emerging future – never ones to not take advantage of black swan events. Are we ready?
Because the changes won’t be just technological. These colliding forces are changing the dimensions of our most human of experiences. Imagine a new dimension or two added to this taxonomy. Instead of simply “time and space” or “Synchronous and Asynchronous” we add “Human or Artificial Intelligence”. Or a more sinister dimension: real or fake.
Digital, semi-autonomous, asynchronous representations of ourselves connecting, sharing and collaborating with other real or semi-real humans or groups – what is presence then? Is my AI infused chatbot “me”? Is my hologram adding to the dimensions of who I am to the world? If I feel a haptic response, am I touching something real?
As I noted in Tip of the Spear, what’s coming in the Future of Presence precisely follows the three laws of disruption: Exponential change will come faster than we can imagine; the genie of these human or machine-created inventions never go back in the bottle; and our systems of governance and organization are not capable of keeping up.
What’s Next?
This leads to two central critical questions: first, how will we draw on these deepest of human foundations to take advantage of what’s coming so that we may build more than new communications layers and gadgets – but also create opportunity to empower the future disenfranchised to define and share in the promise of a connected planet? Second, how will we prevent the use of these tools under the guise of “digital transformation” to digitize humans completely or meaningfully out of the “conversations” of the future?
It’s not all dark. I, for one, will relish “presence” embellishing and extending the best of me and more importantly the best of my network.
The key point is that the coming massive technology advancements are – for the first time in our species’ history – meeting a population that is having some of its core DNA being reprogrammed. The coming collision is one for which we need to be prepared.
This is the Future of Presence. It is the beginning of conversation that I will be sharing, exploring and living over the next few months. I will examine this from the perspective of the historian, the economist, the future disenfranchised, the futurist and the student.
Stay tuned.