OEB 2015 - Opening Plenary - Ian Goldin

(Ian Goldin) Great, thank you: it's
wonderful to be with educators

who care about the intersection
of learning and technology,

because that's going to shape the future.

Whether we're able
to get this right or not

will determine whether we have
a glorious 21st century

or a period of unmitigated risks.

The walls are coming down everywhere and
it's difficult to not think about this,

being so close to it, here in Berlin,

25 years ago, these walls coming down.

But it's not just about physical walls
coming down,

it's about mental walls,
it's about financial walls,

it's about technological walls.

All the walls are coming down,
and it's that

which makes this the most exciting century
in the history of humanity.

It changes all of our lives
in surprising ways.

And it's certainly changed mine.

I was living in Paris
when this wall came down.

I didn't imagine that it would touch me
personally.

I thought it was about Eastern Europe,
about the Cold War, about something else.

But within 6 months, I would,
much to my surprise,

I was invited to have dinner with
President Mandela in Paris.

He wasn't president then,
he had just been released from prison.

But he was released
because the Cold War ended.

And the defining feature of this period
we live in, our lives,

is that what happens elsewhere will
dramatically affect us in new ways.

It's this change that results
from the walls coming down.

And it's this change that will shape
education going forward

and technological progress.

And of course, the other fundamental
period of -- in this time --

is technology, technology
which got off the ground

at the same time as the Berlin Wall
came down, over 25 years,

this exponential growth in
virtual connectivity.

And now we have a world of 5 billion
literate, educated people

whereas we had a world,
only 30 years ago,

of well less than a billion
connected people.

Four billion more literate
connected people in the world,

and this is the engine of change,

where the people in the slums of Mumbai,
Soweto's Sao Paulo (check)

or in apartments in Berlin,

they will contribute to change
in surprising new ways.

And they're coming together.

There is a release of individual genius.

If you believe in the random distribution
of exceptional capabilities, which I do,

there is just more people out there,
educated, connected, giving, learning.

But I also believe in collective genius,

the capabilities of people
coming together,

to form teams,
to learn from each other

through the methods that
we heard about this morning.

and in other ways.

So new cures for cancer being developed
on 24-hour cycles around the world.

My lab in Oxford, doing this with people
in Beijing and San Francisco and Palo Alto

and all over, in real time.

There is no sleep on innovation any more.

And that's the power, the engine,
which brings change.

So if you think you've seen
a lot of change

be ready for much more surprises.

This is the slowest time in history
you will know.

It's going to get faster,
the pace of change greater,

the surprises more intense.

It's always going to be

more and more difficult
to predict what's next.

Uncertainty will grow because
the pace of change is growing.

Because the walls have come down,

there are two billion more people
in the world since 1990.

And that's because ideas have traveled,
simple ideas,

like washing your hands prevents
contagious diseases;

really complicated ideas
like those embedded in vaccines

in new cures for cancer
and many other things.

Two billion more people coming together,
most of them now urbanized,

and even those that aren't
physically together,

virtually together.

A quite extraordinary moment
in human history,

one where we've come together
as a community,

like we were 150,000 years ago,
when we lived in villages together,

our ancestors in East Africa,
and then dispersed around the world

and now, reconnected.

And it's this reconnection, which
I believe, gives us the potential.

But do we learn from it?

And are we able to think of ourselves
in new ways,

because we're connecting in new ways?

Is this wall coming down changing the way
we are and we think?

Or do we still think like individualists
in our nation states,

pursuing our own self-interest
and those of our countries,

not realizing that now,
we are in a different game?

Now we're in a game in which
we have to cooperate,

where we have to think about others,

where our actions, for the first time,
spill over in dramatic new ways

and affect people
on the other side of the planet.

This pace of education means that
not only are we liberating ourselves,

but we're liberating people from
all sorts of past habits.

And this change is leading
to quick changes in social norms.

Acceptance of gay marriage
is one of those,

but there'll be many, many, many others.

And so, what we think about
as normal today

will seem very strange
in a few years' time:

this pace of change driven by education,

more doctorates being created
in China now

than in the rest of the world
put together every year,

more scientists alive today

than all the scientists
that ever lived in history,

more literate people alive today

than all the literate people
that ever lived in history.

This is the engine of change.

But it's not simply about
more and more progress.

It's not simply that we know

that this is going to get
better and better.

It's about what's next.

We don't know what the future holds.

We live in this extraordinary moment
of our lives

where we've seen exponential growth
in incomes: that's red.

And we seen this most rapid
increase in populations,

and income growth, even more rapid
than population growth, which is why

people have escaped poverty at a pace
that has never happened in history.

Despite the world's population increasing
by two billion over the last 25 years,

the number of desperately poor people
has gone down by about 300 million.

This has never happened before.

This is an incredible time, by far
the best time to be alive.

Just while you're here, your average
life expectancy should increase

by about 10 hours.

That's the pace of progress:

what you're learning,
and what's happening in the labs.

And it's that which makes me
incredibly optimistic.

This is the age of discovery,
this is the new Renaissance.

This is a period of creativity
and technological change

which hasn't been seen for 500 years.

This is from my stem cell lab
in the Oxford Martin School:

the lab technician's skin
turned into a heart cell.

And this is one of the
extraordinary things that's happening

that makes one so excited
about the future.

A future of rising life expectancy,
so children being born today

in Berlin or elsewhere in Europe,
will have life expectancies well over 100,

and not having to worry about the things
that I worry about,

like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and dementia.

But what skills are they learning today
that will help them shape this future,

prepare for it, and will still be relevant
in a hundred years time?

It's those skills that you have
the responsibility to help shape.

We can imagine this glorious future,
an extraordinary time in human history.

But we can also realize

that it could come very, very badly
at stuck.

I looked at the Renaissance
for inspiration

to try and understand how people
interpreted these choices.

That was a period of
creative exceptionalism,

scientific exceptionalism.

And we think today of the iconic figures,
the Michelangelos, the Da Vincis,

the Copernicuses,

discovering the earth went round the sun,
not the other way round,

fundamentally changing our understanding
of ourselves in the universe

in ways that will happen
in our lifetimes.

Fundamental changes
which lead to Humanism,

Enlightenment and many,
many other things,

spurred by technologies.

Then, it was the Gutenberg press.

Simple ideas travel very rapidly.

Until then only monks
could read and write,

in Latin, in their monasteries.

Less than half of 1% of the world
was literate.

There was nothing to read
-- and it was in Latin.

And then, this invention lead
to a whole new way of thinking.

Ideas traveled, people could learn
in their own languages,

and we had the Renaissance.

We also had the development
of nationalism

because people could identify.

and of course, massive
technological push-back.

The Bonfire of the Vanities,
the burning of books,

not far from here and across Europe.

Destruction of presses,
religious fundamentalism,

extremism,
religious wars for 150 years.

Now if you recall those curves I put up,

of the long trajectory of income growth
and population growth,

but the Renaissance did not figure.

It was a non-event,
it lead to no improvements

in people's welfare in Europe or beyond.

Are we different?

Can we embrace our technologies in ways
that lead to sustained progress?

And there are two things I worry about
in this respect.

First, while the walls have gone down
between societies,

within societies,
the walls are going up everywhere.

All countries are experiencing
rising inequality.

Why is this?

It's because the pace of progress
is so fast at the frontier

that this process of integration
-- some call it globalization --

has led to such rapid change
that if you aren't on the frontier,

if you don't have the skills,
the mobility, the attitude to change,

to adapt, to grab new things,
you're left further and further behind.

If you're in the wrong place,
with the wrong skills at the wrong time,

or you're too old,
you're left further and further behind.

And so we see in all societies
rising inequality.

And some people have been able to capture
the goods of globalization.

They've been able to park their money,

whether they are a corporation
in Bermuda or somewhere,

or an individual in Monaco
or Lichtenstein or Luxembourg.

And so governments are becoming
less and less able

to tax their citizens
and tax their corporates

and less able to fund education,
health, infrastructure,

and the other things we need.

And the second big problem
of this integration process

is when things connect.

Unfortunately,
not only good stuff connects.

Rarely, bad stuff connects too.

And so the question is how do we have
this complex, dense, intertwined system

without becoming overwhelmed by it?

Are we able to manage
our interdependencies

in ways that will be sustained
and benefit us,

or will they overwhelm us?

And this is both the intended
consequences which lead

to unintended bads.

Our intended consequence of using
more antibiotics around the world

leading to antibiotic resistance.

Or as our energy growth grows
around the world

because people are escaping poverty,
leading to climate change.

Or as our resource use increases
because people are consuming more food,

leading to resource depletion.

And the unintended consequences,
banks which spread around the globe

becoming centers of cascading risk
and financial crisis.

Airports spreading pandemics, what I call
the butterfly defect of globalization.

The spreading of risk is not a new idea.

We think in England that a rat coming
off a ship in Liverpool

might have killed half the British
population in the Black Death.

Early globalization leading
to systemic risk.

But what's new is the pace
and scale of the change.

So the swine flu that starts
in Mexico City

in 160 countries in thirty days.

And the emerging infections group
in the Oxford Martin School

has modeled spread of this
with airline traffic

and shown it exactly replicates.

So the super-spreaders of the good
of globalization

like JFK, Heathrow, Frankfurt,
and other great airports

become the super-spreaders of the bads,
in this case, pandemics.

And in the cybersphere, of course,
we see this dramatically,

that anything can be instantaneously
elsewhere, be it good or be it bad.

In finance, we've seen a dramatic
indication of this,

this collapsing system starting
from a subprime crisis in the US

leading to 100 million people laid off
in work from work around the world.

So what happens somewhere
dramatically affecting people

on the other side of the world
in the same way that my life

was shaped, but sometimes
with disastrous consequences.

And what the financial system also teaches
us is the rising power of individuals.

These new technologies give individuals
simply unprecedented powers.

Barings Bank had existed for 200 years.

It had withstood the most amazing
technological, political, and other changes,

and one young man, Nick Leeson,
having some fun, a bit of trading,

managed to bring it down.

And the same thing almost happened
in Societe Generale with Jerome Kerviel,

JP Morgan, UBS, and many others.

We see that these individuals
now have power in new ways.

And of course, individuals can also
in new ways, develop biopathogens

using a DNA sequencing which
is going down exponentially in price,

a single individual now
can build something using

a technology like a drone to distribute
it, and kill perhaps tens,

if not hundreds of millions of people.

This new capability, this new power
of individuals has changed

so that nation states are becoming
less and less powerful

relative to the power of individuals.

And there are seven billion of us
growing to nine billion

over the next 35 years.

Within the cybersphere,
we see this dramatically,

how small groups can cause mayhem,
steal all our records,

open our bank accounts,

They'll be opening our front door locks,
controlling our vehicle-to-vehicle

communication, etc.

Understanding how we build systems
which liberate us, and yet

we do not become slaves
or vulnerable to, is the central question.

Can we create interdependent systems
where we are in control,

and what does that mean?

And that education process requires
a new understanding of responsibility.

As these technologies pervade into
our bodies and everything we do,

it becomes more and more important.

Trust, integrity, judgment,
these old things become more

and more important.

The financial crisis was characterized
by a number of remarkable things.

Over 250,000 extremely well-paid
people in the central banks of the world

in the IMF and other institutions
with this enormous amount of data

do not see it coming.

Too much data, too little integrity.

And as machines begin to take our jobs

-- and one of my groups in the Oxford
Martin School has said that 47% of US jobs

will be lost to machine intelligence
over the next 20 years --

people will increasingly see
machine intelligence as a threat

not only to their bank accounts
and other systems,

but to their jobs and their careers.

And so, how do we create education
systems where we are not vulnerable

to automation taking our jobs? (16:33)

And the answer is, we need to do things
which are not automatable.

What does that mean?

It means creativity, dexterity,
empathy, judgment

and that's what will keep us
different from machines

for at least the next 50 years.

So, creating an environment where
machines complement our abilities,

help us, do many of the things

that are really, in many ways,
inhumane for people to be doing,

dangerous and others;

help us be more effective,
but don't supplant us.

Being in Germany, we're reminded always

that it's not that technologies exist
that people decide to adopt them.

It's society's attitude.

Germany has banned nuclear power,
It has banned GMOs.

Many other places
embrace these technologies.

It's what we feel about these technologies
that matters.

It's how we feel we can control them,
whether we feel that we're on top,

which will shape the way
that societies adopt them.

And so, in education, it seems
absolutely vital that we understand them.

People need to understand
what genetic modification is.

People need to understand
what DNA sequencing is.

People need to understand these new,
extremely powerful technologies,

which will change the way we are
and the choices we face going forward.

There will be societal choices:
do we want to create superhumans, or not?

And if others do it,
what is our attitude to that?

These are choices that we will face,
let alone the next generation.

So this handshake,
this understanding of technology,

the literacy becomes
more and more important,

as well as the interconnectivity.

As we will become wealthier,
as we will become more connected,

the spillovers of our choices
get stronger and stronger.

And we see this in many, many areas.
We see --

-- sorry, I just want to go back to the
slide before with the video, if I may --

(people arguing animatedly around
a big tuna in Japanese, then clapping)

(Goldin) This is the tuna market in Tokyo.

This tuna was sold for about 1.5 million Euro.

This the market's response to the scarcity
of a natural resource.

The price goes up, the tuna don't know
how much they're worth, of course.

They don't reproduce more
when they're worth more.

Hi-tech fishermen go and chase
the remaining tuna

and you get extinction.

And the same thing, of course, with rhino
and any natural resource.

Natural resources don't understand
markets.

they are irrelevant to them.

and so, as we go forward and we have
a market system which determines choice,

on the one hand,

and more and more people
with more wealth

are claiming resources
through this system.

But on the other hand, we have
the supply of natural resources,

determined in totally different ways,

we have a very serious problem
of extinction.

Governments are not
very smart at this either.

Thinking short term,
they extract resource,

often for the good of their people,

but collectively, in the long term,
a disaster.

This is the Aral Sea.

Peop-- countries, six countries
doing the right thing,

drawing water to feed their people.

Collectively, a disaster.

The examples of success
-- and the Mediterranean is one --

where citizens, scientists, politicians,
civil society movements came together

and saved this.

And with climate change, of course,
we have this dramatic problem.

What's happening in Paris this week
is of huge significance

to the future of the planet.

But it's not enough;
we need to do much more.

And we need to do it in a way
that allows people around the world

to benefit from the things that we have.

We've created 90% of the problem
in the rich countries

but 80%, already 70% of the flows, (check)
growing to 80 over the next 15 years,

will be coming from emerging markets.

So how do we let the rest of the world
clime the energy curve,

while ensuring we keep global warming
to below 2 degrees?

These collective decisions, increasingly,
will shape the way that the planet moves.

Who's going to do this?

This set of institutions is totally unfit
for purpose.

It was built in a different era,
with different power structures.

It is unable to meet
the challenges of our time,

and in some areas, like cyber (check)
there is no institution at all.

Small changes,
largely rearranging the furniture.

(laughter)

(Goldin) So I think of us as nations,
like in a cabin within a big ocean liner,

each in our little cabin, drifting
with no captain, on Planet Earth's deck.

Again, part of this is the result
of extroardinarily positive changes.

We're no longer in a world
where twelve white men, smoking cigars,

could sit in their room and decide
the earth's future,

as they did after the Second World War.

New power balances mean we have
to have a transition in power.

But we're in this dangerous time
where the old powers no longer rule

and the new powers have not been able
to step up to the plate.

So it's a time of transition, it's a time
where the big institutions,

the best of them like the IMF,
have proved themselves

totally unfit for purpose.

It requires citizens, it requires
thinking in new ways

to overcome this problem.

Thinking which overcomes short-termism,

be it in business or
be it in our own decisions.

We need to think long,
because we're here for the long term

and the kids of today will be here
for at least the next century.

How we do this and how we realize
that our own decisions, increasingly,

are entangled with others'
is of course the critical question.

What we see in the politics
is a reversal.

People feel the future is scary,
uncertain.

They feel that openness and connectivity
makes them more vulnerable,

and they're right.

And so, we see this political revulsion
with extremism growing

in all countries, but certainly in Europe
and in the US.

People wanting to return to an age
which they romanticize as being better:

protectionist, nationalist, xenophobic.

It's profoundly misguided.

In order to ensure that
we can manage this world,

we need to be more connected, not less.

We need to ensure that we're able
to come together, but be protected;

resilient, thinking together, and insuring
that through our decisions

we not only protect our own futures
but protect those of others, and the planet.

Thank you.
(Applause)

If we can do all that, we can rock on
to a happy old age.

(Moderator) (laughs) Thank you very much
indeed.

There's (check) a lot of comments here
but there is one theme that is emerging.

Let me just give you this one comment
from Anastasia Brua (check), I think it was?

It's just nipped out as --

I want to pick up actually, really,
on what David said right at the beginning

about "Don't be afraid,
don't be in denial"

and this need for change,

and what you said about the new normal
will feel very strange

in a few years' time,

because Jeff Kortenbush (check)
makes this comment:

"A key skill set should be about
adapting to rapid change,

"to learn, unlearn and relearn."

And the debate tonight is going to be
about 21st century skills

are not being taught in schools
and should be.

Now, much of the work in the Martin School
is about behavior

and about understanding
how the brain works

and adaptability and the fears of
the second (check) generation

to be able to adapt to this new shift,

which is accelerating probably even faster
than most realize.

How optimistic can we be that actually,
our human capacity can cope with this?

(Goldin) Yes, this is
the most difficult question.

My sense is that the world is moving
at a revolutionary speed

and we and our institutions are
evolutionary very slow adapters.

My hope is that this concentration
of knowledge which is being unleashed

through the new connectivity and literacy
will allow us to leapfrog.

And we do see that,
and we see signs of this in so many ways.

So there's all sorts of exciting things,

like the things we heard about
earlier today,

that are happening.

The big question, and I think it's going
to be partly a question that's resolved

in Paris this week, is can we learn
to cooperate on these big challenges.

Are we able to give up
some independence and sovereignty

as individuals or as countries,

to ensure that collectively,
we'll all have a bigger future.

Are we able take longer term--
(Moderator) What about the .... (check)

and the ability and -- we've only got
about 3 minutes to run now --

but what about the ability
of the human being

to cope with this enormity, particularly
to adapt to the speed

that the next generation,
through the education process,

will be expecting?

(Goldin) Humans can do anything.

In my college at Oxford Balliol, we had
a third of the college giving their lives

in the First World War,

and about 20% of the college giving
their lives in the Second World War

to defend ideals of freedom.

People are prepared to make the most
extraordinary sacrifices,

to change their lives fundamentally,

if they believe that
it's the right thing to do.

(Moderator) Can they do it?
(Goldin), Yes, they can.

We've done it before, we can do it again:
I'm absolutely convinced.

(Applause)

(Moderator) But again, I'm picking up and
trying to bring together

a number of themes here, but that --
what David said right at the beginning:

"Don't be afraid, don't be in denial."

That is achievable, is it, that kind of
reversal with this scale of change,

and the shift,
the acceleration taking place?

(Goldin) Yes. I think one has to
open one's eyes

before one can see
what's happening around.

And this pace of change is really
what it's about.

Are we able to appreciate

this extraordinary moment in history
we're in?

This age of discovery, are we able
to recognize it for what it is,

and seize the opportunities
that come with it?

(Moderator) Yes, I'm going to stop there.
I'm afraid you - because you ran too much,

25 minutes, so the 30 minutes is up, so
I have to stop you at that point

because some people have begun to leave,
there's coffee and everything else

and a very tight schedule.

Remember, this is going to be part of
a big debate later tonight

and also, let me underscore that
everyone here can talk more about it.

And indeed, David Price is signing
his book,

"How will we work, live and learn
in the future?" at 13:05,

and that's in Potsdam 3,

and "Information doesn't want to be free",
Cory is going to be speaking about that

on copyright in the digital age, as well,
at 12 o'clock.

So, plenty: we've really burdened you
with an enormous number of concepts.

And David, can I tell you as well,

there are large numbers of people
who sent messages, admiring your battle

and how you've won your battle on health.

Can I thank you all very much indeed,
and also for contributing

some important comments and questions
from the floor.

It's coffee time.
(Applause)

[Recordings of this session will be
uploaded to www.online-educa.com] 28:31