Mauro Porcini

Introduction to Minimalism

0:00The entire tech world started to shift towards minimalism and this very essential design aesthetic inspired by this mantra of form, follow, function. I'm proposing a new formula that evolves from form, follow, function to form and function, follow meaning.

0:23From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman.

0:30On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do, how they got to be who they are and what they're thinking about and working on.

Conversation with Mauro

0:40On this episode, a conversation with Mauro Portini about technology and design and about what a designer really does. If the technical skill is what defines you as a designer, maybe you're not a designer.

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1:32They can actually reflect who we are. Learn more at toyota.com, the new all-electric family. Toyota, let's go places.

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Mauro's Background

3:28Mura Porcini has built a career at the intersection of business, design, and humanity. Born in Northern Italy, suspended between cultures and identities, he began his career with a restless curiosity that has carried him from Philips to 3M, then to PepsiCo, where he became the company's first ever chief design officer and helped embed design into the DNA of a global enterprise. In doing so, Mura was recognized as one of Fortune magazine's 40 under 40,

4:03a fast company master of design, and one of the 50 most influential designers in America. Today, he is president and chief design officer at Samsung, the first role of its kind at that scale, where he is advancing a bold manifesto he has titled The Human Side of Technology. At a time when technology sits at the center of financial instability, digital toxicity, and existential anxiety, Mura was asking profound questions about what technology can do,

4:37and he is providing some provocative and rather optimistic answers that we're all going to talk about today.

Mauro's Origin Story

4:45Mura Porcini, welcome back to Design Matters. Thank you for having me, Debbie. Mura, let's talk a little bit about your origin story for those that might not have listened to our previous interviews. You grew up in a small town outside of Milan in Italy with two passions, the world of literature and philosophy, which was influenced by your mother, and the world of art, architecture, and drawing, which was influenced by your father. But you also described yourself as growing up in the middle,

5:18not fully northern, not fully southern, and suspended between identities. Did that early experience of cultural tension shape the way you design for global audiences today? I think it's a big, big part of who I am and therefore what I do. You call it tension because usually that's the definition when there are two opposites and you are there stuck in the middle. But paradoxically, I always found my comfort zone in the middle of those two opposites.

5:52And again, back then it was me growing up in the north from a family from the south. Then it became me, designer in the world of business, at the point that sometimes the business leaders look at me, you know, obviously as a designer, the creative, the alien that is landing on the planet of business. And then other times I have the designers looking at me as the business person. And this person that understands creativity is close to the world of creativity.

6:24Obviously, it's the designer himself, but it's more belonging to the business world. And at the end of the day, I end up not belonging to one world or the other. Or I'm Italian, you can hear from my very heavy Italian accent, but I've been living 15 years in the United States. I was an alien in the United States, even though over the years I became also a citizen and New York today is still home. And I was, I became an alien in my own country. And now I live in Seoul, in Korea, imagine I'm even more of an alien there.

6:59But at the end, I feel a citizen of the world. I belong in any kind of situation in those gray areas is where I define my identity. And so, you know, it's a very human need, the one of belonging. I mean, Maslow in his pyramid defined that need, that sense of belonging, you know, many years ago, I found my belonging in those gray areas, in those areas where you can define your label, define your identity, define in a very original and authentic way who you are, who you want to be,

7:34and what kind of contribution you can give to the world.

Design and Innovation

7:36You've said that now, decades into your career, you try to preserve the mindset of an apprentice. Did you approach your roles at running design at 3M and at Pepsi that way? Well, I always came into these companies with a lot of respect for the companies. They were big companies, extremely successful. I didn't come in with the arrogance of thinking, well, I'm a designer.

8:08I know what you need to do because we designers know better how to design products and you're not getting it either because you're a tech-driven company or because you are a marketing-driven, brand-driven company. No, I always started from a position of profound respect for what they were able to achieve. I knew very well what I was bringing to the table. Obviously, the more years, the more experience, the more confidence I had in what I knew. But I always knew that I had so much to learn, so much to learn, for a variety of different reasons.

8:44In the first experiences, it was obvious. I mean, when I started to work at 3M, I was very young. I was 27. I had so much to learn. I never worked in a corporation of that size, you know, in a stable way. You know, in Philips, I was less than a year at the beginning of my career. There was all the world of technology to discover. In PepsiCo, the same. I'm an industrial designer. I never worked in the world of food and beverage. And I had to learn that industry. I had to learn the product category.

9:16I had to learn so much from the marketing community, from the brand community. And now with Samsung, I'm mixing and blending the two dimensions. But there is so much to learn about the Korean culture, about a different way of doing innovation, of working. But beyond all of this, on top of what you can learn practically in your profession, there is the awareness that as human beings, we never end learning. I mean, there is so much.

9:47The more you learn, the more you realize that you know nothing. Socrates, thousands of years ago, was telling us already. The reality is that the more humble you are, the more you know that there is so much out there to learn, as an apprentice, once again. And the more you blend that, anyway, with the profound confidence about what you already know, but also with the ability and the readiness to steer direction, to change direction.

10:18And again, confidence gives you that kind of ability. The more I think you can flex to the different situations, the more you can keep growing and not become sterile. So many people, at a certain point, with fame, success, or certain achievements, they stop learning because they think, well, I made it. Now I know. And that's... That's the beginning of the end. Yes. What are you still learning and from whom? What I'm learning right now, there is a lot that I'm learning, but one of the things I'm learning the most is about myself.

Relocating to Korea

10:50You know, I told you that I love the comfort zone of the gray areas, but after 13 years in New York City, 15 in the United States, with such a stable position like the one I had at PepsiCo, you know, with the success I had in the company, the credibility I had in the company, it was difficult to keep discovering yourself, to keep finding new aspects of yourself. Going to Korea, getting completely out of my comfort zone, bringing my family with me, my young kids, my wife, my three dogs,

11:25and the sense of responsibility that comes with bringing all these people out of their comfort zone to a completely different kind of culture and way of thinking, working, behaving, connecting. It's not easy. It's not easy. And so right now, when I face day after day, different behaviors, different ways of approaching design, innovation, business, or of living, sometimes it's easy because it's inspiring and it's exactly, you know, what I wanted to do.

12:00And it's really exciting. Other times instead it's complicated because it's so different from what I'm used to. And in those moments that are complicated, you need to find strength in yourself, stability in yourself, you need to find your resilience. And what I know right now in my 50s is that that's growing, you know, that uncomfort is growing. And this is beautiful because even in the most difficult moment, I'm like, yes, I, you know,

12:32I'm discovering new things about myself and I'm learning how to react to things that are, you know, don't make me comfortable, but it's exactly what I was looking for. And it's fantastic. At PepsiCo, you were embedding design into food, beverage, brand, and experience. Did you ever consider not taking the call from Samsung because of how much you had already established for yourself, for your career, your reputation, certainly the level of design excellence that you'd been recognized for?

13:08Did you ever worry that you might be leaving all of that behind for something that was completely uncertain? Look, fear of the unknown and the risk connected to that is human. It's a problem because fear is a mechanism of self-defense, right? The nature or God gave us. So, of course, I thought, is it the right choice? And again, because I have young kids, when I, in the middle of the decision, my second kid was born.

13:41And literally, I was having conversations with Samsung. While my son was coming to life. And so, of course, there is this sense of responsibility that is very, very strong. In the meantime, though, I am somebody that needs to keep innovating and inventing things and growing. So, I knew that it wouldn't be easy to give up to this opportunity.

14:12So, that was one reason. I was not looking for a new job. I could have stayed at PepsiCo 20 more years and I would have generated new challenges for myself. Think about the challenges of that industry and sustainability, health and wellness, or even just pushing design as a driver of business growth and brand relevance in that industry, in that company. So, I would have found my challenges to stay motivated. But again, a completely different kind of culture in a different country, in a different company, different industry, for sure, was really motivating.

14:48But there is also another reason. My passion as a child, my passion in university was consumer electronics. I did my thesis in consumer electronics in 1999 on wearable technologies. So, on clothing that are smart with flexible screens and pins that look and see and hear what you see and what you hear and can record all this information in a virtual memory.

15:20Back then, we were not calling the cloud, but it was what today is the cloud. And so on and so forth, a variety of different products and objects that you wear enabled by technology. Back then, it was a dream. It was just, you know, a vision of the future. And I started to work in Philips on that vision of the future. And then life brought me to completely different directions. And what is 26 years later, I find myself in a company in a moment in time

15:50that gives me the possibility to translate those dreams into reality. But there is a big difference between the kid that graduated from school with that thesis on wearable technologies and what I am today is these two decades of experience. On one side, in the world of 3M and then with my own agency, is experience in technology and really understanding how to leverage technology to create meaningful solutions for people.

16:21Then the other part of my journey is experience in branding and experience and really understanding how to create something meaningful for people through those levers. And so right now, I'm connecting back the two dimensions to really take the intuitions that I had many, many years ago and bring them to life. But with this awareness, with an experience, with a knowledge of how to do it, that is much broader. It's so interesting.

16:52I first met you when you worked at 3M. And I remember when you got the design, the big design job at Pepsi, the design community was wondering, well, can he take his knowledge and expertise in a discipline that was very much about household goods at that time, you know, you did that gorgeous tape dispenser, and bring that alive to fast-moving consumer goods. And now you're moving from fast-moving consumer goods to shaping technology used by billions. Can I, you know, I'm sure you're about to ask me a question, but there is something.

17:24I mean, people tend to look at just the few years of experience you have and the company you've been working for before the next experience, right? So it's so paradoxical and sometimes it's funny how many people right now are like, oh, but it's coming from PepsiCo, consumer goods. They don't know you like I know you. I mean, if you look at my 26 years of work, literally 13 are in consumer goods,

17:56branding experience, and 13 are in tech. And tech is where everything started. It was my passion. It was my knowledge. And even in the 13 in consumer goods, tech was always a reference. Every new technological product, new gadget, I will buy it right away, you know, to try to, because it's exciting to me. And yes, so, but again, exactly what happened 13 years ago in PepsiCo, many people now are like, well, but it's coming from brand and consumer goods.

18:28Well, actually, no, now I have the two experiences. So what changes when the object of design becomes as much about infrastructure, when your work lives in people's homes and pockets and on their bodies? How do you, is there a different way in which you approach that type of design as opposed to a fast-moving consumer goods? Or do the tenants really remain very similar? I think there are a lot of similarities. What you need to do is to deeply understand the people you serve.

19:04And in consumer goods, there is a tendency that is probably driven by a culture of marketing of looking at people as consumers and focusing so much on the moment of purchase, what Procter & Gamble used to call the first moment of truth. First moment of truth. It's so quaint now, right? But, you know, that moment is what often defines CPG, you know, that industry. Because there is so much focus on what happened in Walmart, in Target, in the store.

19:35As an industrial designer, I've been trained to think about the user, you know, how people use those products. And so when I joined the world of CPG, when I entered the world of CPG, my mission was to remember everybody, that we shouldn't look at people as consumers and think just about that first moment of truth, but focus on that second moment. Every other moment after that. Yeah, once it's in your house, what do you do then? So for me, that was through in-consumer goods. And therefore, it's still even more relevant in a world where once you buy the product,

20:10you bring it home and you live with the product, sometimes a few years, sometimes decades. If you think of a refrigerator as an example of an oven or even TVs, you know, they have a long lifetime. But again, deeply understanding people, their needs, their wants, and creating real, authentic solutions, something that they really need, both functionally and emotionally. That's really what is important to do.

20:41And that's really the key formula to create relevant businesses, meaningful brands, and sustainable growth for those companies. You have moved from the United States now to live and work in Korea, a very different cultural context from Italy, from New York, Minnesota. How has relocating shifted your perspective on leadership and hierarchy and creativity? You really are, as far as I know, the only president of design that I've ever heard of.

21:16It's a real new ceiling breaker for our discipline. How has your perspective changed? Well, I had to challenge many assumptions about how to be a leader. Really? Well, tell me how. My first challenge in my journey was the one of, I'm Italian, moving to America and trying to understand how to be a leader in America. And it took many years to figure out exactly how to protect my roots,

21:49my way of thinking and behaving, all the way to my body language and my passion. So how to protect them first and then later on leverage them without alienating the people I was interacting with. They had a very different kind of culture. And after a while, I found that balance. I found the ability to speak the language of business of America, of the United States, the ability to navigate the complexity of these corporations,

22:22the culture of these corporations, but being always myself, being always this Italian with this thick accent and this weird way of dressing and this passion and the ability to talk about love in a boardroom and connect love to productivity and efficiency, as an example. Now in Korea, the body language is completely different. The Korean language obviously is very different than the English one. You know, here I was the one not speaking the English language

22:54and somehow trying to connect. Now I am there and the language that is spoken in the company is Korean. And of course, with me, we interact in English, they interact in English, but it's not anymore the language of the company. There is a sense of hierarchy and roles and responsibilities that is very different than the American one and the European one. And so I'm trying to understand, I'm still in a phase of understanding how to be myself,

23:24how to be authentic, how to work in a super collaborative way, blending the definition of roles and responsibilities, but also respecting what works in that kind of culture. And try to understand how to inspire people without alienating them, how to find the right balance between change and respect for the incredible culture and business success that the company has. And so it's not easy.

23:55The company is really trying very hard to help me as well. And this is beautiful. In what way? How so? Well, they understand that, you know, to become more and more global, you need to embrace more and more diversity. You know, I am the first president, non-Korean, in the history of the company, not just in design, in the history of the company. And so for them, it's something important that transcends the discipline of design, the function of design in the organization.

24:26They are betting on diversity. They are betting in bringing in people that think different. And they really want me to be successful in mixing my original point of view that is different from the one of the company historically, just because of the nature of the culture of the organization, with the one of the company. So we need, you know, myself, with their help, we need to find the right balance between the two dimensions. And this is when, you know, you become more and more global.

24:59When you are able to blend different kind of point of views, diverse point of views into one original point of view. And this is, I think, what they are looking for in me, not just the design component, but the cultural component as well. Is there anything you've had to unlearn? What do you mean with unlearning? Well, you've had to learn about new ways of thinking and doing things. Have you had to stop doing certain things that you relied on in order to get a point across or to persuade people?

25:33Well, there is for sure one thing. I'm very passionate. This passion sometimes make people eventually even uncomfortable. I had to turn it down already. Maybe it's hard to imagine because I'm still very passionate. But I had to turn it down when I moved from Italy to the U.S. Because at a certain point, I realized that people may think there was almost aggressive, you know. Instead, it's just our way of talking. It's the passion that come out of everything we do.

26:05In Korea, I need to turn it down even more because the body language is really, really different. And so I need to understand how to still leverage the passion because I think it's been key in my journey. And I think it's going to be important also in Korea, in Asia in general. But I need to really make sure that it's tuned in the right way, not to intimidate people around me. because one of the key things in innovation is dialogue, is exchange.

26:42And when you are too passionate, and when you are also confident, so this confidence together with passion, people may not feel comfortable in exchanging ideas, in building a dialogue. And so, again, every culture reacts differently. You know, I'm Italian. Think about the Latin American culture. It's very similar to mine. The American is different. The Asian is different. In Asia, different, you know, countries have different cultures. And so, you know, I'm learning how to be so passionate

27:15without losing my passion and communicating in a way that is tuned in the appropriate way, in the right way to be impactful in a positive way versus being alienating. It's for sure something I'm trying to learn. Shortly after arriving at Samsung,

The Human Side of Technology

27:31you penned something rather provocative titled The Human Side of Technology, A Manifesto for a New Era of Innovation. You described technology as both admired and feared. Why do you think technology anxiety feels so acute right now? Because in the age of AI and more and more in the age of robotics, because the robots are about to come, people are concerned that this kind of technology may start eroding human qualities.

28:06There are some people that arrive all the way to the fear of technology, the annihilation of human speech. You know, we arrive to that kind of extreme. But in the middle, there is also very practical fear of losing my job or if you have kids not knowing what is going to be the future for these kids in this world of technology. And so these are real fear. And that's why I think that the role of any company working in technology, as well as any government and policymakers,

28:40is the one of making sure that technology is developed at the service of humanity. That is the aim to really create value for people, for humans. And we're not going after technology just because we can, but we should do it because we care. We don't go after technology because it's a driver of profit and power and wealth, but because it's a driver of progress for society.

29:10And so I think, especially the design community, you know, I'm a designer and what we learn at school is to serve people. We don't learn at school to grow a business or invent a new technology. We learn how to create something, a solution, could be a product, a brand, a service, that solves some human needs and fulfills some human dreams. And so as a design community, I think we have an opportunity and a responsibility right now to elevate ourselves,

29:42become the voice of humanity in these companies of any kind. And for companies like mine, the one I work for, for Samsung, you know, to play a role to lead with humanity, to put people at the center of everything, to make sure that once again, technology is there serving the people, humans. And this is very, very important, both for society, but I think right now is very important also to create,

30:13at the end, also business value for these companies. This episode is sponsored by Toyota. There's a difference between having options and having the right options. When something is designed well, it doesn't just give you more choices. It gives you choices that actually make sense for how you live. That's the thinking behind Toyota's new all-electric lineup. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, they've built a family of vehicles, the versatile BZ, the adventurous BZ Woodland, and the expressive CHR, each one meeting people where they are.

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31:21In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash bank. Capital One N.A. Member FDIC.

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32:40You and I are almost, we're in the same generation. We're almost the same age. I'm a bit older. But I know that we both were very much a part of the move toward technology and design in the 80s and 90s. And back then, designers were aghast at the role that technology might have in design

33:10before we even knew what the full role was going to be. And there were immediate calls for the boycotting of technology and the continued use of wax machines and X-Acto blades and Ruby Lith and so on and so forth. I was trained on a drafting table, so I witnessed that firsthand. What we didn't anticipate back then when the beloved designers of our time at that time were all lamenting the potential loss of jobs, the potential loss of our careers,

33:45was in fact how technology was going to actually create hundreds of thousands of jobs for designers and move design from really a fringe discipline into the center of creativity. We're hearing a lot of the same fears again. Maybe this time they'll be more prevalent, maybe they won't. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the repetitive nature of these fears that always seem to come to the forefront at the beginning of a new era of technology.

34:21Well, look, we live in a sort of paradox as humans. On one side, nature, change, evolve, is the law of the world. You know, it's been there forever. It's history of humanity and actually even before humanity. On the other side, though, we have this instinct to protect the status quo because it's linked to our instinct to be safe. So every time there is change, change is inevitable, but we resist to change as human beings

34:58because, again, it's a form of self-defense. It's a paradox because the best self-defense is actually to change and evolve and adapt. So we live in this paradox. So these fears that humans, designers, add for technology are perfectly humans, once again. They are part of our nature. We need to learn, I think, as innovators to embrace change, to embrace changes in technology, in the world around us,

35:29and see them as incredible opportunities. And this is really, really important if we want to innovate in the best possible way. Several years ago in the Harvard Business Review, you stated that design and innovation are exactly the same thing. Do you still feel that way? Yeah, I profoundly believe that design and innovation are the same thing. You know, designers start always in the same way, understanding people, their needs, their wants, their dreams, and then creating a solution for those needs and those wants.

36:01The solution is innovative by definition because it changes the status quo. It modifies something that was already existing and evolved into something different or eventually create something from scratch that didn't exist before. So by definition, an act of design is an act of innovation. There is no design without innovation. You argue that human-centered innovation is not optional. It is the only sustainable competitive advantage in a world where barriers to entry have collapsed.

36:34Is human-centered design now less about philosophy and more about survival? Well, you need to be focused on human needs if you want to innovate for real. The big difference between today and the past is that in the past, if you are a big organization, a multinational corporation, you could build these barriers to entry and build a dynamic balance with your competitors in your industry around products that eventually, even if those products were not ideal for the people you are serving.

37:11Today, in a world where those barriers to entry are down, driven by the wind of globalization, new technology, digitization, in this kind of world, the most powerful competitive advantage you can build for your company is human-centricity, is a culture that's obsessed around the creation of real value for humans, a culture where your designers, but also your marketers, your finance people, your HR, every function in the company, feel sick in the stomach if your product is not ideal,

37:48if it's not the best for your consumers, if it's not the most beautiful, the most functional, the most sustainable, the most ethically viable, you want a culture of people that even if that product and the brand is extremely profitable and successful, they're not satisfied until the product is also ideal for people. And once again, this is more important than ever because in this moment in time,

38:18finally, human value is aligning with financial value. In this moment on time, you can't protect your mediocrity in any form or way with your barriers to entry because in this moment in time, new startups, new innovators, new entrepreneurs can come and attack you exactly in your area of weakness. So it's survival for your company, it's survival for humanity because you need products that are really, really good for people. So I think there is a lot of negativity often about this moment in time,

38:52but actually I think it's a very positive moment in time. And earlier you asked me about the designers and the fear of technology. You know, we should remember what designers do. Designers are not defined by the media that they use. We're not designers just because we know how to use a CAD program or Photoshop or in the past because we knew how to use a Pantone or different kind of technologies.

39:24What defines us as designers is our ability to imagine incredible solutions to human needs, to imagine incredible chairs or mobile phones or posters or pieces of communication or internet sites. It all starts with your mind, your heart, your critical thinking, your ability to decodify those unarticulated needs that are out there and transform them in solutions that are meaningful, inspiring, relevant.

39:55So then, yes, we need to take them to life and that's why we learn the technical skills of taking them to life. But if the technical skill is what defines you as a designer, maybe you're not a designer. You know, if in the future I can be so much faster through artificial intelligence to transform what I have in my mind into something concrete, that's amazing. The world will still need your mind, your heart, your sensitivity, your empathy, your imagination, your creativity,

40:27your ability to imagine those solutions. AI won't do it for us. And even though AI may inspire us with certain solutions, it won't replace us. I think the power right now of AI is that we go to our projects, we start with this blank page in front of us with a lot of our biases, our culture, our experience. You know, I am Mauro, you are Debbie, and we have an history.

40:58We learn in a certain way. We have a certain kind of experiences. So when we go to the project, we are biased by our history. Now, how you break those biases? You do research. You talk with people. You travel. You do as much as possible to open your mind and infiltrate your biases, your experience, what you know, your knowledge with something different. Well, AI can do exactly that. But in an exponential way, AI go to a problem with a completely different kind of background,

41:32without your biases, maybe with other biases. AI may have biases. The developer of AI are trying to remove those biases. We are very familiar with this topic. But no matter what biases AI may have or not have, the perspective is different. So the value is not in what AI generates. It's not in what I generate. The value, once again, is in the dialogue between me and AI. It used to be me and other people. There is still that dialogue. We must preserve the dialogue with other human beings.

42:03But now you have a new actor in the mix with a lot of knowledge that can access any kind of information. So that's an amazing value. So both for inspiration, because it can break your biases, generate new ideas if you combine what you think with what AI thinks, and then obviously the execution as well. If I don't need anymore to use a CAD program or a software of any kind or any kind of manual tool to create something, I can do it in a much faster way, fantastic.

42:35Now, it means that schools of design will need to teach even more critical thinking, imagination, creativity, the ability to solve solutions, because that is what is going to define the design profession of the future. It's not anymore. It was already not anymore now, but even more in the future, the craft, and actually the craft, yes, but in terms of thinking, but the ability to do things, the tools shouldn't define us and won't define us in the future.

43:06And, you know, AI is still not going to ever really be able to feel something. I saw a wonderful meme on social media a couple of days ago that we're not going to really have to worry about AI until they can experience jealousy, rejection, and failure. And, you know, I think that there's something really important about those emotions and how they do fuel creativity. Do you think AI is not going to be able to feel that? I don't know. We will see. Do you think the chat GPT is going to be jealous of Gemini? That's an interesting question.

43:36I think that sooner or later, you will be able to reproduce human feelings to that level. Butterflies in the stomach falling in love?

43:47It may. It may. You know, at the end of the day, what happens in our body, there is something magic that we can't explain. But from a pure scientific standpoint, it's chemistry, right? And physics.

44:05Biology. Yeah. All of this then recreates something that is impossible to define. It's so magic that that often we're explaining with God or, you know, in ways that transcends humanity and what we know. But if AI is able, learning how we feel, how we behave, how we think, to recreate those feelings, the question, and we go into,

44:36you know, real philosophy, can they become human? You know, as human as human? Or not? I don't know. I don't have the answer. But my hope is that we drive AI in a direction in which even if you become as human as humans, it's going to still be at the service of humanity. So if AI is able to learn, as you say, jealousy, together with empathy, together with fear, together with a series of other emotions,

45:07and those emotions fuel creativity and make those solutions more and more human. And now all of this is used at the service of humanity. Then why not? Imagine AI being able to do a lot of things that we don't want to do as humans at work or, you know, in a variety of different circumstances so that we can be even more human so that while AI does certain things that requires human qualities,

45:37I can spend time with my kids. I can go run in a park. I can go ski or swim or read a book. So this is really what we need to talk about, what we need to focus on. It's not AI is going to be or not, you know, as human as possible or is, you know, the fear of AI being too human. If AI becomes really human and therefore is able to do everything we do even better and it frees us

46:08from tasks that we don't need to do unless we really want, that's wonderful for humanity. But the problem is we need to make sure that AI and therefore technology is always developed at the service of humanity. So what does that mean exactly? What does at the service of humanity mean? It means that it needs to be a tool to solve specific problems to help people. And we often

46:38talk about people and problems and dreams. Once again, I mentioned it multiple times today, the hierarchy of needs of Maslow has been always for me for decades the most important framework to understand people and to understand how I could help people and solve their problems. I translated this hierarchy of needs now that I'm in Samsung in four categories that are relevant to the world of tech, the world of Samsung, our portfolio

47:08of products. But if you want, they are relevant to any company, any brand, any situation in general. The categories are live longer, live better, live loud, live on. So I want to help people live longer, better, louder than on. What does it mean? Live longer is all about physical and mental health and it's about safety. So creating products that help you in all of these things in our world, wearables,

47:39technology that monitor your body for your physical and mental health or a variety of different technologies that monitor your house, your loved ones, your pets. So that's all the word of live longer that is the base of the Maslow Pyramid is survival and safety. Live better is about using technology to work on your behalf ideally or to work with you to become more productive. But translated that means I want to free up your time so that you can do

48:10whatever is most relevant and most important to you and technology will work on your behalf. Think about implication here. I'm using technology so that eventually you can do things that have nothing to do with technology. You know when technology can do work on your behalf as I said earlier go run in the park leave your mobile phone at home leave even your wearable at home if you don't need to monitor your body in the moment be free reconnect with the people you love with nature so

48:40it's amazing when technology can enable you to do something like this that's what I mean at the service of humanity over the course of history human history we have as a species constantly made improvements to the way that we live whether it's through the agricultural revolution or the industrial revolution for ways in which humans could have more leisure time and yet we don't really ever

49:11take that opportunity and fulfill it what we do with that extra time tends to be more work and I've been really thinking about that a lot lately as I was preparing for our interview today and I was thinking about live longer live better live loud live on I was thinking about the fact that humans have been in pursuit for technologies to improve the quality of our lives to let us do more of the things that we love for millennia and yet when we get that time we

49:42seem to fill it with more work to do where do you think that comes from or do you disagree I mean do you feel like you're seeing more people do things I agree but I don't think it's driven by individuals it's driven by the business world and the need of producing more and that's why

50:06optimistic and I think is a positive moment of dramatic change and transformation because when you will have machines robots and AI that can do the work of many many people yes we'll be able to produce new kind of jobs but there is a high probability that a lot of jobs won't exist anymore and therefore we'll need to rethink our society and

50:36the idea of working and this will be the job not of companies and brands and corporations but it will be the role of policymakers and governments and nations that we need to rethink how you sustain a population even when they don't work full time and so that's the most beautiful design project of the future to understand how you redesign a society thinking about how to drive happiness in society

51:07how to make people happy even if they don't have their jobs and the idea of working as it is today you know in our work we find a lot of happiness at at the end of my book I talk about how to design happiness and there are three dimensions for designing your happiness and achieving your happiness the first one is the definition of your identity that starts since you are a kid I have four years old and one year old and they're there

51:38already now you see that they're defining their identity so this is a journey that is lifelong but often when we arrive to our jobs and we start to work we use that job and that title to define our identity I mean in New York city the first question that they ask you is what do you do right always right away they define you they label you with your job but again many of us define ourself through your job the mistake is when your job

52:08is the only thing that define you because the moment you lose your job you are lost you lose your identity so work