FUTURE
Repetition is a phenomenon that can be observed everywhere in society, in nature, and in human behavior and actions in our lives. Often, routines are some of the most important things we must relate to. We must keep our lives in place and feel that we have some sort of control. The repeated actions that we take from the moment we wake up in the morning until we go to bed at night serve as a sort of framework upon which we build our lives.
Repetition is a fundamental aspect of human behavior, affecting both learning and even our psychological well-being. When we repeat things, it's not just that we create a framework for our lives that we use to keep our lives in place; it also provides predictability in a chaotic world.
But it may be necessary to take a closer look at what repetition really is and how important it is. Much in existence and in society seems to revolve around repeating, repeating what was done yesterday, repeating the pattern you followed yesterday, and repeating the actions you took yesterday. Life consists of many routines and repetitions that are necessary, which give structure to our lives and make us feel in control.
Control is something that most people try to achieve regarding the things that control their lives, but is it necessary to always have control in every situation, in every sentence?
There are moments when control should be let go, giving in to what the moment offers. There are also creative processes where we should try to figure things out and solve challenges, where we need to avoid doing the same things we did last time. Not always repeating everything in life can be a safe way to create content in life, create challenges, and avoid the frustration that comes with the feeling of being stuck in the same daily routine all the time. It is important not to let repetition and routines take over our lives; we must not rigidly adhere to repetition and routines in everything we do. Think, for example, of when you are in love. Do you control or stick to routines then?
In today's world, media is with us everywhere; there are news media, entertainment media, social media, and debates boiling over everywhere in social media and in the comment sections of news media. When I think about this, you read newspapers and scripts that, in excess, talk about the world situation and the danger of war. We can't open the newspaper a single day now without seeing such headlines, and it clearly affects us negatively, both emotionally and mentally and intellectually, because a lot of sad, bad, and wrong things are happening. The latest headlines suggest that we risk having a third world war within the next 10 years.
It can easily be seen that there is a pattern in what happens in these media; there is a clear repetition, a repetition of things that have happened before. We might have expected that all this repetition would have been reduced now through a filter that looks at what is necessary and what is not necessary and wise. Constantly talking about war in the world and that there can be war, etc., kind of fuels the same without saying that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it is, at least, uncertainty and insecurity among people, and that is the most important thing that casts a shadow over our lives and our future.
We must not lose heart. We must not give up because history shows that humans have been through many such things before. In the 20th century, we went through two world wars, and we said then, "Never again war." Living up to it and the promise was not easy, but we have managed since 1945 without having had any major comprehensive wars until recently, when we got this war in Ukraine and this war in the Middle East.
In this situation of unrest and uncertainty in the world, it is more important than ever to keep a cool head and think that humans will manage this; we will manage to find the way forward through dialogue and cooperation and avoid the world once again coming up in a worldwide conflict that degenerates.
I understand that journalists make such reports and that they believe in what they write, at least a little, but it's very unfortunate that it creates such a dark mood among people that things are hopeless and that it doesn't matter what we do; 'everything is hopeless'. Surely, this was the motivation behind the journalist writing this headline and creating this interview, predicting a new world war in the next 10 years. But there can still be days to prevent this from happening, and we must indeed believe in the purpose of all such common and combined efforts in this area against war, endangering peace, and our future.
What's a bit wrong is that the negative focus is based on a pattern of thought about what has happened before and the expectation, in a way, that the same will happen again. However, we know from such events as world wars that the same thing does not happen the same way each time, and next time it could happen in a completely unique way or not at all.
This goal must now be in front of people in this time of extraordinarily strong polarization and hostility between different states in the world where autocrats and dictators rule and threaten the worst things, including nuclear war. In this situation, we have come to 2024, where we have lots of new knowledge about these problems, lots of new tools and measures, international agreements, and international cooperation, and not least, artificial intelligence that can help us think through the challenges that lie in the future and what we can do about them.
I am sure that in all countries fighting for democracy and to preserve the liberal democracies we have now, there are many people interested in using artificial intelligence to prepare for the future and figure out how we can reduce the risk of war. And it is precisely here that we need a greater effort going forward. All good forces must work, openly on the surface and in secret, to secure the future for our generation and generations to come.
We never give up.