Mankind has never been characterized by the special penchant for sentimentality otherwise there would have been no need for the Sermon on the Mount or the Sunnah of Muhammad or the Buddha's teachings. However, if in the old days the clash of armed with the primitive spear fisherman with the polar bear in the polar ice or a hunter’s fight with lion in the African savannah could justify the human cruelty by the need to choose between life and death; we, armed with dynamite, guns and power tools have nothing to justify it.
The world elite: bankers, businessmen, politicians and prominent economists traditionally assembled in Davos after the Christmas holidays. The assessment of the future risks took much of the discussion. Simply put, everybody discussed the poor quality of life in the future, and now to deal with it.
This time, the topic of the forum was, according to the participants, the beginning of the fourth industrial revolution. New technological structure implies the improvement of the computer intelligence and as Google Technical Director and futurologist Ray Kurzweil warned, the computers would be able to match the efficiency of the human brain by 2020.
Hypothetically, more intelligent computers could fully realize the scenario described by Russian writer Valery Bryusov in his story ‘The Rise of the Machines’ written in 1908. If we consider the Kurzweil's prediction about possibility of synthesizing the human brain with computer by 2038, the future would look even bleaker. Can you imagine what a mess the hybrid of Osama bin Laden with the Deep Blue (supercomputer that won a chess match against Garry Kasparov in 1997) connected to the Internet would be able to make?
The problem is so serious that it has been discussed not in Davos only. Pope Francis has made a special address with an appeal to prevent the dehumanisation of mankind not "to make us incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain".
This message is very timely. However, it is not quite clear what participants of the Davos forum this can do to implement it. After all, taking care of the soul has always been the prerogative of religion and the church.
The education of the soul, the formation of principles and values ​​implies a long and painstaking work aimed at centuries or even tens of centuries. Unfortunately, the elite do not operate with such categories. Their thinking horizon extends from fiscal year to election in five years. Therefore, they tend to seek simple solutions in response to complex challenges.
A striking example is the referendum announced in Switzerland on the introduction of unconditional basing income amounting to 2,500 euros for each adult citizen of the country and to just over 600 euros for those who have not reached the mature age.
This idea seems to be excellent at first glance only. In a series of gloomy news in the beginning of the year, the reports of the New Year's holidays in Cologne and other cities in Germany and Europe made the bombshell effect. Despite the silence of the authorities, the excesses made by the ‘new citizens’ of the European Union became known to the outraged public.
Some could argue about the failure of multiculturalism policy blaming the authorities of Western countries that have missed the educational work among refugees. Some could console themselves with the fact that only a small part of the refugees was involved in the outrages while the majority of them are worthy people. But nobody can deny one thing: they all arrived in the affluent countries in search of a comfortable and secure life.
What would Swiss authorities do when millions, attracted by the possibility of obtaining large benefits, start to claim their citizenship? Would they put the guns across the borders? By the way, such proposals are already made in Germany and elsewhere. Is this the top of European humanism traditions founded by Petrarch, Montaigne and Thomas More?
The idea of ​​welfare in a single country is destructive by nature. Today, only 2 per cent of the Swiss believe that they quit the job if they would not have to worry about the daily bread. On the contrary, 22 per cent of the Russians are ready to easily stop working, saying that they would have more time for the family, charity, their cultural development and overall perfection.
Unfortunately, practice shows that most people tend to indulge in pleasure than improve themselves. And this is the direct path to the degradation of society. Especially when people are provided with new, previously unseen types of pleasures, including those that are based on the interaction between man and computer.
Psychologists and educators kept continuously telling us about the threat of the growing mixture of real and virtual world and its disastrous consequences. The virtual addiction is not different from the typical addiction by the way it works or its outcome. That is, Switzerland runs the risk of its own ‘the Cologne night’ in a couple of decades but this time without migrants.
So, what shall we do? Progress cannot be stopped and every person on earth has the right to the safe and comfortable life. However, in my opinion, the arguments of Davos futurists and the proposals of the Swiss economists have the major flaw: people in both scenarios are of minor importance.
Is it possible to seriously talk about the transition to green energy if you are aware of the billion people hitherto using torches and kerosene lamps? Is it important to develop the ‘smart homes’ and autopilot cars when the one-third of the world lives in the dwellings of the Stone Age level and uses beasts of burden? And finally, has the humankind earned the right to idleness when there is so much work to do?
I think that these issues are interrelated. Everything is interconnected in the world: any act or omission to act of each of us affects not only the fate of single person but the life of humanity and the Earth as a whole.
Until we grasp this generally simple idea, until everyone of us learn to plan their actions and analyse their consequences any inventions and social innovations would eventually lead to ineradicable problems.
Few people would allow the five years old child to drive car and we would treat the people who would as inadequate. In order to properly use the technological achievements the mankind must grow up and become more intelligent. That applies to all humankind rather than individual citizens.
That is why we in FIDE so persistently promote the idea of ​​‘one billion clever people’. Only the great man with the advanced mind, broad knowledge and ability for compassion would be able to fruitfully use all the advantages of civilization. Only he would exploit the achievements of science and technology and never let the nightmare visions of dystopia authors come true.