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Almost human: How technologies and humans adapt
Video flooding. Social bots. Voice assistants. Intelligent computer systems. Virtual, augmented and mixed reality. 

Too much of a good thing?

Network overload and denial-of-service attacks show that infrastructures are not always capable of developing as fast as technologies. On the contrary: Currently, the speed of change is often higher than the speed of implementation. And complexity keeps increasing. Digital developments with their dynamics increasingly overstrain people, companies and markets. Acceptance gaps emerge. And a lot of the time, we are left to wonder whether digital offers are still geared to people or whether people are to be geared to new technology.

Who will be the first to flinch? Who will adapt? 

These negotiations must be conducted at various levels: 

  • Each one of us individually decides to which platforms, contents and offers we pay attention, how much providers should know about us and how much we allow them to intervene in our lives. How can we use new platform in a compentent, meaning self-determined and reflected way?
  • Companies are faced with the question whether their business models, strategies, formats or content need to be rethought, modified or even abandoned. Meanwhile, new technology providers are wondering how to achieve permanent market acceptance. Which content, information and stories will keep reaching people? 
  • Markets, politics and finally society as a whole must decide which rules and responsibilities to apply to platforms, media offers and journalism; which principles or offers we want to promote and what we deem unacceptable. How can we preserve diversity under these new terms? How can we create a framework for national and regional players to subsist, refinance and further develop their offers and services?

Can we cope? We must!

One thing is clear: We are in a phase of transition closely associated with a feeling of uncertainty. Many old business models, formats and processes are becoming obsolete or dated. Simultaneously, new ones are not yet established or accepted, and partially not even tried. We must learn to cope with uncertainty. This is the only way for adjustments to develop their full effect, to mature and to reform in the process. Only this way, new things can develop. 

Takeover or adaptation?

The transition poses high requirements to the individual, to society, to companies and markets, and to politics and regulation. High innovation speeds require continuous adaptation. What happens when technologies become increasingly human-like and move in closer? 

In this area of conflict, it is insufficient to copy the latest trends and technologies out of Silicon Valley – the challenge is to understand the mechanisms and methods behind them. Only by figuring out mechanisms and finding appropriate methods to deal with them, we can cope with complexity and uncertainty, shape adaptation and promote acceptance.
On this path, the MEDIA CONVENTION Berlin serves as a compass and companion – an adapter between the worlds, so to speak. With methods, insights and experience, it helps the media industry and its protagonists adapt to new things and negotiates with platforms, politics and regulation. Join us in exploring how technologies and people adapt in May 2018.