Cyberness is a new term referring to a positive state of the future. Cyberness is a vision of a new world, including a new way to look at society, at the economy, and the forms to which we need to harness Cyber-Age. The fundamental principles of Cyberness are partnership, care and creation. Cyberness describes future living, where we blend real and virtual worlds, we embed artificial intelligence for creating a sustainable decent life for all inhabitants on the planet. Cyberness is not a Utopia – it is a call for society to shift gears and adapt new paradigms in order to secure the planet for generations to come. Cyberness is an urgent call to get out of the comfort-zone. “We can attain whatever we can imagine!”
Our comfort zone is built on quicksand; we need to move out of it rapidly before we sink! We need to replace old paradigms with new ones. We are about to witness the most dramatic changes seen since the end of ancient civilization ten thousand years ago. We are realizing that we are part of an interdependent world. A new worldview is emerging and a fundamental shift of values is occurring. The world, our world, is rapidly evolving. As new possibilities and opportunities emerge, we have the chance to reshape our world. Yes, we can achieve whatever we can imagine. Therefore we need to be very careful about our dreams. And we need to go far beyond where we are today! We need to leave our comfort zone, which means leaving our home base and venturing out beyond, the universe of conventional ideas, even beyond imagination!
“The future is the most fragile of all things.”
People no longer trust many of the traditional institutions, including corporations, governments, or even religions. They feel cheated and betrayed by their leaders. We argue that this opens a window of opportunity to redesign and reinvent not only the financial system but also the economy and society as a whole. The young generation complains about their future, which went missing. Cyberness offers a new direction for our dreams and gives new hope. Cyberness is a bold undertaking; it is a visionary and partially utopian claim. But it is not just an intellectual adventure. It is a vision very much needed at a time when humanity seems to have lost direction. Cyberness gives people hope when all existing establishments are losing value, and when highly sophisticated machines are about to challenge human primacy. Cyberness promises a world where meaningfulness is the main value of work and the future generations have a real future again.
“Humanity needs a new dream! Partnership and care are the fundamentals of this new dream.”
Humanity is at a crossroads. The decisions we make and the actions we take today will impact the route that humanity will travel. We need to use our imagination, mobilize our creativity, and envision new paths. Perhaps we may need to go beyond imagination into fiction. Merely reshaping our out-of-balance systems will not be sufficient. We need to restructure and reinvent frameworks for our societies, families, politics, and economics. We need to question the underlying assumptions of science, as well as our religious foundations, and move beyond existing myths, axioms, and paradigms. We need to develop systemic solutions to cope with a complex and connected world. For all of these reasons, we need to leave our comfort zone and venture into the zone where we dare to dream to create our future. Partnership is based on mutual respect and trust. It also requires a common ground and open communication. It thrives on complementarity, and leads towards an economy focused on the creation of a decent way of life and well being for all humans. Partnership leads us towards a new form of society, beyond domination and beyond socialism or capitalism.
“A dream is the most powerful way to shape the future. It can literally move mountains and propel people into the outer space.”
The fundamental principles of Cyberness are partnership, care and creativity. Cyberness requires responsible, creative, and caring leadership that ensures that high technology, especially artificial intelligence, is used to accelerate the move to an equitable and sustainable way of life for all. It describes a world where humans and non-humans, work together in harmony and complementarity, where artificial intelligence-based entities and robots are allies to humans. Cyberness is the positive alternative to the dark future that threatens us today. Whether we can and will achieve a full state of Cyberness is still unknown, but what is critical is undertaking the journey in this direction. Different people and societies will make different degrees of progress towards Cyberness. But humanity as a whole needs to move in this direction! We have a choice. We can continue to follow the principles of domination with their known flaws, or we can venture on a path leading towards a different, unknown future following the principle of the all-encompassing partnership.
We invite you to start your own journey towards Cyberness. It will add meaning to your life and your work.
Vision of a new world: Cyberness
Cyberness means in its essence a new world with a new society, a new economy and responsible leadership focusing in the quality of life for all. The fundamental principles of Cyberness are collaboration, partnership, care and creation. Cyberness describes a world able to leverage the achievements of the Cyber-Age for the development of a new society and a new economy with a view of the future. A future way of life where real and virtual worlds are blended, where artificial intelligence is used to create a sustainable, decent life for all of the planet’s inhabitants. Artificial Intelligence based entities and robots ware allies and partners of humans; highly intelligent machines and robots perform most of the work. Human work is a privilege adding value to people’s life and to society. Creation is more important than ownership.
Mario Raich, Riane Eisler , Simon Dolan