Chiara Palmisano

Nov 12, 2018

(from a conference held by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

After the 2008 crisis, millions of citizens demand better social protection policies and workers expect a democratic coexistence of social emancipation mechanisms. At the same time, the world is facing the inadequacy of traditional training systems, increasing unemployment rates, the crisis of representation, decline of social mobility and divergences between productivity and wage growth. Social research induces us to rethink capitalism in a “post-internet” cultural era and the UN, with most of its 17 goals of the 2030 Agenda, acknowledges the loss of rights in the workplace and lack of creativity in education. Many millennials are NEETs; others face a reduction in investment on their education; according to Accenture, “65% of youngsters will perform jobs that do not exist (yet) and 1 job out of 10 is at risk of automation in the OECD countries.”

So is the traditional government intervention for social rights still adequate? We should debate how it can develop. Moreover, which are the skills we need to acquire in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution? How can companies evolve to seize those opportunities which come with technological progress and promote safe coexistence of human and artificial intelligence?

The Keynesian welfare state was considered the main suspect of stagflation in the 70s so it is very questionable nowadays. States should probably change the way the welfare state affects lives on a practical level; the universalization of basic income might not be the best choice, as stated in the famous proverb,  “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. And what about microfinancing (like that referenced in our article on Muhammad Yunus) for the democratization of innovation and sustainability?

The challenge is to find the peculiarities among us in order to advocate our intuitive creativity and original inspiration, to encourage women to pursue STEM careers, to develop soft skills, and problem-solving and design thinking for a more holistic approach of the worker, whose conscience is in constant change due to the augmented awareness provided by global accessibility to the internet. In the USA, 54% of workers believe that one must constantly improve their skills and 93% of millennials want to invest in their human capital, demonstrating the awareness of the aforementioned approach.

Human creativity, far from the old logic of globalization which crushes the genius loci of peoples and countries, should be a number one priority in education.

A revival of the values of humanism, the uniqueness and the combination of art and technology, will be factors of the so-called “Renaissance 2.0”.

In conclusion, technological progress can be interpreted as a part of a historical phase, one which does not necessarily lead to a scenario of mass unemployment, but it requires simply more inclusive education and decent working conditions in order to avoid an increase in skills mismatch in relation to the labor market (widespread in Italy, about 27% of workers are underqualified while 18% is overqualified). Italy’s digital economy development has one of the lowest scores on the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), but we still need to ask ourselves when the use of digital tools is “too much”.

Science Gallery Venice asked the question. We might be doomed by the vice of perpetual digital accessibility. What will be our future if we will use “implantable brain-computer interfaces”(Neuralink), for instance? Humanity must start cultivating the values which define itself, for a better and more balanced future.