Digital technology is radically changing almost everything we do, from the way we run our businesses to how we educate the next generation. Optimists accept this change, arguing that technology will not stop growing and that growth adds value. Are they right? What are the most important changes and trends and how can we prepare to deal with them? What are the specific ways that technological change is improving our individual and collective lives? What are its dark sides? How does the change affect the workforce, productivity and the nature of leadership? The seminar takes an in-depth look at four technological trends: Automation Revolution, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and Social Machines. With the intention of discovering if they are correct, the arguments of the growing chorus of technological skeptics who argue that we are losing touch with the qualitative and human aspects of existence, which make life worth living, are faced.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE MODERATOR

William Powers is graduated in History and Literature from Harvard University. After several years at the Washington Post, he spent 2012 as Director of The Crowdwire, a project analyzing the response of social media to the US presidential race. In 2014, he joined the MIT Media Lab as a researcher at the Laboratory for Social Machines, focused on developing new technologies for journalism, government, and public policy. He is the author of the New York Times best-seller, Hamlet’s BlackBerry. Widely praised for its views on the digital future, the book grew out of research conducted at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University. The New York Times has called William an “apostle” of the next wave of digital thinking.