WEBVTT

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Hello.

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Schools in 2014 are as archaic

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as medicine in 1750.


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(Applause)

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Schools have not evolved 
for many centuries.

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There are some minor differences.

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In my time, the board was black;

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today, it's white.


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(Laughter)

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This inaction is unsustainable today,

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for three reasons.

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First, a war of the brains has begun.

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We wanted a knowledge economy?

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We've got it!

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And in a knowledge economy,
the neuron is the only fuel;

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innovation, IQ.

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In the world of algorithms,

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unbelievable inequalities are created
between the most innovative,

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gifted people,
and less talented people.

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An absolutely caricature-like example
sums up this situation well.

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WhatsApp; 55 employees,
around for four years,

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and worth $19 billion.

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Peugot; more than a 100 years old,
more than 100,000 employees,

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is worth $12 billion!

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55 little geniuses with stratospheric IQs


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create more economic value in four years,

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than more than 100,000 employees
in a company more than 100 years old.

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The second reason why the status quo
is completely untenable

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is that after a failed launch in the 60s,

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robotics and artificial intelligence
are really reaching maturity now.

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The neuron is 550 million years old.

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The transistor, 60 years old.

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The transistor, the microprocessor,
is 10 million times younger

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than our neurons.

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In 40 years, or something like that,

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the transistor will have surpassed
the abilities of the biological brain.

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This race is lost.

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Between ENIAC,

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- at the end of the war
founded by the great Turing -

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and its 350 operations per second,

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and the TN2, which carries out
33 million billion operations per second,

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and a million billion operations by 2019,

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there is an extraordinary leap.

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This explosion of digital power

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today allows for the emergence
of a 2nd generation robotics,

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of which Google is the world leader.

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Google, which bought up eight
of the finest global robotics companies.

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The Google Car 
is just a special type of robot.

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Silicon Valley is very optimistic
about artificial intelligence.

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Ray Kurzweil, the head engineer at Google,

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explains that in 2045,

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artificial intelligence will be 
a billion times more powerful

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than our eight billion
brains put together.

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In 30 years.

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This alarms a lot of people.

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Bill Gates, who's not known
for joking around,

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estimates that in 2035, 
that is to say in 20 years,

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as near as the death
of François Mitterrand,

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half of our jobs will have been automated.

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Stemming from the convergence 
of artificial intelligence and robotics.

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He even cites nurses,

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whom he predicts will be replaced
by machines by then.

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A huge fear is emerging.

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Education is not adapted
to allow our kids to compete

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against second generation machines.

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The third reason why the status quo 
is unthinkable in schools

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is that the society of tomorrow
will no longer accept inequalities in IQ.

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On average, in this room,

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you have an IQ of 130.

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The French average is 100.

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Everyone thinks that's normal.

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In reality, it's intolerable.

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IQ gaps will be the last 
of the major inequalities,

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even more so than differences in money.

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And intellectual differences
are the mother of all inequalities.

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Between the most
and least talented people,

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there is a 14 year difference 
in life expectancy,

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an income gap from one to 15,

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huge differences in social classes,
degrees, and access to culture.

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In 1750, we accepted that a poor child
died in the street, without care.

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Today, that's unacceptable.

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Today we accept enormous differences
in intellectual abilities.

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The society of the future 
will no longer accept that.

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Ultimately, the NBIC revolution,

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that is, nanotechnology,
biotechnology, information technology,

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and cognitive science,
that is, artificial intelligence,

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neuroscience, and robotics,

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are in the process of turning
society on its head,

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and upending the work market.

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School, as we currently know it,
is completely unprepared

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to allow our students
to compete in a world

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where smart machines will be ubiquitous

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in the coming decades.

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What is society to do?

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What will society decide upon?

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In my opinion, society
will demand that schools use

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all the resources of NBIC technology
to respond to these challenges.

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Tomorrow, schools will use MOOCs,

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which are a type of second
generation online teaching,

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and cerebral strengthening technologies,

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which we call "neuro-enhancement."

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It will tolerate legal doping.

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It will accept, in the future,
intracerebral implants

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to enhance us.

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And it will accept intellectual eugenics

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via embryonic selection.

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In the world of tomorrow,
teaching will no longer be about knowing.

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Teaching will be about the brain.

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We will have the convergence 
of education, medicine,

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information technology,
genetics, and neuroscience.

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And the teacher will become
a "neuro-hacker."

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There's still some work left to do.


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(Laughter)

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They'll become a "neuro-cultivator."

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This bringing together of education
and school will become natural.

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Education will begin before birth.

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The brain is an extraordinary
organ with high plasticity.

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The environment, school, and stimulation

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are fundamental in developing
our neuronal and synaptic wiring.

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Unfortunately, the genetic aspect
of our intellectual abilities

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is important.

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It's a bit more important
than we imagined a few years ago.

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Recent studies such as this one

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tend to show that about 60%
of our intellectual abilities

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are of genetic origin,

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while a whole third is linked
to familial influences,

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the educational
environment, and school.

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Silicon Valley, as usual,
is at the forefront of this battle,

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for better or worse.

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Here you have a patent filed by "23andMe",
Google's genomics subsidiary

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- whose CEO is the ex-wife
of Google cofounder Sergeï Brin -

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for "designer babies" à la carte
and genetic selection of gametes

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to make more beautiful babies.

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It's even more troubling
to our moral norms

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that China has launched a huge program

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to sequence the DNA
of the extremely gifted,

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led by an exceptionally gifted
person, who is shown here,

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with the goal, admitted
in the international press,

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of using these results

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to increase the average IQ
of the 21st-century Chinese person.

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Will society resist 
using these technologies?

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When we know that Bostrom,
the English academic,

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demonstrated that,
using these technologies,

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we could increase a country's average IQ
by 60 points in phase one,

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and then 120 points in a second phase.

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Which would make Bill Gates 
or Jacques Attali

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just within the average
in a first phase,

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and intellectually deficient
compared to the norms of the time

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in a second phase.


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(Laughter)

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Of course, this all seems very far 
from our own experience.

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Eugenics is not for us.

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However, we have already
gotten caught up in the works of eugenics;

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we are already eugenicists.

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We are already 
in a eugenicist civilization.

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Here in France, 97% of children
with Down's syndrome

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are detected and are aborted.

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Only one in 30 trisomic fetuses 
survive past screening.

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And in the USA, 28% of Americans,

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say they are ready to use
genetic scanning technology

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to have smarter babies.

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What will the parents 
of the remaining 72% do?

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But the transgression doesn't stop there.

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Silicon Valley is ready
to go even further.

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Again, Ray Kurzweil,
the lead engineer at Google,

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explained to us last March 
at TED Vancouver,

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that in 2035, 20 years from now,
we will have intracerebral implants

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to connect us more quickly
to knowledge and to be more intelligent.

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And he warned us that we need
to prepare ourselves

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to have a hybrid thinking,

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a mix of our biological brain

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and artificial intelligence 
connected to our cortex.

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This creates an upheaval
in our moral and political norms;

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it's the end of "Humanity 1.0",

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and the arrival, to borrow
the phrase of Google's CEO,

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of a "Humanity 2.0".

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All of this could lead 
to a neuro-dictatorship,

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to a neuro-nightmare.

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That's why, if the NBIC
schools of tomorrow

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will undoubtedly use,
alongside teachers,

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educational engineers,

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neuroscientists and geneticists,

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it is especially necessary
that we have neuro-ethicists;

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"brain ethicists".

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To make sure that neuro-education
does not turn into neuro-manipulation.

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What must be done?

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I don't know.

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What do we have to do?

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I don't know.

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I have two convictions, though.

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The first is that
we don't prevent Silicon Valley

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from manufacturing machines
that are smarter than us.

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As the cofounder of Google, 
Sergeï Brin, says,

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"We will make machines
that reason, that think,

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and that do things better than we do."

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In that context, are we going to leave

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people stuck with average,
or modest cognitive abilities,

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completely outdated in the face 
of second generation machines,

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resulting from the convergence 
of artificial intelligence and robotics?

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I don't believe that's possible.

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My second conviction

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is that if we collectively 
and politically decide

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in the years and decades to come,

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to block technologies that allow us
to reduce differences in IQs,

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we would be judged very harshly
by future generations.

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In reality, we are all
terrible neuro-conservatives,

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who are perfectly content
with intolerable IQ gaps.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)