Technology: Friend or Enemy?

Is technology our friend or enemy

That is a million-dollar question

The world is different today

and that it is true

We are going through the 4th

or so called the greatest industrial revolution

Before we go on

We actually going back the 1st Industrial Revolution

Just wake up what was going on for the past 200 years

That was in 1800

When water turns into steam

When steam turns into power

And that's why you have the train

being powered by steam engine

When you mine the coal

from the bottom of the earth by the machine

And this picture of "Puffy Billy"

is the first steam-powered engine

And they were stored in the Science Museum in London

The 2nd Industrial Revolution

was about the electricity

The electricity powered light bulbs telephones

Then people created

and they started to communicate differently

That was in 1900

It took 100 years

form the 1st to the 2nd industrial revolution

The 3rd Industrial Revolution

is not far from now

It's about year 2000

It's actually started in 1980s'

When Internet the personal computers

Started to appear in the families everyday folks' life

When you hear the squeaky sound

to dial up the Internet

to get all kinds of informations

And by year 2000

Digitalized Internet is actually replacing the analog

Remember Motorola Nokia Ericsson

They are not here anymore

That actually leads us to the 4th Industrial Revolution

This is the film the best captures

What is the 4th Industrial Revolution

The 4th Industrial Revolution

is about robots

Artificial intelligence

Quantum computer

An Internet of Things

3D printing and self-driven vehicles

Today can we be super humans

Like the film is asking

Can we

I'll give you two examples

And before that

Someone actually summarize

the 4th Industrial Revolution

Its called the 4th Industrial Revolution

does not change the way we are doing things

It changes us

The two examples I want to give you

One is more relevant to how we learn and share knowledge

And next one is how we help each other

Have you heard the term call the MOOC

MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Courses

Obviously it's a course for tens of thousands of people

Just few years ago

A very prestigious university in the United States

offered the course to tens of thousands of students

And to facilitate the course

There were 20 peer tutors

or we call teaching assistants

Helping to mark students' work

Give comments and feedbacks

One of the peer tutors were really standing out

And this person stays up late

and really patient and delicated

At the end of the course

Students voted him or this teaching assistant

to be the best teaching assistant

among all the teaching assistants

And the university

reviewed a few months later and says

that particular teaching assistant

that everybody loved was actually a robot

It's not human

The next example I want to give you

It's about something that happen to Macau

very recently

Typhoon Hato hit Macau in late August

And it created catastrophy

It's a historical disaster

that Macau never experienced

No water no electricity no Internet

Everything seems to be in the ha1t

In about a day

Macau was back into the civilization

Even before the civilization

where food and shelter become a dire needs

I woke up the second day in the morning

No power no electricity no Internet

actually I went to Taipa

I went to a place

I found the place with the Internet

And I browsed on the web

I started to see students

University of Macau students

Polytechnic University students here

And society as a whole

They communicate on wechat whatapp weibo

They were talking about the needs

They formed different groups

Helping groups

For seniors

For people have little running low on water on food

They go into different communities

Deliver those food

Deliver those food to the people

actually helping on the street collecting the garbage

and pick up the things

trying to rebuild Macau

So they were using technology really really effectively

What was happening

Is technology our friend or enemy

On the one hand

Technology seems to be scary

It steals our job

On the other hand

Technology helped us tremendously

Today we share we create we communicate we work

very differently from 20 years ago

Are we in sync with the technology

So here is my belief

Technology is here

And they won't go away anytime soon

It is our job to use this technology creatively

To build the better future for you

And for the people around you

The more you use technology

The better you become good at it

And the less likely

You will be replaced by the technology

Remember

Who is the boss

You are

I am Michael Li

From University of Macau

Thank you