Michio Kaku talks digital possibilities: Page 2 of 2
By Anushia Kandasivam December 14, 2017
Vision, energy and wealth
All this builds up to one fact: “Capitalism itself is changing,” said Kaku.
“Here’s how you become a billionaire: you take an industry, any industry, write down who are the middle men, where are the inefficiencies, where are the frictions of capitalism, and then you digitise it.”
This, he said, is how Jeff Bezos did it.
So how do entrepreneurs get in on this perfect form of capitalism? How does Malaysia, and other still-developing economies create the spark that is needed to go rocketing off into space?
“We need more entrepreneurs to create the vision, the imagination, and then of course the energy to bring this to fruition. It's not enough to simply have lots of ego workers and a government that's sympathetic. You need to have people, with the skills, imagination and drive to carry through these plans to create this new industry,” Kaku told Digital News Asia.
He pointed out that while it took 200 years to fully industrialise the West, countries in Southeast Asia can complete their fourth wave of industrialisation in 20 years if governments work together with entrepreneurs.
Besides conscious government policy, the key is to nourish the entrepreneurs, especially in cultures where, traditionally, making mistakes and shaking up the status quo are frowned upon. “I think it’s a mindset and culture that is not natural to many societies, it is not natural for many people to be innovative. Therefore, we have to cultivate the spirit.”
It is not going to be easy, he said, but we have to train a new group of people to take leadership roles, use the ideas and energy, and the knowledge of how to use money from wealthy people to channel into real projects that generate income and wealth for this new economy.
Innovation up for grabs but only with education
“There is no one group that has a monopoly on innovation,” said Kaku, adding that the beauty of all the new technology of the future is that it is up for grabs.
“Any country can start a software programme to develop AI, create a robot if they’re smart enough. I can see the day when Silicon Valley becomes obsolete and a Silicon Valley will open up, perhaps a quantum valley,” he said, referring to the fact that the next generation of computers may be quantum computers.
“Any nation that has the audacity and smarts can become leaders in this new technology. Nobody has a patent on the future.”
He added that developing countries have an advantage over developed ones in the revolution, in that by using the latest technology, the former can create transportation and Internet infrastructure that is better than the latter, who have to contend with infrastructure that is decades, if not more than 100 years old.
As with any revolution, there will, however, be people left behind. The third revolution and the beginnings of the fourth has seen 70% of the US workforce stagnate or get left behind within the last 15-20 years, said Kaku. This has created a backlash, most prominently represented by President Donald Trump’s anti-globalisation sentiments.
“Initially, every revolution creates inequality but eventually all boats are lifted. Society survives, we absorb the opposition and go to a higher level once the revolution goes to fruition.”
The only way to prevent people being left behind in the fourth revolution is through education. Kaku points out that 30% of the US population thrived during the last few decades, and 30% of the US population are university graduates – an obvious correlation.
“Every technology requires education; this new revolution is nothing new. We have to make sure people are not left behind, that’s why we need to have education to have jobs in the future,” he said.
As a futurist, Kaku says that he still does get surprised by the future – when it goes faster than predicted. For example, in the mid-1990s, he predicted that by 2020 personal genomics would be possible. At a conference in Germany, his prediction was denounced by a biologist.
“It takes months to one gene and I’m predicting personalised genome by 2020? He said that it’s outrageous,” he quipped. But personal genomics are now commercially available, and Kaku was off in his prediction by a few years.
“It’s a good thing when the future moves faster than I predict,” he said.
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