The future punk

m&k: Martin Wezowski, you are SAP's Chief Designer - and a futurist. What would you say if you had to describe your job in very simple words? 

Martin Wezowski: I try to imagine desirable versions of the future and then realize these "imagined futures". That's the simplest description of what I do. I like to say: Only with imagination comes the power of creation. When you develop a narrative, a story, an illustration of what is possible, you enable people to share their vision and make it a reality.

But that wasn't always your job: before that, you played punk rock in a band. How does that influence your work today?

I love this question. I think it's very important for what I do in my job. You know, I discovered punk rock after my parents escaped from Soviet Poland, five years before the wall came down. We didn't have anything like that in Poland, and I was totally amazed, thinking, "Wow, there is such a thing?" I met a guy called Max, who is still a friend of mine today. He had a band back then. Max gave me a guitar and showed me how to strum a very simple chord. It sounded terrible. So I looked at him a bit incredulously and asked him: "Is that it?", and he said: "Well, you play, so apparently it's something!" (laughs).

And I still love that answer today, because it gave me confidence in a "minimum viable prototype". It's a term we play around with in the startup community today: make a viable minimal prototype of something - your marketing proposal, your product, your service or whatever - as a finger exercise. Find out if your idea can be implemented. Now more than ever, we need people who are not afraid of failure; who are brave enough to try new things. Music has taught me a lot about how this works and why it is so important.

The ability to improvise and make the most of the resources available has been particularly important since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Has the virus been a catalyst for change, perhaps even for positive innovation? 

Firstly, I think a "slap in the face" like corona is extremely disruptive. The pandemic is challenging our status quo in such a way that we are starting to think differently about our lives, our deaths - and let's face it, that's dramatic. But apart from all the negative aspects ... yes, the current situation is accelerating the transformation. I mean, let me give you an example - here in Berlin, where I live, until a few months ago you couldn't buy chewing gum anywhere with your credit card. People laughed at you if you tried. Now suddenly every store in town has this little device that allows you to pay with Apple Pay or your credit card. Why didn't this happen sooner? It certainly wasn't difficult to implement the technology that was already there. The store owners already had this device behind their counter. Now they just put it on top. That was the only change that had to be made. To me, this is a wonderful example of how easy it is to drop the old and useless. But something has to shake people up. I think when it comes to larger companies - and not just how we pay for our chewing gum or our beer - it's crucial that many, many more companies understand this. Too many are still saying, "Wait, we're not ready for that kind of transformation yet." Or: "We're not agile enough." As if these were the prerequisites for being able to set a transformative process in motion. No! Just get started.

Since you're talking about corporate change: What has the pandemic changed for SAP? 

I am always amazed at how human the company I work for really is. We are a business software company that creates complex systems and platforms. And yet we are one of the most humane and humble mega-companies out there. Our modesty comes from our beginnings: the days when Hasso Plattner himself was on the road in the 1970s - loading computers into an old van, driving them to a customer and saying: "Guys, we'll set everything up in a corner and you tell us what we can do for you!" That kind of attitude, long before Silicon Valley - we've been there, we've done that. I mean, of course we want to be on the market. And that's going quite well (laughs). But the reason for that is our mindset - it's the values that we've upheld from the beginning and that we continue to uphold.

Let me give you an example: If you're two months behind on rent for your store or manufacturing facility because of Covid-19, your bank will tell you, "We have to act now because we're a bank," and will hardly try to support you - that doesn't indicate strong values, does it? SAP will not say to its customers: "Oh, too bad" when a problem arises. We will try to find a solution. So when this pandemic hit, instead of completely shifting our focus, it just revealed to an ever greater extent who we have always been.

Personally, of course, I always think about how we can do even more of what we have been doing for decades. When I see the enormous scale with which we work, I think about the responsibility we bear. What other company is as interwoven with the economy and people's daily lives as SAP? There is no other company in the world that does what we do at a comparable level to us. Can we make it easier for people to take care of each other? Can we share values? Can we be more environmentally friendly? Can we be more inclusive? Can we look at our economy and see how the flow of money differs between us, our customers, their ecosystems and their customers? Can technology help us realize the best possible future?

Even if the last question was perhaps meant more rhetorically - would you answer it? 

I believe that humans and machines will soon interact in a completely different way than they do today. The solutions and systems of the future will be based on a highly empathetic symbiosis of machine intelligence and human ingenuity. This is a very important point, because if you look at Hollywood movies, they usually assume a "man versus machine" scenario. Don't get me wrong, I watch all those movies too - I love them (laughs). But that's just entertainment. That's just our amygdala talking. At SAP, we believe that the future will bring us cross-fertilization, not conflict between people and technology. We need to complement each other: While the machines deliver intelligence, we humans deliver our empathy. The first successful steps in this direction are already being taken: Take a look at customer experience management, for example. There, we ask questions that are based on human empathy. "How do you feel?" or "What experience would you like to have?" But these more emotional questions need to be supported by data that machines can collect for us. That's the real essence of augmentation - it allows us to use a kind of technological intelligence that complements us.

And in the next step, the idea of augmentation goes even further. Which areas of my humanity can still be augmented? My learning capacity: What do I need to remember relevant information and less nonsense? My decision-making ability: Do I make decisions quickly? Or do I avoid it? Can I be supported with technology? My adaptability, my ambitions, my behaviors, social skills... see what I mean? Even my efficiency: why am I always running out of time? You know, we could finally become truly human if we develop good technologies to support this. Because that is the last step towards perfection. Or perhaps the first step in a new chapter - the paradigm shift. We could finally fully exploit the potential of our humanity.

How is it that "professional" futurists tend to be optimistic about the future - while the general public apparently prefers to indulge in gloomy scenarios such as the science fiction you mentioned? 

Now we're almost starting another interview here (laughs). Where do you even start to answer this question? Well, first of all, when it comes down to it, if we are serious about achieving something in our lives, then we have to be optimistic. We didn't go to the moon by being pessimistic or even "just" pragmatic. No, we simply tackled it and did it. Another example: Hasso Plattner didn't invent in-memory technology, then brought it to market after six years of development by saying "Well, let's see how it goes". He had to be very optimistic.

To come back to your question: Most people are consumers of the future rather than creators of the future. We consume the future today like a sugar soda served cold. And people may not like the scenarios they are served, precisely because someone else has invented them for them. But they think there is no alternative, they have no power to change anything. Incidentally, this goes hand in hand with the idea that the future is singular: there is no such thing as "one future", but all the languages we humans have cannot express this. Futures are multiple until the moment they happen, it's almost like quantum mechanics. So when you hear someone say: "Guys, I've seen the future" - then the person is either crazy or wants your money.

They say that people fear negative futures - but do too little to avoid them because they believe it is beyond their individual capabilities. 

Exactly. People are afraid that something bad, something dystopian could come their way - but deep down they hope for the good, for utopia. That's why I tell people: don't buy the future that is served to you. Don't just be a consumer on your sofa; be a creator of the future. Especially if you are in business and other people depend on you for their business or even their lives, as is the case with SAP. Everyone out there in business: get to work! You are partly responsible for what will happen. You are living in the history of your own future. And since the future, whatever future there will be, is coming at us with exponential speed, we cannot outsource its shaping to our children or to fairy tales or religions. "Oh, that will be somewhere in the future..." No, you'll get the slap in the face today, not tomorrow! (laughs)

When we return to technology that can help us, do you think we will see not only an increase in human capabilities, but also an independent artificial intelligence at work? 

That's the question of the century, isn't it?

Yes, but because many people express them, I am of course taking the opportunity to ask you for your opinion.

I'm going to stick to my point of emphatic symbiosis. If we're talking about lean AI, broad AI or whatever AI there may be... Let's assume it's going to happen. I'm not an expert in this field, but I join the people who are doing intensive research on this, like Max Tegmark and all these guys who hang out with Elon Musk (laughs). People who are not entrepreneurs, but rather scientists.

It is convincing what they say - that one day there will not only be the augmentation I spoke of earlier, but some kind of new entity ... a broad AI, a homo digitalis, perhaps? The question for me is how we manage the transition or transformation or metamorphosis to this new entity by then. Can we make this process as pleasant and entertaining as possible? I think so. Maybe one day we will be the ones who complement the machines? Or the algorithms, with our humanity, with our ingenuity? Will the machines then understand human ambitions and feelings? Can we, in turn, be enabled to feel more human, better, deeper? Will we even have to exist as physical beings at some point?

Speaking of philosophizing - and sharing visions of a distant future: What does your utopia for a world in 100 years look like?  

Well, you shouldn't have asked someone who claims that the future is unpredictable (laughs). As I said, futures are multiple until they happen, so definitive statements are problematic. But since you used the word utopia, we can talk about what I consider desirable. Yes. What I think is desirable is an abundance of possibilities. Something I also call the "liberation of tools". This has happened again and again in human history. If someone in the Stone Age learned not only how to use a knife - but how to make it - then this tool was "liberated"; suddenly it was no longer reserved for a special group. It was the same with the Gutenberg Bible and the increase in literacy a few centuries ago. The clergy wanted to keep the interpretation of the Bible to themselves because the church was afraid of losing its power - in vain.

Just like the people back then, we have to keep pushing to liberate tools. Because I am convinced that the next Marie Curie or the next Alan Turing will come from somewhere in Nigeria or Bangladesh. It will be a young girl; at the age of seventeen, and she will learn about quantum mechanics on the smartphone that is worth five dollars and whose performance is ten times higher than that of my 1000-dollar device. This is the liberation of tools. What will she do with the knowledge she acquires? That's the final question in the process ... and the answer is up to her. Our job is simply to empower them - and I hope we are entering a time where talent is enabled by tools. Where we say, "Hey, guys, we've got these technologies for you ... and we can't wait to see what you do with them." That has some similarities with SAP, because we always say: it's our platform, but it's your business, so it's up to you what you want to use our software for.

A world in which everyone has access to knowledge and can share this knowledge - that really does sound like a very desirable utopia.

And imagine what would happen if everyone had the same tools at their disposal - that would be the end of inequality, but also the beginning of true individuality! Because what would determine the things we create would no longer be the circumstances in which we grow up, but rather our very own interests, ideas ... our DNA, our personal way of thinking. And when we recognize and appreciate the individuality of the other, we understand ... that I cannot be you. So I can't and don't have to compete with you. But I can complete you, make you a whole. We would then move from competition to completion.

... which would also change the way we do business with each other.

And not only that! Conglomerates - be they political, religious or business - would ultimately be less significant because we could all find each other as individuals with the help of technology alone. I would be uniquely able to solve your problems while you are busy with other things - and vice versa. This is the vision of maximum agility; of a business ecosystem that is always stimulating itself from within, always in the right place at the right time. That is the optimistic outlook. Who needs companies and conglomerates if we all cooperate as our own ideal personalities - simply on the basis of ourselves?