How our increasingly interconnected lives shape how we live, the choices we make, and the unanticipated consequences of each.
The pandemic has revealed cracks in a world that was already experiencing multiple crises. It has highlighted deep societal fault lines, and exacerbated inequalities within and between countries, while leading to the retrenchment of multilateralism, the thickening of borders, and revealing the precariousness of a tightly coupled and interconnected global system. At the same time, it has galvanized international scientific cooperation and spurred scientific and technological progress. It has also made us rethink our ethical responsibilities for future generations, norms, and terms of accountability. Humans are at an inflection point. Radical new ways of thinking, coupled with an openness to action, are giving rise to a sense of both optimism and urgency, with a clear emphasis on the role of science for a better future.
This increasingly complex and dynamic environment raises fundamental questions about the opportunities and limits of being human. Profound and rapid advances in technologies that enhance our human capacities, such as gene editing, algorithms for improving decision making, and surveillance, have far outpaced our understanding of how to develop, use, and govern them responsibly. New methods and tools augmented by exponentially-growing computational power are opening new areas of enquiry not previously possible. The scale and scope of available data is staggering and still growing; while at the same time, public trust in the traditional institutions gathering and analyzing these data is eroding.
Looking into the future, this situation forces us to think differently about how we govern, communicate and interact, and to re-evaluate what the essential qualities are that make us human.
