(토요모임) [09. June. 2018] Saturday meeting Topic

[Scarlet]

Howdy !  It's me Scarlett ! 

This week, we are going to deal with the "Humanity and Technology" issue.

I think this would be the very controversial and intriguing issues.

Let's have fun until we have blue in the face. :)

This week we have 4 categories for topics.

◈ Culture

- China is so desperate to prevent divorces that it's making couples take an exam before they can break up

◈ Artificial Intelligence

- Top 9 ethical issues in artificial intelligence7 questions about the future of Artificial Intelligence

- 7 questions about the future of Artificial Intelligence

◈ Humanity & Technology

- Will Technology Progress or Bring down Humanity?

- Does Technology Replace Humanity?

- How to bring humanity and tech together: Innovators and advocates on hope for the future

- How Technology Can Transform Workplace Humanity

◈ Humanity

- Top 10 Things That Make Humans Special

- What Makes Us Human?

- The traits that make human beings unique

Hope you enjoy the topics.

With luv

Scarlett

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China is so desperate to prevent divorces that

it's making couples take an exam before they can break up

Alexandra Ma/ May. 31, 2018, 12:13 PM

■ Some cities in China are making couples take a "marriage and family exam" before they are allowed to break up.
■ It includes questions about each other's favorite food, parents' birthdays, and perspectives on familial responsibility.
■ If couples score more than 60% on the exam, they could be denied a divorce.
■ Take a look at the questions they're being asked.

China is so desperate to cut down on divorce rates that its making couples take an exam before they are allowed to break up.

Some divorce-registration offices across China have been asking couples to take a "marriage and family exam" before they are granted a divorce. It's been happening in places like Xi'an, Donghai County, and Yibin County, according to various local reports since late 2017.

The two-page test includes 15 questions in three sections: fill-in-the-blank, short answer, and an essay. Each spouse fills out a test on the other.

Here are the questions:

Section 1: Fill in the blank (4 points per answer, totaling 40)

1. When is your wedding anniversary?
2. When is your spouse's birthday?
3. When is your child's birthday?
4. What's your spouse's favorite food?
5. What is your child's favorite snack?
6. When was the last time you communicated?
7. When are you mother- and father-in-law's birthdays?
8. How many times have you been on holiday together?
9. How long have you been going out?
10. How are the household chores divided?

Section 2: Short answer (10 points per answer, totaling 40 points)

1. What are your best memories as a couple or most fortunate thing to have happened to you as a couple?
2. What's the biggest difference or point of contention between the couple right now?
3. What responsibilities have you fulfilled to your family, and what do you think have you done well or not well?
4. What responsibilities has your spouse fulfilled to the family, and what do you think they have done well or not well?

Section 3: Essay (20 points)

Explain what you think about your marriage and family, why you want to divorce, and your plans for the future. If the couple scores more than 60 out of 100, it means there is "room for recovery" in the marriage, while scores under 60 suggest the relationship is on the rocks.

Here's an example of a (marked) exam in Yibin, taken in September, in which the wife scored 80 points and the husband 86, according to the Xinhua news agency. They were not allowed to divorce because they scored so highly.

It's not clear what happens if one spouse scores above 60 and the other doesn't.

It's also unclear whether there is any mechanism to prevent cheating or deliberately underperforming to make divorce easier.

The questionnaire is meant to help "reduce the divorce rate and prevent impulsive divorces," Liu Chunling, the director of the Donghai County marriage-registration office, told the state-operated Yangtse Evening Post.

"Only the harmony of millions of family units can achieve the harmony of an entire society," Liu said.

The official added: "Husbands and wives should answer the questions on the exam and calm down. With the guidance of each question, let them reminisce about their relationship and remember their responsibilities in marriage and family."

 China's divorce rate has been rising, attributed to the increasing empowerment of working women as well as the rise of social media and dating apps, which citizens have said are facilitating extramarital affairs.

Nearly 2 million couples registered for divorce in the first six months of 2017, an increase of more than 10% compared with the same period the year before, the South China Morning Post reported.

Earlier this month, Weibo rolled out a new function for citizens of the province of Guangdong in which couples can make appointments with their local divorce-registration office with the click of a button.

Article source : http://www.businessinsider.com/china-makes-couples-take-exam-before-divorce-allowed-2018-5

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< Questions >

Q1. What is your civil status or marital status if you are in a relationship?

*** Civil status, or marital status, is any of several distinct options that describe a person's relationship with a significant other. Married, single, divorced, and widowed are examples of civil status.

Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_status

@@@ Classification of legal marital status
    1 - Married (and not separated) ...
    2 - Widowed (including living common law) ...
    3 - Separated (including living common law) ...
    4 - Divorced (including living common law) ...
    5 - Single (including living common law)

Q2. What is the biggest difference between living together and marriage?

*** Living together. Although there is no legal definition of living together, it generally means to live together as a couple without being married. You can formalise aspects of your status with a partner by drawing up a legal agreement called a cohabitation contract or living together agreement.

Q3. What is the meaning of marriage to you? What would be the meaning of marriage to your country? 

Q4. What do you think of the divorce exam?

Q5. What images are in your mind when you hear the word 'divorce'?

Q6. Would it be better to have a marriage exam before weddings?

Q7. Can an exam ascertain how much love there is between a couple?

Q8. What's the divorce rate like in your country? Does your country have any policies to boost up marriage rate?

Q9. What would happen if divorce was made illegal?

Q10. What damage does divorce do to society?

Q11. Why does the divorce rate high in your country?

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Top 9 ethical issues in artificial intelligence
21 Oct 2016/ Julia Bossmann/ Director, Strategy, Fathom Computing

Optimizing logistics, detecting fraud, composing art, conducting research, providing translations: intelligent machine systems are transforming our lives for the better. As these systems become more capable, our world becomes more efficient and consequently richer.

Tech giants such as Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft – as well as individuals like Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk – believe that now is the right time to talk about the nearly boundless landscape of artificial intelligence. In many ways, this is just as much a new frontier for ethics and risk assessment as it is for emerging technology. So which issues and conversations keep AI experts up at night?

1. Unemployment. What happens after the end of jobs?

The hierarchy of labour is concerned primarily with automation. As we’ve invented ways to automate jobs, we could create room for people to assume more complex roles, moving from the physical work that dominated the pre-industrial globe to the cognitive labour that characterizes strategic and administrative work in our globalized society.

Look at trucking: it currently employs millions of individuals in the United States alone. What will happen to them if the self-driving trucks promised by Tesla’s Elon Musk become widely available in the next decade? But on the other hand, if we consider the lower risk of accidents, self-driving trucks seem like an ethical choice. The same scenario could happen to office workers, as well as to the majority of the workforce in developed countries.

This is where we come to the question of how we are going to spend our time. Most people still rely on selling their time to have enough income to sustain themselves and their families. We can only hope that this opportunity will enable people to find meaning in non-labour activities, such as caring for their families, engaging with their communities and learning new ways to contribute to human society.

If we succeed with the transition, one day we might look back and think that it was barbaric that human beings were required to sell the majority of their waking time just to be able to live.

2. Inequality. How do we distribute the wealth created by machines?

Our economic system is based on compensation for contribution to the economy, often assessed using an hourly wage. The majority of companies are still dependent on hourly work when it comes to products and services. But by using artificial intelligence, a company can drastically cut down on relying on the human workforce, and this means that revenues will go to fewer people. Consequently, individuals who have ownership in AI-driven companies will make all the money.

We are already seeing a widening wealth gap, where start-up founders take home a large portion of the economic surplus they create. In 2014, roughly the same revenues were generated by the three biggest companies in Detroit and the three biggest companies in Silicon Valley ... only in Silicon Valley there were 10 times fewer employees.

If we’re truly imagining a post-work society, how do we structure a fair post-labour economy?

3. Humanity. How do machines affect our behaviour and interaction?

Artificially intelligent bots are becoming better and better at modelling human conversation and relationships. In 2015, a bot named Eugene Goostman won the Turing Challenge for the first time. In this challenge, human raters used text input to chat with an unknown entity, then guessed whether they had been chatting with a human or a machine. Eugene Goostman fooled more than half of the human raters into thinking they had been talking to a human being.

This milestone is only the start of an age where we will frequently interact with machines as if they are humans; whether in customer service or sales. While humans are limited in the attention and kindness that they can expend on another person, artificial bots can channel virtually unlimited resources into building relationships.

Even though not many of us are aware of this, we are already witnesses to how machines can trigger the reward centres in the human brain. Just look at click-bait headlines and video games. These headlines are often optimized with A/B testing, a rudimentary form of algorithmic optimization for content to capture our attention. This and other methods are used to make numerous video and mobile games become addictive. Tech addiction is the new frontier of human dependency.

On the other hand, maybe we can think of a different use for software, which has already become effective at directing human attention and triggering certain actions. When used right, this could evolve into an opportunity to nudge society towards more beneficial behavior. However, in the wrong hands it could prove detrimental.

4. Artificial stupidity. How can we guard against mistakes?

Intelligence comes from learning, whether you’re human or machine. Systems usually have a training phase in which they "learn" to detect the right patterns and act according to their input. Once a system is fully trained, it can then go into test phase, where it is hit with more examples and we see how it performs.

Obviously, the training phase cannot cover all possible examples that a system may deal with in the real world. These systems can be fooled in ways that humans wouldn't be. For example, random dot patterns can lead a machine to “see” things that aren’t there. If we rely on AI to bring us into a new world of labour, security and efficiency, we need to ensure that the machine performs as planned, and that people can’t overpower it to use it for their own ends.

5. Racist robots. How do we eliminate AI bias?

Though artificial intelligence is capable of a speed and capacity of processing that’s far beyond that of humans, it cannot always be trusted to be fair and neutral. Google and its parent company Alphabet are one of the leaders when it comes to artificial intelligence, as seen in Google’s Photos service, where AI is used to identify people, objects and scenes. But it can go wrong, such as when a camera missed the mark on racial sensitivity, or when a software used to predict future criminals showed bias against black people.

We shouldn’t forget that AI systems are created by humans, who can be biased and judgemental. Once again, if used right, or if used by those who strive for social progress, artificial intelligence can become a catalyst for positive change.

6. Security. How do we keep AI safe from adversaries?

The more powerful a technology becomes, the more can it be used for nefarious reasons as well as good. This applies not only to robots produced to replace human soldiers, or autonomous weapons, but to AI systems that can cause damage if used maliciously. Because these fights won't be fought on the battleground only, cybersecurity will become even more important. After all, we’re dealing with a system that is faster and more capable than us by orders of magnitude.

7. Evil genies. How do we protect against unintended consequences?

It’s not just adversaries we have to worry about. What if artificial intelligence itself turned against us? This doesn't mean by turning "evil" in the way a human might, or the way AI disasters are depicted in Hollywood movies. Rather, we can imagine an advanced AI system as a "genie in a bottle" that can fulfill wishes, but with terrible unforeseen consequences.

In the case of a machine, there is unlikely to be malice at play, only a lack of understanding of the full context in which the wish was made. Imagine an AI system that is asked to eradicate cancer in the world. After a lot of computing, it spits out a formula that does, in fact, bring about the end of cancer – by killing everyone on the planet. The computer would have achieved its goal of "no more cancer" very efficiently, but not in the way humans intended it.

8. Singularity. How do we stay in control of a complex intelligent system?

The reason humans are on top of the food chain is not down to sharp teeth or strong muscles. Human dominance is almost entirely due to our ingenuity and intelligence. We can get the better of bigger, faster, stronger animals because we can create and use tools to control them: both physical tools such as cages and weapons, and cognitive tools like training and conditioning.

This poses a serious question about artificial intelligence: will it, one day, have the same advantage over us? We can't rely on just "pulling the plug" either, because a sufficiently advanced machine may anticipate this move and defend itself. This is what some call the “singularity”: the point in time when human beings are no longer the most intelligent beings on earth.

9. Robot rights. How do we define the humane treatment of AI?

While neuroscientists are still working on unlocking the secrets of conscious experience, we understand more about the basic mechanisms of reward and aversion. We share these mechanisms with even simple animals. In a way, we are building similar mechanisms of reward and aversion in systems of artificial intelligence. For example, reinforcement learning is similar to training a dog: improved performance is reinforced with a virtual reward.

Right now, these systems are fairly superficial, but they are becoming more complex and life-like. Could we consider a system to be suffering when its reward functions give it negative input? What's more, so-called genetic algorithms work by creating many instances of a system at once, of which only the most successful "survive" and combine to form the next generation of instances. This happens over many generations and is a way of improving a system. The unsuccessful instances are deleted. At what point might we consider genetic algorithms a form of mass murder?

Once we consider machines as entities that can perceive, feel and act, it's not a huge leap to ponder their legal status. Should they be treated like animals of comparable intelligence? Will we consider the suffering of "feeling" machines?

Some ethical questions are about mitigating suffering, some about risking negative outcomes. While we consider these risks, we should also keep in mind that, on the whole, this technological progress means better lives for everyone. Artificial intelligence has vast potential, and its responsible implementation is up to us.

Article source ": https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/10/top-10-ethical-issues-in-artificial-intelligence/

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7 questions about the future of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is having a remarkable impact on science, technology and

people’s lives, so how does it help us now and what might it mean for our imminent futures?

Here's seven questions about AI to help us understand this rising technology.

What can Brian Cox learn about AI from former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt?

Google is one of the most influential tech companies of the 21st century.

The company is exploring the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence with projects such as DeepMind.

Brian Cox will be interviewing Eric Schmidt - who recently announced he is stepping down as executive chairman of Google parent company Alphabet - live on Monday 22 January at 7:30pm.

With the help of an audience at the Science Museum, Brian will be asking Eric Schmidt: what lies ahead for AI?

This fourth episode of 'Tomorrow’s World Live' will be streamed online from BBC Tomorrow's World, Facebook and YouTube.

Is the next arms race for AI weapons?

The US have trialled using autonomous weaponised drones and they could be the next major weapons of mass destruction. The question is, do we want machines to make decisions on killing in war?

Who would a driverless car sacrifice in an accident?

Tests have shown that driverless cars can be safer than human drivers but what happens when they face split-second moral decisions?
Social dilemma of driverless cars

The social dilemma of autonomous vehicles, self driving driverless cars

Will AI overtake humanity in 2045?

Professor Bostrum from the Future of Humanity Institute suggests Artificial Intelligence could overtake humanity in 2045. The year 2045 was the median prediction based on a survey of machine learning experts.

The science and the fiction of Bostrum's prediction is explored in the Tomorrow's World podcast episode Electric Sheep.
AI overtakes humanity in 2045

Nick Bostrom from the Future of Humanity suggests AI overtakes humanity in 2045

What is the difference between 'weak' and 'strong' AI?

American philosopher John Searle designed The Chinese Room thought-experiment to show the difference between 'weak' and 'strong' AI.

If a computer convinces a Chinese speaker they are communicating with a Chinese speaking human is it really able to understand the language?

Could an AI ever be a true genius?

Great thinkers are all capable of operating and thinking in a way that is not only logical, but also abstract and creative. Professor Noel Sharkey suggests machines will never be able to emulate these human traits.

Will the next Einstein be a machine?

Noel Sharkey explores the possibility that machines could be as capable as Einstein.
What should AI look like?

Are robots meant to look like people or machines? Humans have been imagining robots for hundreds of years but decisions about how we make robots look are raising some challenging questions for today's engineers.

Article source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1Ywndk91zXt8yqK6YHVDf5s/7-questions-about-the-future-of-artificial-intelligence

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< Questions >

Q1. What is the definition of Artificial Intelligence? How about Singularity?

Q2. Artificial Intelligence can be used in many areas like Computing, Speech recognition, Bio-informatics, Humanoid robot, Computer software, Space and Aeronautics’s etc. What is the most attractive and useful field to apply this tech. ?

Q3. According to this article, top 9 ethical issues can be addressed in artificial intelligence field. For instance, unemployment, inequality, humanity, artificial stupidity, racist robots, security, unintended consequences of AI, singularity and Robot rights. What would be the most controversial agenda in AI related issue?

Q4. Do we have enough preparation for the side effects caused by the technology development such as ethical or impact assessment of specific technology ?

Q5. Do you think current technology is a way to better connect, rather than divide, human interactions?

Q6. We have so much troubles between people in our society. However, if we use more automated systems human interactions would be decreased, which can cause the more divided society. Therefore, we need to use technology discretely to design more humanity embracing society. In this aspect, how do machines affect our behaviour and interaction?

Q7. Do you think the wealth created by machines can be distributed equally? What do you think about robot tax?

Q8. Who would a driver-less car sacrifice in an accident?

Q9. Is the next arms race for AI weapons?

Q10. Will AI overtake humanity in 2045? Is AI an existential threat to humanity?

Q11. Could an AI ever be a true genius?

Q12. What should AI look like?

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Will Technology Progress or Bring down Humanity?

Over a year ago /by Natalie Shoemaker

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists decided to keep the hands of the Doomsday Clock at three minutes to midnight. The decision was meant to express disappointment in the world's failure to take dramatic action to curb climate change and the risk of nuclear disaster. Lower down on the list of potential catastrophes is a worry that disruptive technological advancements are going unchecked.

“It is clear that advances in biotechnology; in artificial intelligence, particularly for use in robotic weapons; and in the cyber realm all have the potential to create global-scale risk,” the group wrote.

The Bulletin recognizes advancements in artificial intelligence have the capacity to do great good for humanity, but also great harm. It has been growing at such a rapid pace thanks in part to deep learning, but the board and the world's brightest minds have given cause to worry.

The fear of a corporate-driven Skynet-like catastrophe has been on the minds of many brilliant thinkers. It has been such a concern for Elon Musk that he helped found OpenAI, a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company. It was established on the belief that it's “important to have a leading research institution which can prioritize a good outcome for all over its own self-interest.” This institution would help create a place to develop without the potential for misuse by an unregulated government, scientific, or corporate institution.

    "Where the technology is pushing conflict is moving so much faster than our systems ability to adapt and regulate it that it’s going to be a real challenge for us the next 10 to 15 years."

Even research done by well-intentioned people can go awry. They may be pushing the boundaries of science not stopping to think if it's something they should be doing.

Scientists have pointed out over and over again that progress comes as a double-edged sword. More technological advancements means better standards of living, but also means we're creating a number of "new ways things can go wrong,” according to Stephen Hawking.

However, Lawrence Krauss isn't convinced there's cause for immediate concern.

“Elon Musk and others who have expressed concern and Stephen Hawking are friends of mine and I understand their potential concerns, but I’m frankly not as concerned about AI in the near term at the very least as many of my friends and colleagues are,” says Krauss, who is the chair of the Bulletin's Board of Sponsors.

“We, of course, have to realize that the rate at which machines are evolving in capability may far exceed the rate at which society is able to deal with them,” he said.

For this reason, Hawking has said, “It's important to ensure that these changes are heading in the right directions. In a democratic society, this means that everyone needs to have a basic understanding of science to make informed decisions about the future.”

The Science and Security Board believes the international community should establish an institution to inspect and regulate these emerging technologies to assess any risks. So far, these technologies have gone with little oversight, which is why it falls upon society to ask for these regulators.

***

Photo Credit: Christian Science Monitor / Contributor/ Getty

Natalie has been writing professionally for about 6 years. After graduating from Ithaca College with a degree in Feature Writing, she snagged a job at PCMag.com where she had the opportunity to review all the latest consumer gadgets. Since then she has become a writer for hire, freelancing for various websites. In her spare time, you may find her riding her motorcycle, reading YA novels, hiking, or playing video games. Follow her on Twitter: @nat_schumaker

Article source : http://bigthink.com/natalie-shoemaker/scientists-behind-doomsday-clock-name-robot-apocalypse-as-a-concern

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Does Technology Replace Humanity?
By Gil Laroya/ 02/03/2010

Something that I’ve always feared about technology and social interaction, is what it brings us, versus what it takes away. With all of the cool features, gadgets and innovations that come with technology, “how“ you ask “can technology take things away?”. It’s as simple as this — technology dumbs down or replaces part of our collective humanity. It clouds our sense of urgency. It covers our fears. It takes away our sense of personal interaction. It takes away our responsibility.

Technology allows us to act, well... less human.

As technology makes machines more life-like, it is slowly turning us humans into robot-like entities, creating voids of emotion and empathy. The scary thing about this, is that we that are more and more subconsciously driven to allow this to happen.

When we think about what we want from technology, the first thoughts that come to my mind circle around our limitations and shortcomings as people. Technology is enabling us to avoid thinking about the consequences of our actions. Just like The Wizard of Oz, technology is the virtual cloak, that masks our collective man-behind-the-curtain. And as much as we know its not right, we utilize technology more and more each day to do our “dirty work”.

Convenience through technology has become a double-edged sword.

One thing that I’ve always disliked about Internet chatting was how easy it was to disconnect from the other person. I recall the term *poof* which I learned was used to blatantly tell someone that you weren’t interested in talking anymore, and digitally walk away from the conversation. As someone who isn’t really chat-saavy, that really irritated the hell out of me — how could someone just digitally thumb their nose at me and walk away? But as I got more exposure to the web and its “netiquette“, I began to realize that the web subculture was evolving into a Matrix-like machine. Everyone online does what is “accepted as normal behavior” for the Internet. New rules emerge which deal with e-mail, chatting, IM’ing and PM’ing... The internet has become a digital wild wild west. I feel like over time, the net and its digital manners have matured to a degree, but I still get the sense that we as users still abuse the dark side of technology to our own selfish benefit.

Today I look around and observe how we as users interact with each other as humans, using technology. It makes me wonder whether or not we are losing touch with what it’s like to treat a human being like a person, instead of like an e-mail address or a screen name. The convenience of technology, the same convenience that allows us to share photos and find friends, also enables our worst habits to come to fruition in ways that would normally not exist. Tech gives us an “easy out” when dealing with other human beings — sometimes to the detriment of our own humanity.

So, have you hugged your laptop, or texted a friend, lately?

Article source : https://www.huffingtonpost.com/gil-laroya/does-technology-replace-h_b_424073.html

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How to bring humanity and tech together: Innovators and advocates on hope for the future

By Aaron Orendorff/ May 18, 2017

The headlines are everywhere.

Social media makes us narcissists. Screen time atrophies the brain. Work is inescapable. We sleep less, weigh more, and report higher levels of depression … all thanks to the onslaught of tech. On the other hand, many of technology’s benefits are undeniable: longer life spans, reduced poverty, and the democratization of both knowledge and opportunity.

The question is: Can we bring humanity and tech into harmony?

To find an answer, I connected with some of tech’s biggest names — executives at places like Dropbox, Deloitte, Canon, Polycom, and more — as well as a few of tech’s lesser-known stars. Their answers point toward hope in our work, commerce, and connections.

Humanizing the tech we work with

Workplace communication is often lamented as the very antithesis of humanity.

Memo-driven hierarchies, reply-all email chains, and “new cover sheets on your TPS reports” are partly to blame. But the real disease lies deeper: namely, control, our desire to solidify tools and processes from the top down.

Ironically, the antidote comes from a relationship to tech that unshackles tools and processes, instead, from the bottom up.

Dropbox CTO Aditya Agarwal: 

“Technology should work for people, not the other way around. It succeeds when it fits seamlessly into our lives and solves real problems. Too often, it forces us to change our behavior to fit its own limitations. Think about how painful it can be to file an expense report compared to how easy it is to pay a friend with Venmo.”

“Increasingly the question of whether technology helps us or hurts us is our decision — people will choose the products they love. The way to make tech more human is to listen.”

Polycom Executive Vice President, WW Engineering Michael Frendo: 

“The future of work will be driven by technology, but technology — at home and at work — is and always will be bound by the desires, wants, passions, and needs of human beings. In enterprises, it’s a trend known as the ‘consumerization of IT.’ More and more, the tools we use at work are being driven by consumers, instead of management. The professional rise of text and video, for instance, is a direct reflection of that same rise in our day to day lives.”

“The key, however, is to prioritize bandwidth for infrastructure and freedom for personal choice.”

Deloitte Chief Innovation Officer Ragu Gurumurthy: 

“Technology should be viewed as a way to better connect, rather than divide, human interactions. For example, AV/VR technologies combined with ubiquitous, broadband capabilities could enhance the collaborations of workers in remote locations.”

“Regarding intelligent automation, we don’t foresee a quick, wholesale pivot to robotics but rather humans staying in the loop to perform the higher value work of making decisions and taking actions based on insights produced by machines.”

 “So with the right mindset, technology can enrich work rather than impoverish it. It can accentuate our humanity and maximize our potential.” 

CEO of Quip, a Salesforce Company, Bret Taylor: 

“At its core, work is about communication. It's about people sharing work, ideas, and opinions. Productivity suites were built to facilitate this — but that was a long time ago. The way we communicate has shifted dramatically since then, and we need not a better but an entirely new way to work together.”

“If we redesigned productivity software around the way people work today — connected, mobile, and social — how would it work? We’d elevate the fundamentals of human communication over esoteric features that most people don’t even use anymore and unify content and communication. It’s a next-generation way to work together.”

Making commerce relevant and inclusive

To say the Internet fundamentally changed commerce is an understatement. However, the gulf between physical and digital products — as well as the gulf between the haves and have-nots — has been a bane since its inception.

For consumers, more automation often means less individuality. Especially when it comes to irrelevant marketing and the disenfranchised. Can technology bridge these worlds?

Shopify Plus VP & General Manager Loren Padelford 

“The lines between ecommerce and commerce are blurring as more and more brands look to experiment with traditional retail models. Pop-up shops for product drops and digital showrooms where people can co-create through VR, AR, and 3D are just two examples.”

“Whether in-person, online, or blended, these experiences should integrate with purchase history, browsing behavior, and geolocation. Bringing those pieces together creates the kind of deep personalization we naturally crave.”

Hubspot Co-Founder & CTO Dharmesh Shah 

“Paradoxically, I think machines are going to help us make our relationships with our customers more human.”

“With advances in machine learning, digital assistants will be able to understand customer history and context and handle repetitive tasks much better.”

“This will free humans to focus more on the relationship instead of rote tasks.”

Convince & Convert President Jay Baer 

“The key is to remember that technology — even AI and cognitive — serves at the pleasure of the people. It’s easy to be seduced by the multitude of magic wands at our disposal, but it's always about the wizard.”

 “The best way to bring humanity back to tech is to force yourself to be surrounded by people. Sitting in an office, spitting out reports, and using them to infer customer needs and desires is shortsighted. And that robs us of what is really lacking in much of technology today: empathy.”

“Start with requiring the makers of technology to spend two hours per week with real customers, observing how they use it.”

Tala CEO & Founder Shivani Siroya 

“There’s a misunderstanding that technology is somehow neutral or unbiased, which is simply not true: anything made by humans is going to be biased, so we need to have a bias for inclusion."

“It might seem counterintuitive, but we can make financial services more human by servicing the underserved via a smartphone app versus a traditional bank. Many of our customers call us family; they think of us as a friend or a partner.”

“We’re able to include people who are excluded from traditional finance. Women, for example, often encounter discrimination in a face-to-face interaction with a male lender; being able to access credit from the palm of their hand is liberating. Even men tell us they are afraid to face more formal lenders sometimes for fear of rejection and the shame that might bring them. Having a private, personal relationship with your financial services validates our customer’s humanity, and reminds them that someone out there believes in them.”

Fostering connections that don’t add to the noise

Perhaps the most daunting challenge is how tech affects relationships. Study after study not only documents the increasing time we spend behind screens but also their interpersonal dark side.

Of course, how we use technology is far more important than what and when. Setting aside its abuses — and, in some cases, combating them — means leveraging our new-found interconnectedness for “the good.”

Canon Director of Internal & External Communications Melissa Dara Moritz

“We need to remember why technology is evolving in the first place: it solves real problems and connects people.”

“One example includes using the latest imaging technology to help find missing children or prevent the exploitation of children. Canon has partnered for the last 20 years with The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children by providing the latest state-of-the-art technology which allows law enforcement to quickly disseminate photos across the U.S., not just to law-enforcement, but through social media as well.”

Buffer Director of Engineering Niel de la Rouviere 

“We released a feature called Content Suggestions in 2014, and there was a substantial bump in platform use. Many users loved it. However, we noticed that some were sharing identical posts without reading them.”

“Essentially, we were contributing to spam, which was not great for content creators and also not great for Buffer as a product. We believe in creating authentic voices on social media, and this broke down that trust users had in us.”

“Even though this feature had lots of traction we ultimately decided to shut it down. At the time, we had our values of ‘Listen First’ and ‘Do the right thing’ top of mind.”

Xandra Co-founder & Head of Product Jess Thoms 

“With the rise of chatbots and voice assistants like Alexa and Google Home, talking to computers is becoming the norm. The challenge at this point is how to personalize interactions, and connect humans and computers on a more intimate level.”

“Brands are already taking the lead in engaging conversational experiences are tailoring their bot personas to directly reflect their target audience for the best chance of retention and engagement. In messaging platforms  —  planning a personality that informs the dialogue and entire interaction with consumers is critical. These authentic brand experiences won’t be led by engineers — but rather writers and designers, who can connect humans to technology through storytelling.”

BITNATION Founder Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof

“Technology has the ability to connect people across the artificial lines in the sand we call nation-state borders. At BITNATION we're using the blockchain technology to help people create their own nations, based on their beliefs and desires, rather than on where they were arbitrarily born.”

“Using the blockchain we've helped refugees. People have used our technology to get married, to title their land, to write birth certificates and wills, and much more.”

Make “technology about people and not about technology”

Writing about the patron saint of innovation, columnist Jason Hiner explained, “Steve Jobs’s most important contribution will be that he made technology about people and not about technology.”  

Is there hope for the future of humanity and tech? Certainly. This doesn’t mean the pitfalls are easy to avoid, but it does mean they’re far from inevitable.

Tangible buying experiences, serving the underserved, the “consumerization of IT,” and crossing traditional borders all point to the power of tech to reinforce our humanity rather than undercut it. 

After all, humans aren’t merely dominated by tech. We are its creators and hope lies in the image of ourselves we stamp upon it.

Aaron Orendorff is the founder of iconiContent and a regular contributor at Entrepreneur, Lifehacker, Fast Company, Business Insider and more. Connect with him about content marketing (and bunnies) on Facebook or Twitter.

Article source : https://mashable.com/2017/05/17/how-to-bring-tech-and-humanity-together/#0h7b3xhNjqqj

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How Technology Can Transform Workplace Humanity
Louis Efron , Contributor/ Dec 3, 2017

One could argue that technology has done more to harm humans than to help them. Interactions that were once between people have been redirected toward screens—just think of office exchanges, self-checkouts and online purchases. The allure of technology has led to distracted driving, which puts masses of road users at risk, and its potential misuse has caused many to fear for personal and national security. There is even speculation that artificial intelligence (AI) may ultimately destroy the world.

Despite its apparent drawbacks, technology has also opened a world of possibilities that few could have imagined. People can travel and interact with the world virtually, without ever leaving their living room or office. Nearly every piece of knowledge accumulated since the beginning of time is a voice command away. Technology has even put the possibility of living on another planet within reach. The opportunities that await are mind-boggling.

If leveraged correctly, technology has the ability to positively influence and support our humanity rather than push it away. It can help engage, recognize and protect those we care about and the people who work in organizations.

Bad First Impressions

When it comes to supporting people, technology’s entry into the workplace was not viewed in a positive light by most employees. Workforce management technology first appeared in the late 1800s in the form of time clocks. This innovation helped companies pay employees correctly for the hours they worked, but mainly it served as a tool to discipline workers for cheating on work hours, showing up late, taking long or undocumented breaks or leaving early.

The move from mechanically punched time cards to computerized time clock software reduced payroll processing costs and improved efficiency, and it helped control “buddy punching” (employees clocking in for other coworkers), a widespread problem for employers. Such software also enabled real-time monitoring of employees—among the first signs of an unseen “Big Brother” entering the professional workplace.

Time tracking and payroll system technology added to the dehumanization of the workplace because it relied on employee numbers as its main file locators. People now needed to remember and use their employee number instead of their name to navigate the workday.

Feeling the need for more control and oversight, organizations mounted surveillance cameras in offices and at manufacturing and distribution sites. This was followed by the installation of technology that monitored e-mail and computer use. While these systems may have been installed with good intentions for improving safety or for compliance reasons, they have been used primarily to spy on, discipline and terminate employees who step out of line.

While some of these early workplace technologies may have improved productivity, efficiency and business results, as well as decreased improper behavior, they have been driven mainly by the need to address negative elements in the workplace. This evolution has led employees to mistrust and fear much workplace technology.

What Workplace Technology Should Do For People

From time clocks to self-service human-resources platforms that allow people to manage their payroll and benefits directly, technology in the workplace is being adapted to benefit the human experience. However, these positive developments have only scratched the surface of what is truly possible.

Technology in an organization today must enable people to be more productive, efficient and innovative; stay connected internally and externally; and feel safe and cared for. It should facilitate the comfortable and expeditious flow of people, ideas and emotions.

In the world we now live in, poor or outdated technology limits human experience in significant ways and exposes people and organizations to cybercrime.

Creating An Alignment Between People And Technology

Considering the vast number of available ways to communicate today, mirroring a person’s tech use outside the organization with internal systems is more productive for everyone. This approach doesn’t require people to learn new systems or waste the organization’s time or money in training. Also, the bring your own device (BOYD) to work movement is allowing work and life to blend in a way that is nearly seamless. This speeds new hire onboarding and gives recent recruits one less thing to worry about.

Though many corporations resist allowing people to toggle between work and personal social platforms, this type of cerebral shift can relieve workday stress, create a deeper connection to the work environment and even improve business results. A study by Pew Research Center reported that 78% of people use personal social media for work-related activities such as solving problems or fostering relationships with coworkers. Another 34% use social media to take a mental break from work. Assuming people are delivering on their job expectations, banning or limiting the use of personal social media at work takes away from the humanity and reality of the world we live in and represents a losing battle. Pew’s study reported that 77% of people are using personal social media at work regardless of their company’s policy. In this case, it is better to leverage the appeal of social media than to fight it.

Social technology platforms like Yammer or Jive are helping people in organizations stay as connected to colleagues as they do to friends and family in their personal lives and lets them innovate at record speeds while improving workplace satisfaction, retention and recognition.

Transforming Workplace Humanity Through Technology

Rusty and Sam Sailors, CEO and president, respectively, of San Diego–based Secure Smart Office have built a company around leveraging technology to bring greater humanity to the workplace. They are looking at ways to bring people closer together and make them feel more cared for, increasing engagement, productivity and innovation. Their goal is to “improve 1/3 of your day”—this is the company’s motto and the proportion represents the time the average person spends at work.

The Sailors’ views reflect a transformational focus on humanity over employment; they see a distinct competitive advantage in making it pleasurable to work for an organization. Their company focuses on everything from automatically controlling the air quality of an office environment, which improves concentration and energy levels, to fully automated and secure office suites. With AI products that assist in coordinating calendars, meetings and projects and that model routine behavior to detect possible cybercrimes against the people who work for you—very much like the models credit card companies use to protect card holders from fraud by flagging irregular use—Secure Smart Office is changing the way humans interact with their work environment.

In an AI-enhanced work space such as an office or conference room, the environment will adapt to your needs and preferences, automatically adjusting the lighting, window tint, seat and desk height and temperature in anticipation of your arrival and the time of day. Using information such as a scheduled meeting in your calendar, the sound of your voice, a gesture or detection of an implanted RIF chip, the entire room automatically changes to suit your personal likes and will learn when new adjustments are needed. Your family pictures appear on desktop screens, a computer is ready for your use with no additional sign-in and your scheduled WebEx or virtual holographic meeting will start without prompting and seamlessly follows you to other locations or switches from a wall screen to handheld or treadmill screens as you navigate your day. In group settings, the office environment is automatically calibrated to increase comfort, productivity and room efficiency. Even elevators can access your calendar and take you to the floor you need without you pressing any buttons. The possibilities for making life easier and more enjoyable through technology are endless.

When technology supports people in a smart way, humans can move comfortably through their days, be more productive and innovative and spend more time with family and friends. High-tech, green, living office spaces like The Edge in Amsterdam are not only highly engaging, smart and enjoyable workplaces, they reduce the building’s electric expenses through lighting efficiencies by 80%—electricity represents, on average, 40% of the cost of powering a building—and they garner even more savings by powering nearly everything else from computers to coffee makers through an exterior made of solar panels.

People of the future may even be able to be warned by an AI monitor when they are spending too much time at work on personal social media or other non-work-related tasks, heading off intervention by their boss. Such an application would increase trust of technology because the program is looking out for people rather than playing Big Brother. Such systems can lower employee turnover, which represents a large organizational expense, and decrease management’s need to monitor employees while increasing engagement and productivity and leading people to feeling cared for and valued.

Leveraging advanced technology to support humanity in the workplace is a transformational concept. Organizations that get it right will attract, engage and retain the very best of the human race.

For more information, visit PurposeMeetsExecution.com and check out my new book Purpose Meets Execution: How Winning Organizations Accelerate Engagement and Drive Profits.

Article source : https://www.forbes.com/sites/louisefron/2017/12/03/how-technology-can-transform-workplace-humanity/#3602e9182f00

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< Questions >

Q1. How to bring humanity and tech together?

Q2. Why do we need technology? What is the core value of technology development?

Q3. How to make our technological development foster inclusive growth?

Q4. Article said that Convenience through technology has become a double-edged sword. What do you think about it?

Q5. Who is the share holders of technology mostly? Who is the beneficiary of those technologies? Then entities who develop those technologies can design and act equally on the distribution of benefits?

Q6. Have you ever used the chatbots and voice assistants like Alexa and Google Home, talking to computers? How do you feel about it?

Q7. How many times do you figure out the aftermath of your action? Then how about our technological development system's structure? Do we have proper control system to predict the merits and demerits of technology in our society?

Q8. Above article suggested that make technology about people and not about technology.  Do you think we are developing technology about people or technology about technology ?

Q9. When we are preparing new future, we need a map and strategies. How about technological development? Do we have a map? Or do we examine the anticipated impact assessment thoroughly? What is the required for our future security?

Q10. Will Technology Progress or Bring down Humanity?

Q11. Do you think technology can replace Humanity?

Q12. How do you think about the monitoring system at work? For instance, time clocking systems, surveillance camera or monitoring on computer use? Is it efficient or workable way ?

Q13. What is the meaning of self-driven working?

Q14. After all, every technology is designed by human being. In this aspect, technology designers notion is very important. Technology can be a tool to control people or a tool to support to make better performance for each individual at work. How about you? If you are a owner of a company what would be the reason to use technology ?

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Top 10 Things That Make Humans Special

By Charles Q. Choi, Live Science Contributor | March 25, 2016 01:07pm ET

Different, Odd, Special
Humans are unusual animals by any stretch of the imagination. Our special abilities, from big brains to opposable thumbs, have allowed us change our world dramatically and even leave the planet. There are also odd things about us that are, well, just special in relation to the rest of the animal kingdom. So what exactly makes us so special? Some things we take completely for granted might surprise you.

Speech

The larynx, or voice box, sits lower in the throat in humans than in chimps, one of several features that enable human speech. Human ancestors evolved a descended larynx roughly 350,000 years ago. We also possess a descended hyoid bone — this horseshoe-shaped bone below the tongue, unique in that it is not attached to any other bones in the body, allows us to articulate words when speaking.

Upright Posture

Humans are unique among the primates in how walking fully upright is our chief mode of locomotion. This frees our hands up for using tools. Unfortunately, the changes made in our pelvis for moving on two legs, in combination with babies with large brains, makes human childbirth unusually dangerous compared with the rest of the animal kingdom. A century ago, childbirth was a leading cause of death for women. The lumbar curve in the lower back, which helps us maintain our balance as we stand and walk, also leaves us vulnerable to lower back pain and strain.

Nakedness

We look naked compared to our hairier ape cousins. Surprisingly, however, a square inch of human skin on average possesses as much hair-producing follicles as other primates, or more — humans often just have thinner, shorter, lighter hairs. Fun fact about hair: Even though we don't seem to have much, it apparently helps us detect parasites, according to one study.

Clothing

Humans may be called "naked apes," but most of us wear clothing, a fact that makes us unique in the animal kingdom, save for the clothing we make for other animals. The development of clothing has even influenced the evolution of other species — the body louse, unlike all other kinds, clings to clothing, not hair.

Extraordinary Brains

Without a doubt, the human trait that sets us apart the most from the animal kingdom is our extraordinary brain. Humans don't have the largest brains in the world — those belong to sperm whales. We don't even have the largest brains relative to body size — many birds have brains that make up more than 8 percent of their body weight, compared to only 2.5 percent for humans. Yet the human brain, weighing only about 3 pounds when fully grown, give us the ability to reason and think on our feet beyond the capabilities of the rest of the animal kingdom, and provided the works of Mozart, Einstein and many other geniuses. [Brain Facts]

Hands

Contrary to popular misconceptions, humans are not the only animals to possess opposable thumbs — most primates do. (Unlike the rest of the great apes, we don't have opposable big toes on our feet.) What makes humans unique is how we can bring our thumbs all the way across the hand to our ring and little fingers. We can also flex the ring and little fingers toward the base of our thumb. This gives humans a powerful grip and exceptional dexterity to hold and manipulate tools with. This is getting off the topic, but what if we all had six fingers?

Fire

The human ability to control fire would have brought a semblance of day to night, helping our ancestors to see in an otherwise dark world and keep nocturnal predators at bay. The warmth of the flames also helped people stay warm in cold weather, enabling us to live in cooler areas. And of course it gave us cooking, which some researchers suggest influenced human evolution — cooked foods are easier to chew and digest, perhaps contributing to human reductions in tooth and gut size.

Blushing

Humans are the only species known to blush, a behavior Darwin called "the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions." It remains uncertain why people blush, involuntarily revealing our innermost emotions (we do know how it works). The most common idea is that blushing helps keep people honest, benefiting the group as a whole.

Long Childhoods

Humans must remain in the care of their parents for much longer than other living primates. The question then becomes why, when it might make more evolutionary sense to grow as fast as possible to have more offspring. The explanation may be our large brains, which presumably require a long time to grow and learn.

Life after Children

Most animals reproduce until they die, but in humans, females can survive long after ceasing reproduction. This might be due to the social bonds seen in humans — in extended families, grandparents can help ensure the success of their families long after they themselves can have children.

Article source : https://www.livescience.com/15689-evolution-human-special-species.html

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What Makes Us Human?
12/09/2013 / Thomas Suddendorf(Professor of Psychology at the University of Queensland​)

The physical similarities between humans and other mammals are quite plain. We are made of the same flesh and blood; we go through the same basic life stages. Yet reminders of our shared inheritance with other animals have become the subject of cultural taboos: sex, menstruation, pregnancy, birth, feeding, defecation, urination, bleeding, illness, and dying. Messy stuff. However, even if we try to throw a veil over it, the evidence for evolutionary continuity between human and animal bodies is overwhelming. After all, we can use mammalian organs and tissues, such as a pig’s heart valve, to replace our own malfunctioning body parts. A vast industry conducts research on animals to test drugs and procedures intended for humans because human and animal bodies are so profoundly alike. The physical continuity of humans and animals is incontestable. But the mind is another matter.

Our mental capacities have allowed us to tame fire and invent the wheel. We survive by our wits. Our minds have spawned civilizations and technologies that have changed the face of the Earth, while even our closest living animal relatives sit unobtrusively in their remaining forests. There appears to be a tremendous gap between human and animal minds, yet the precise nature of this gap has been notoriously difficult to establish.

People tend to have opinions about animal minds that are in stark contrast to each other. At one extreme, we imbue our pets with all manner of mental characteristics, treating them as if they were little people in furry suits. At the other, we regard animals as mindless bio-machines — consider the ways animals are sometimes treated in the food industry. Most people vacillate between these interpretations from one context to another.

Scientists too seem at times to defend contradicting views, apparently aimed at either securing human dominance or at debunking human arrogance. On the one hand scholars boldly assert that humans are unique because of things such as language, foresight, mind-reading, intelligence, culture, or morality. On the other hand, studies regularly claim to have demonstrated animal capacities that were previously believed to be uniquely human.

The truth, you may suspect, can often be found somewhere in the middle. In THE GAP I survey what we currently know and do not know about what makes human minds different from any others and how this difference arose. It is about time that serious headway is made on these fundamental questions. Nothing less than understanding our place in nature is at stake. There are also important practical implications of establishing the nature of the gap, for instance, in terms of identifying the genetic and neurological bases of higher mental capacities. Those traits that are unique to humans are likely dependent on attributes of our brain and genome that are distinct.

A clearer understanding of what we share with which other animals also can have profound consequences for animal welfare. Demonstrations of shared attributes of pain and mental distress in animals have changed many people’s views on blood sports and cruelty towards animals. Establishing their mental capacities, their wants and needs, can provide a better scientific basis for our decisions about how different species should be treated. It may be time to challenge the notion that mentally sophisticated creatures are legally treated as objects, no different from cars or iPhones.

Comparative research has shown that our closest animal relatives, the great apes, share some extraordinary capacities with humans, such as the ability to recognize their reflections in mirrors. Such findings have led to calls to accept great apes into our community of equals, with legally enforceable rights. But we need to take into account not only their impressive capacities, but also their limits; because with rights come responsibilities — such as respecting others’ rights.

Though we may be perfectly happy to extend the right to life, liberty, and freedom from torture to apes (and so would be willing to prosecute someone who kills an ape), would we be equally happy with the other side of the coin? Would we be willing to put an ape on trial for murder? In 2002, Frodo, a 27-year-old chimpanzee studied by Jane Goodall, snatched and killed a fourteen-month-old human toddler, Miasa Sadiki, in Tanzania. I do not remember calls for a trial. Moreover, should we police ape-ape rights violations? Surely there would be little point in prosecuting male orangutans for rape or a chimpanzee for infanticide. Yet, people used to think animals could be held responsible like humans can. During the European Middle Ages, animals were in fact frequently put on trial for immoral acts such as murder or theft. They were given lawyers and penalties that matched those given to humans for similar crimes. For instance, in 1386 a court in Falaise, France, tried and convicted a sow for murdering an infant. The hangman subsequently hung the pig in the public square. Her piglets had also been charged but, upon deliberation, were acquitted because of their youth.

One of the key characteristics that makes us human appears to be that we can think about alternative futures and make deliberate choices accordingly. Creatures without such a capacity cannot be bound into a social contract and take moral responsibility. Once we become aware about what we cause, however, we may feel morally obliged to change our ways. So be aware, then, that all species of apes are under threat of extinction through human activity. We are the only species on this planet with the foresight capable of deliberately plotting a path toward a desirable long-term future. Plan it for the apes; because they can’t.

Thomas Suddendorf, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Queensland​ in Australia and a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. He studies the development of mental capacities in young children and in nonhuman animals, and is particularly interested in fundamental questions about the nature and evolution of the human mind. He has received honors and distinctions from the Association for Psychological Science, the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and the American Psychological Association. He has written a dozen book chapters and published more than 60 articles, including a 2007 Behavioral and Brain Sciences paper with Michael Corballis on the evolution of foresight that has been singled out as one of the most highly cited in the field of neuroscience and behaviour. He has just completed his first trade book: “THE GAP — The Science of What Separates Us From Other Animals“

Article source : https://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-suddendorf/what-makes-us-human_b_4414357.html

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The traits that make human beings unique

We’re all just animals… right? Not so fast, says Melissa Hogenboom,

a few things make us different from any other species.

By Melissa Hogenboom / 6 July 2015

"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." So said the physicist Robert Oppenheimer, who helped to invent the atomic bomb.

The two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 killed around 200,000 Japanese people. No other species has ever wielded such power, and no species could.

The technology behind the atomic bomb only exists because of a cooperative hive mind: hundreds of scientists and engineers working together. The same unique intelligence and cooperation also underlies more positive advances, such as modern medicine.

But is that all that defines us? In recent years, many traits once believed to be uniquely human, from morality to culture, have been found in the animal kingdom (see part one in this two-part series). So, what exactly makes us special? The list might be smaller than it once was, but there are some traits of ours that no other creature on Earth can match.

Ever since we learned to write, we have documented how special we are. The philosopher Aristotle marked out our differences over 2,000 years ago. We are "rational animals" pursuing knowledge for its own sake. We live by art and reasoning, he wrote.

Much of what he said stills stands. Yes, we see the roots of many behaviours once considered uniquely human in our closest relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos. But we are the only ones who peer into their world and write books about it.

"Obviously we have similarities. We have similarities with everything else in nature; it would be astonishing if we didn't. But we've got to look at the differences," says Ian Tattersall, a paleoanthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, US.

To understand these differences, a good place to start is to look at how we got here. Why are we the only human species still alive today whereas many of our early-human ancestors went extinct?

Humans and chimpanzees diverged from our common ancestor more than six million years ago. Fossil evidence points to the ways which we have gradually changed. We left the trees, started walking and began to live in larger groups. And then our brains got bigger. Physically we are another primate, but our bigger brains are unusual.

We don't know exactly what led to our brains becoming the size they are today, but we seem to owe our complex reasoning abilities to it.

It is likely that we have our big brain to thank that we exist at all. When we – Homo sapiens – first appeared about 200,000 years ago we weren't alone. We shared the planet at least four other upright cousins; Neanderthals, Denisovans, the "hobbit" Homo floresiensis and a mysterious fourth group.

The human brain is advantageously big (Credit: Thinkstock)

Evidence in the form of stone tools suggests that for about 100,000 years our technology was very similar to the Neanderthals. But 80,000 years ago something changed.

"The Neanderthals had an impressive but basically routine material record for a hominid. Once H. sapiens started behaving in a strange, [more sophisticated] way, all hell broke loose and change became the norm," Tattersall says.

We started to produce superior cultural and technological artefacts. Our stone tools became more intricate. One study proposes that our technological innovation was key for our migration out of Africa. We started to assign symbolic values to objects such as geometrical designs on plaques and cave art.

By contrast, there is little evidence that any other hominins made any kind of art. One example, which was possibly made by Neanderthals, was hailed as proof they had similar levels of abstract thought. However, it is a simple etching and some question whether Neanderthals made it at all. The symbols made by H. sapiens are clearly more advanced. We had also been around for 100,000 years before symbolic objects appeared so what happened?

Somehow, our language-learning abilities were gradually "switched on", Tattersall argues. In the same way that early birds developed feathers before they could fly, we had the mental tools for complex language before we developed it.

We started with language-like symbols as a way to represent the world around us, he says. For example, before you say a word, your brain first has to have a symbolic representation of what it means. These mental symbols eventually led to language in all its complexity and the ability to process information is the main reason we are the only hominin still alive, Tattersall argues.

It's not clear exactly when speech evolved, or how. But it seems likely that it was partly driven by another uniquely human trait: our superior social skills.

Comparative studies between humans and chimps show that while both will cooperate, humans will always help more. Children seem to be innate helpers. They act selflessly before social norms set in. Studies have shown that they will spontaneously open doors for adults and pick up "accidentally" dropped items. They will even stop playing to help. Their sense of fairness begins young. Even if an experiment is unfairly rigged so that one child receives more rewards, they will ensure a reward is fairly split.

We know that chimpanzees also work together and share food in apparently unselfish ways. However, Michael Tomasello of the Max Planck institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, says they will only cooperate if there is something in it for them.

"Humans do that too, but in addition they care about what their partner gets. In some experiments we have children as young as 14-18 months who seem to expect their partner to collaborate in certain ways and who share in ways chimps don't."

Human children are less selective about who they share with. Chimpanzees though, largely only share with close relatives, reciprocating partners or potential mates.

Felix Warneken of Harvard University in Cambridge, US, differentiates it like this. Children are "proactive", that is, they help even when presented with only very subtle cues. Chimpanzees though, need more encouragement. They are "reactive": they will hand over objects but only after some nudging.

Something must have happened in our evolution, Tomasello says, to make humans increasingly reliant on each other. Our brains needed fuel to get bigger and so collaborative hunting may have played a key role in that. Our advanced teamwork may simply reflect our long history of working together to get food.

Mind readers

The fact that our nearest relatives share too simply shows that it is an ancient trait. It was already present in the messy branch of early humans that led to us, but none of these other species were as hyper cooperative as we are today.  

These cooperative skills are closely tied to our incredible mind reading skills. We understand what others think based upon our knowledge of the world, but we also understand what others cannot know. The Sally-Anne task is a simple way to test young children's ability to do this.

The child witnesses a doll called Sally putting a marble in a basket in full view of another doll, Anne. When Sally leaves the room, Anne moves the marble to a box. Sally then comes back, and the experimenter asks the child where Sally will look for the marble.

Because Sally didn't see Anne move the marble, she will have a "false belief" that the marble is still in the basket. Most 4-year-olds can grasp this, and say that Sally will look in the basket. They know the marble is not there, but they also understand that Sally is missing the key bit of information.

Chimps can knowingly deceive others, so they understand the world view of others to some extent. However, they cannot understand others' false beliefs. In a chimpanzee version of the Sally-Anne task, researchers found that they understand when a competitor is ignorant of the location of food, but not when they have been misinformed. Tomasello puts it like this: chimpanzees know what others know and what others can see, but not what others believe. 

This tells us something profound about ourselves. While we are not the only creatures who understand that others have intentions and goals, "we are certainly unique in the level of abstractness with which we can reason about others' mental states", says Katja Karg, also of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

When you pull together our unparalleled language skills, our ability to infer others' mental states and our instinct for cooperation, you have something unprecedented. Us.

Just look around you, Tomasello says, "we're chatting and doing an interview, they (chimps) are not."

We have our advanced language skills to thank for that. We may see evidence of basic linguistic abilities in chimpanzees, but we are the only ones writing things down.

We tell stories, we dream, we imagine things about ourselves and others and we spend a great deal of time thinking about the future and analysing the past.

There's more to it, Thomas Suddendorf, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Queensland in Australia is keen to point out. We have a fundamental urge to link our minds together. "This allows us to take advantage of others' experiences, reflections and imaginings to prudently guide our own behaviour.

"We link our scenario-building minds into larger networks of knowledge." This in turn helps us to accumulate information through many generations.

That our rapidly expanding technology has allowed us all to become instant publishers means we can share such information at the touch of a button. And this transmission of ideas and technology helps us in our quest to uncover even more about ourselves. That is, we use language to continue ideas that others put forward.

Of course, we pass on the good and the bad. The technology that defines us can also destroy worlds.

Take murder. Humans aren't the only species that kill each other. We're not even the only species that fight wars. But our intelligence and social prowess mean we can do so on an unprecedented scale.

Charles Darwin, in his book The Descent of Man, wrote that humans and animals only differ in degree, not kind. This still stands true but Suddendorf says that it is precisely these gradual changes that make us extraordinary and has led to "radically different possibilities of thinking".

And it is these thoughts that allow us to pinpoint to our differences with chimpanzees. That we do so is because they are the closest living relative we have. If any of the now extinct early humans were still alive, we would be comparing our behaviour to them instead.

Still, as far as we know, we are the only creatures trying to understand where we came from. We also peer further back in time, and further into the future, than any other animal. What other species would think to ponder the age of the universe, or how it will end?"

We have an immense capacity for good. At the same time we risk driving our closest relatives to extinction and destroying the only planet we have ever called home.

This is part of a two-part feature series looking at whether humans are really unique. Part one looks at the similarities between us and our closest relatives.

Article source : http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150706-the-small-list-of-things-that-make-humans-unique

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< Questions >

Q1. What is the definition of 'Humanity'?

Q2. What is the characteristics of human? For example, bigger brain, upright-posture, speech , advanced teamwork or language-learning ability?

Q3. What make us human? morality, culture or reflection ?

Q4. How to distinguish humanity from other animals?

Q5. According to a prof. Thomas, One of the key characteristics that makes us human appears to be that we can think about alternative futures and make deliberate choices accordingly. Then any entities act like use, should we treat them equally? Even for Robots? What do you think about Robot right?