A Cy-Phy and Fairer Economy

We all think of us as “digital,” and, of course, we all feel we are pretty “smart.” Indeed, the two attributes seem to be closely interlinked, at least in our imagination. You cannot be smart in the business and social worlds, if you are not mastering digital phones and watches, home pods, and pads and connecting your car and bracelet via intelligent apps or your glasses even. We are all living more and more digital lives to augment our physical senses, leverage our resources, and stretch our productivity—we end up almost believing how digital could make us immortal and able to reproduce our thinking and ways of communicating to our dears even after our physical body will be gone. Indeed, digital immortality is pitched as a commercial proposition by many a Silicon Valley’s start-up (Adam Gabbatt 2020) Eternime one among many others (Dave Schilling 2016). Not only us as individuals but also, almost inevitably, our company may have launched some sort of digital transformation “navigation program,” as part of a digital transformation that is encompassing its industrial sector of reference and city of location. Even entire countries and their policy makers are now pitching themselves as “digitally driven” and “digitally minded,” when asking for taxes or votes, as they promise to bring their citizens in the digital age—assuming they are still analogic today and doing complicated math with pen and paper. Here is a bold prediction, not based on the analysis of big data and not coming from an AI app: “digital,” as a key word, noun, or adjective, will fall out of fashion soon and for a few good reasons.