YouTube Lifeengineering: https://youtu.be/MShtbF6rBGo?si=aHVICRDHbmuDLz16
In 2043, a headline could say: “Since 2010, the quality of life for Indians has risen by 56%, whereas it has decreased by 5% for Europeans.”
In the annual report of Metodon AG, a metaverse provider, it might state: “Between 2027 and 2043, the Metodon app has increased the quality of life of its subscribers by 14%.”
In 2043, Eva Wang might remark “Metodon, InterGPT, and various digital services have increased my quality of life by 21% over a span of five years.”
Will happiness become more important than money? Can we measure the progress of quality of life instead of gross domestic product, corporate profits, or personal income? In recent years, work-life balance has evolved from a passing trend to a firmly established aspect of lifestyles in affluent socie-ties.
In 2022, The Economist reported that Apple and Google's app stores offered more than 400,000 health and wellness apps, with 250 additions daily. Inside Tracker, Whoop, Juli and Happify are just a few examples of these. It is impressive how Apple's own health app receives new and improved functions with each and every release. Smart watches like the Apple Watch, smart bands like Whoop and smart rings like Oura are increasingly providing ever more detailed sensor data to improve well-being.
Never before have we had such a wealth of data collected from the use of digital services, never be-fore have we had such powerful machines and algorithms for recognizing patterns within this data nor have we ever had such extensive knowledge about the physical and psychological processes of humans. Are we now capable of measuring our well-being both mechanically and objectively?
Indicators for quality of life
Are there reliable indicators for our quality of life, our feelings, or our happiness?
Psychology measures subjective well-being through surveys and self-recording, utilizing standardized scales developed for this purpose. However, these methods suffer from the difficulty individuals have in accurately assessing themselves, making comparisons between individuals challenging. In addition, we are hardly prepared to document our well-being multiple times a day.
Neuroscientists are trying to identify feelings by employing imaging techniques for the brain. For example, the amygdala and the striatum, two regions of the brain, respond to perceptions associated with pleasure or suffering. Imaging devices such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines are not suitable for daily nor long-term use. They are limited to a few elaborate readings.
Various sensors in smart phones or smart watches can continuously measure movement, heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, blood sugar levels, skin conductance, facial ex-pression, sleep, brightness, air pressure, temperature, location, tone of voice and other indicators. However, we are yet to see a way of automatically assessing quality of life based on all available sen-sor data. So far, the various health and wellness apps are each limited to just a few indicators of well-being.
Each time that we use a digital service, such as browsing, listening to music or reading messages, it is an action that is recorded. App usage frequency, tone of voice in conversations, level of aggression in online games and the frequency of contact with friends and business partners can all provide insights into our mood. Even the language employed on social media serves as an indicator of our well-being.
Interests
Social media companies such as Facebook, media platforms like Spotify, and e-commerce platforms like Amazon strive to gauge consumer sentiment to optimize their business models. The technologies that survive are those that promise the greatest profit. Politics is also strongly judged by the financial prosperity of citizens and thus by the growth of the gross national product. Even individuals, in many cases such as career choices, opt not for quality of life but for capital. This one-sided approach is not an expression of people's ill will, but of their inability to set and measure quality of life goals.
Progress needs measurement
The management guru Peter Drucker coined the phrase „What you can´t measure, you can´t ma-nage.“ The fact that our economy and society are so strongly focused on capital is not least due to the fact that it is relatively easy to measure.
Capital has become a dominant force in evolution. Capital-rich countries, companies, and individuals are shaping the direction of socio-technical evolution. If we want to harness machine intelligence for the benefit of humanity, we should learn to measure well-being.
The first task of life engineering is to measure quality of life. The second task is to determine the fac-tors that influence quality of life. The third task is to derive consequences for the behavior of individ-uals, companies, and public organizations.
Machine intelligence is ushering in a socio-technical quantum leap. We humans have the choice to use this development to our benefit, or to sit back and watch as a capital-driven evolution propels technological advancement forward without regard for human needs.
Questions
Measuring our mood or quality of life harbors opportunities and risks. So here are three questions for you:
· Which sensors already collect data about you today?
· How does your tone of voice, speaking speed, vocabulary or typing speed change when you get angry?
· Are you ready to have your quality of life measured?
Messages
· Quality of life will become measurable. There are digital indicators for feelings.
· Sensor data and actions in digital services are indicators for needs and emotions.
· The objective measurement of quality of life is the prerequisite for an evolution to the benefit of humans.
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