Meet Impactscool’s Ambassadors: Marco Caspani

After the inaugural article with an interview with Luca Tiraboschi, one of Impactscool’s “historical” Ambassadors, we continue the story of the Community and its protagonists with an interview with Marco Caspani, 19, a student at the University of Milan-Bicocca who has been part of Impactscool for a few months but has already shown great passion and interest.

What does it mean for you to be an Impactscool Ambassador?

When I became Ambassador a month ago, I couldn’t wait to start contributing to the Impactscool mission. This appellation contains two main components: fun and responsibility. By becoming an ambassador then you start to work for your own tomorrow actively: a responsibility that we are making disclosure. Furthermore, participating in the events means getting to know other people with your same passions on topics of the future and altogether giving a contribution to its development through debates and organizing different activities.

The future in three words…

For me, the future in three words is automation, curiosity and communication.
In 2050, automation will accompany us from when we get up in the morning to when we get back to bed at night. There will be algorithm codes that will be executed according to our routine and will be the support of our daily life. Many activities as we know them today will no longer exist, for example, household chores (washing, ironing, shopping, cooking …) being managed automatically will allow us to increase the width of our lives: we will have much more free time. All this arouses great curiosity about a world that will be profoundly different from what we have today. What job will we do? How will our daily routine develop? Precisely because of the advent of exponential technologies, in twenty years we will have objects that we cannot even imagine today. They will also revolutionize our interpersonal communication. Many jobs that today are mechanical will disappear drastically, companies will demand more soft skills such as teamwork, creativity, leadership. We must be good at relating. In a world where machines replace monotonous and repetitive jobs, we will have to put all our emotions into play and adapt to change. The positive consequence is that we will be much more interconnected. 

What do you do today and what will your work be in the future?

Let’s go back for a moment in 2019 … today I am a software programmer and a computer scientist. In 30 years, this work will be replaced with artificial intelligence created by the developers themselves. These “smart” programs will already be able to write source code for management software, video games and design websites. Although it is easy to think the opposite, it will not be an own goal that will make us lose our profession, but rather a positive scenario in which my work will change, focusing more on the search for new information technologies. Moreover, given the ethical problems that have already arisen, it will probably be mandatory to be supported by professional philosophers who will give us guidelines for autonomous driving.

What are the major opportunities that technological development will bring and what are the risks?

Precisely because of the above, I often think that one of the major risks that technological development will bring is a future with ethical principles that we do not like or that we do not even know. Simply with small surveys offered to the people I know I notice a difference of opinion between what should be done and what should not. Let’s imagine then that our personal and autonomous car is programmed to save as many lives as possible. Would we have the courage to climb it if we knew that if on our way there were a group of kids crossing with red, our car would crash to save them? We, therefore, understand that it is essential to have an open-source ethic, that is, with laws that are not hidden because they have been decided by large companies and created thanks to everyone’s contribution. Instead, the greatest advantage of technological development will be the decentralization of services. Many of these, today, are the prerogatives of distinct professions: money moves between banks, the guarantee of validity of contracts is given by notaries. These middle figures will be removed thanks to the blockchain. This invention will allow us to certify monetary transactions and changes of ownership without a central authority, as well as being much safer as we remove human error.

How do you imagine 2050?

When I think of this scenario, my mental image of 2050 is a word: comfort. In particular, we will no longer have to worry about payments. I look forward to entering a shop of the future, to be recognized automatically and, once the cart is filled, to have the money deducted from your account without taking out your wallet. Alternatively, take public transport without a ticket and at the end of the year pay according to our use because it was tracked automatically.

What will your hobby be like in the future?

Currently, as a hobby, I spend time dancing … what will the dance of the future look like? I see it this way: the human body will be perfected and strengthened and will be able to make more difficult or even impossible movements today. It will be possible to create choreographies that are more complicated. Above all augmented reality or physical devices could help us to learn and train new movements. In short, there will be fun.

With this little mental journey, we have made in the future, we realize that there are so many places to visit and the time we have is short. Therefore, it is essential to open the debate as soon as possible and put ourselves into action to realize the future of our dreams.