Have you ever imagined today's life 10
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I have. And I believe many of us sitting
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here, especially if you grew up in China
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during primary school times,
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you probably were assigned to write
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something like life in 10 years or the
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future as a Chinese writing assignment.
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And here's what I wrote. And thanks to
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AI, I was able to turn my words and
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imagination into something we can all
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So this is my imagination of today's
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As you can see, there's no pollutions.
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The cars are flying the air. And also in
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school, students don't need to have
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backpacks anymore. Everything is just in
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This is my version of the 2026.
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But as if we look around here, there's
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nothing special. It felt normal.
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So probably I made a mistake about
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imagining the future. But I don't think
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I'm the only one who made the mistake.
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This is what people are feeling are
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imagining about the year 2000 100 years
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So technically we should fly right now.
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But unfortunately we can't. Such a
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But as you can see these are very
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similar mistakes we made again and
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again. And to start here feels strange.
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My name is P Hung and I'm just 16.
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Singing here. I really admire all of
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your courage to pay and listen from a 16
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year old. What are you exa exactly
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expecting from me from a 16-year-old to
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help reimagine the future? It felt quite
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ironic because what I all know is just
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about homework, homework, homework,
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assignment, assignment, and assignment.
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That's what a 16-year-old student do.
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But however, when I first saw this
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theme, reimagining the future, I had two
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The first was, oh my god, this is way
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too big. In the future, we got AI, AGI,
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SpaceX, climate change, longevity, BCI.
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There's so many topics that it feels
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like it could swallow you even before
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you finish your introduction.
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However, the second reaction was maybe
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that is exactly why it matters because
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maybe the future isn't hard to predict.
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It's just we didn't find the right way.
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And that's why we need to reimagine the
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For a long time, we imagined the future
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through science fiction movies. In
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iRoot, those self-driving cars looked so
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cinematic and unreal. In Iron Man, those
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floating digital interfaces. Wow, that's
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But these no longer only exist in
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science fiction movies anymore. It
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starts entering our daily life. We got
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self-driving cars. We've got those
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floating digital interfaces. And at some
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point, the future's already entering our
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My mom uses chat GBT in her work. We all
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use it for homework. And to be honest,
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we use it much more than we should.
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My little brother uses ball. He can talk
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it for hours. From cartoons to Ultra Man
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to what he really encountered in life.
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And AI is even entering schools in
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classrooms from P data collecting to
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And if you have used one of those AI
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image tools, you'll found out how
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As you please take a look on the screen.
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It seems like a beautiful lady, right?
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But is it really beautiful
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Unfortunately, both not. It's me.
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This is a original picture I submitted
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to Ted. I took this in the backyard of
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my community. But I can be anywhere.
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Somewhere in the Bay Area, somewhere
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under the Eiffel Tower or somewhere
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besides the Statue of Liberty. I'm
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anywhere. And I can dress all kinds like
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Or I can wear a suit.
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And you might notice there's so many
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bananas, right? Cuz that actually could
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It's weird, right? It's like I only
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generate these images. It only cost me
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for a second and then the future feels
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No, sorry. The reality feels editable.
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It's terrifying because what we see
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reality itself may actually not be the
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And the even strange part is that even
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as if the future becomes more present in
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our life. We do not necessarily imagine
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it deeper. Sometimes we imagine it
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smaller. We're very good at imagining
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what the future can do. But we're less
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good at imagining what it should matter.
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For imagining a useful tool in the
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future, that's very easy. But for
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imagining a meaningful life, that's a
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little bit hard. A more reflective
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society, even harder.
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So at some point, if you notice it often
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enough, the future stops feeling like a
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feature of tools. It starts feeling like
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And suddenly our world turns to be like
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Well, literally, I do not mean that our
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future smells like French fries. It's
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the logic behind it.
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In the 1980s, one of the sociologists
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proposed a concept McDonaldization.
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He said that our future is full of
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efficiency, predictability, and control.
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Well, stop. Don't be terrified by all
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these words. I'll explain it. So,
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imagine you're making a Big Mac.
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What what we need to do, we need to
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toast a bun, grow the beef, add the
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lettuce, add the pickles, add the
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special sauce, and so we layer it and
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wrap it. I'm actually getting hungry
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about it. But every step is divided and
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streamlined so that the food can be fast
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and easy. This is so-called as
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efficiency. And we all know that the Big
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Mac tastes the same in all around the
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country, all around the world cuz
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McDonald uses the same ingredients, same
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kitchen tools and also same cooking
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procedure. That's so-called as if
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predictability and control.
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Once you notice that logic, you start
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founding there's so many big maps
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everywhere in our world. We want things
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to be faster, to be easier to manage,
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and easier to control.
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At some point it feels like we want to
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optimize our society and for me like us
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as students fills us especially.
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For many of us the future sounds kind of
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like a set of theories to get right.
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Like what major, what college,
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which pass, how early and how fast.
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The future suddenly stops something like
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a life. It sounds starts out to like be
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It's like we're not preparing the future
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anymore. We are kind of reducing it to
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what can be optimized. Well, however,
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optimization sounds good. It offers
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fewer mistakes. It's easier to manage,
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But really think about it. One of the
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greatest expedations among human
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When Columbus set out from Spain in
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he've got no precise maps, of course, no
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He didn't even exactly know where he
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And maybe he's such a bad sailor.
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He ended up to America. Well, actually,
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he discovers Americas.
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But imagine if this journey took place
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in real life right now.
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What will happen was precise the maps,
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precise navigations with no deviation.
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Columbus will just end up exactly to
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where he intended to go, India.
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That sounds super efficient, but it
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feels like there's something missing.
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Nobody will remember him as he who
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discovered the Americas.
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making things meaningful never means
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getting the thing right. Sometimes we
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need to step off course.
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And I think there's another reason why
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we imagine the future so narrowly.
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Let me ask you something.
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What were you doing 10 years ago? And
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what matters to you the most back then?
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Do you think you're still the same
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person as you are right now and the same
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person back to 10 years?
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Really think about it for a second.
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For most people, I think the answer is
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probably quite obvious. It's we're not
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the same person. So, there's a huge
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difference. But here comes the harder
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10 years from now on, how much do you
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think you will still change? Not just
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getting older, not just getting more
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tired. Think about your personality,
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your traits, what matters to you, your
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Do they still stay the same? Think about
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it. Well, for me, 10 years ago, I would
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have no ideas that I will be standing
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here today, which proves that I'm really
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not good at imagining my future self.
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And I don't think I'm the only one. So I
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want to test it. I made a questionnaire
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where this 115 participants different
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age and I offer them a few a few
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compared to 10 years ago. How much and
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what matters to them have changed? How
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do um how do they value it? And here the
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pattern is quite interesting. Most of
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them and even 75% of them said they have
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changed a lot compared to the past 10
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But when I asked them about the future,
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the next 10 years, how much do they
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think they will still change?
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Most of them didn't think that there
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will be huge changes among them.
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So that's kind of weird cuz we can
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notice big change huge changes behind
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us. But once we start to imagine our
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future self, we took the current self
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and just stretch it forward. We
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underestimate how much we can change in
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the future. And that's so-called as the
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end of history illusion, which I think
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it really matters because if it really
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works like this, then of course we feel
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those future narrow.
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It starts to feel like something we need
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The future for us, we feel it very very
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far. But actually, it's not. It's near
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Very, very close. Speaking of the
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present, we may think about today or
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this moment. Speaking about the future,
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you may think about it tomorrow. It's
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the next hour. Or maybe it's just the
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next second. Boom. One second passes.
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Congratulations. You guys just
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experienced future with me. That's the
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future. And then another second passes.
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The future becomes the present. Next
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second, the present becomes the past.
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This is how it works. Like tomorrow
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feels like a future until it becomes
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today. Next week feels distant until it
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becomes partly a routine. 10 years. Wow,
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that's very far away.
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until when it arrives. We feel nothing,
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nothing special. It's just our normal
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We're super familiar to the quote that
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future has arrived.
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But I don't think so.
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I think future will never arrive cuz at
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the moment when future arrives,
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it becomes the present. It's just now
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Future only exists in our imaginations.
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It's not something real. It's something
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And I know a lot of us, including me,
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we're quite anxious about the future.
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The future is going to replace that,
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replaces what are we going to do in the
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future. But to be honest,
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we're just being terrified by something
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that we imagine about. We imagine a
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monster and we're scared by it.
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So today I want to urge everybody to
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give up that kind of anxiety because it
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and since we're keep getting matured and
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we're keep changing. So maybe today's
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limit are always not tomorrow's destiny
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even though you cannot do it today
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there's a saying you cannot finish today
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it doesn't mean you cannot do it
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We are human and we're constantly
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When we enter the future self, we're
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somebody shaped by experiences, by
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and by decisions we haven't even made it
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yet. That's us. And even in biological
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term, we're kept constantly changing
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through metabolism.
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It's hard to notice but maybe that's why
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most of the people are drawn to the idea
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that every seven years we become a new
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person and that leads to an old
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philosophical question. You guys may
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heard this before the ship of Cases is
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that imagine a ship sailing in the sea
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where I replace every part of the ship
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until there's nothing original anymore.
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Then is this still the same ship? Is
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this still called the ship of CSS?
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Or if we're kept constantly changing
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piece by piece and cell by cell, then
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what does it mean to imagine a future
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self than using a current self?
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This sounds like a relief because
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there's so many things that I can still
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not handle. It's like tomorrow's
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And I think I'll just leave it to AI.
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That's how it goes.
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For most of the tech talk, we just end
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it here. I spread my ideas. Just a
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little bit sense of humor.
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But I want to add up to something. So,
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ironically, sitting right here, I'm
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telling you guys to stop being anxious
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about the future. But let me tell you
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something. When yesterday I was doing a
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rehearsal, I was so nervous about today.
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I was trembling when I was speaking. I
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didn't even notice it until my teacher
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told me that. This is how nervous I was.
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But today, standing here, it feels
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nothing. It feels calm cuz that's the
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future self. And you never know what
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will happen in the future.
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Today we taught you what to do in the
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future, what it matters, what it
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doesn't, but none of us said how we
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So I think next time when we face some
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it's really normal for us to struggle.
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Take a deep breath and calm down cuz
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you're not alone. You're someone shaped
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by time and by experiences.
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