The Postgraduate in Digital Learning and Emerging Learning Experiences organized by IL3-UB featured the journalist and science communicator Pere Estupinyà, who spoke with the students in a webinar where he explained the importance of science in everyday life.
Today’s world is undergoing what Pere Estupinyà -presenter and content director of the informative program of TVE’s La 2 ‘The brain hunter’- calls a process of acceleration, not revolution, which unavoidably affects each and every one of the individuals by changing their behavior.
The science journalist and popularizer, the author of the books S=EX2′ and ‘El ladrón de Cerebro, opted in his program to bring scientific thought to everyday life. In that sense, he tries to learn new concepts every day and reinvent himself as a person and worker to better understand his environment.
Following the parameters of science, problems can be solved in the best possible way. Faced with difficulty, many people choose to follow a solution blindly, dogmatically. Science helps to be a little more skeptical, experiment, and check which hypothesis is the best. Doubt, says Estupinyà, is an ally.
The ability to learn and adapt to new times
Given the urgent need to adapt to new times, continuous learning and adaptability are clear examples of how this approach to life can be beneficial. “You have to find the most efficient ways to learn, without wasting time.”
Many professions today require the use of new tools and new technologies that make work easier. And it is within everyone’s reach to learn them in a self-taught way. A science communicator like Pere Estupinyà has had to learn to manage social networks effectively, web page content management, and also become an expert on issues that he was completely ignorant of at the beginning of his work.
This is the case of his second book, S=EX2, which emerged as an idea after attending a congress of neurologists who dealt with sex and in which he saw the opportunity to soak up a subject with great potential.
After documenting himself by reading papers, reading many “top” books from the psychology faculty, and interviewing experts in the field, he published a book that had a great impact on the specialized sector and now gives him the opportunity to attend conferences where he is the rapporteur.
To manage all these inputs while new concepts continue to be established, it is very important to maintain a high level of organization and, above all, never lose interest. Science -says Estupinyà- can be very exciting, but to reflect the feelings that emanate from an experiment, the way in which it is presented to society would have to be changed.
Carl Sagan, the creator of the popular program Cosmos, affirmed that the fundamental thing in science is to first light the flame of wonder. In this way, a student or a worker will surely have more motivation to continue learning after seeing how amazing a new advance is after its practical application.
In line with this thought, Pere Estupinyà is starting a project with teachers and pedagogues from the UB that tries to turn his program ‘The Brain Hunter’ into an educational tool that serves to bring the most extraordinary moments of science to the classroom.
The new paradigms of work
The great advances in science and technology will be felt, above all, in the future of work, which is moving inexorably towards the automation of processes in all sectors.
The possibility of establishing a basic income that covers basic needs without having to work is a scenario that is increasingly being considered, but not working does not mean doing anything.
Society will have to face a paradigm shift regarding the concept of incentives as an economic reward to find satisfaction on a personal level, or for the idea of contributing to the community.
This future, however, will not affect the world of work in the short term. The innovation curve generates a slope of expectation in the face of all the advances, which is followed by a valley of disillusionment in which phenomena such as virtual reality and 3D printers now find themselves. The changes they will bring do not happen immediately and the same can happen with robotics.
There is a long time to contemplate the day when a robot can perform a domestic task with the agility and speed of a human being, but it is true that its implementation in the world of work can lead to the loss of many jobs.
Artificial intelligence (AI) can replace humans. Thanks to AI, X-rays are already being analyzed better, with fewer errors, than those made by a radiologist. And when a machine is capable of making fewer mistakes, change is inevitable.
It is a reality that already affects processes as simple as ordering food in fast-food restaurants. At McDonalds, for example, you can go to the checkout but you can also order it from the computers available on the premises. There are also companies that make bots to help with webchats, where it looks like you’re chatting with a human, but you’re not.
Anticipation of change
All this will cause a period of crisis with excluded people who will be unemployed and without the ability to retrain. For this reason, it is so important that young people, who will live a fixed change, are open to continuing learning every day.
The good news is that there is time to prepare for this situation and each company and each country must now think about how this substitution of labor will affect its workers and citizens. Of course, each situation will require a different solution, but you should start looking at it as soon as possible.
The fourth revolution does not change what we do but for us. At the moment, artificial intelligence and robotics have affected our customs, but they have not changed human beings substantially. At that time, Pere Estupinyà maintains that we are not in a moment of revolution, but of acceleration.
