In his new book, business expert, author and futurist, Jim Blasingame, reveals the source of our anxiety about technology: An unprecedented ethical paradigm shift

As contemporary humans, we must remember one immutable fact: You and I are, have always been, and always will be, analog. From Euclid to Edison to Eddie, your brother-in-law, we’re all physical, analog beings. And having lived in and perpetuated an analog world for 10,000 years, for good or for ill, humans have therefore always exhibited analog behavior.

But there is something very new in our world. In fact, it’s the underlying thread of The 3rd Ingredient. We’ve taken the aggregation of information, knowledge, accomplishments and, for the first time in history, created something quite unique. A truly new innovation with its own energy: digital technology producing digital leverage.

Blasingame focuses on the impact of digital leverage on what he calls “analog ethics.” Perhaps like no one else to date, Blasingame explains why the ethics we developed during the 10,000 years of the Analog Age can’t move fast enough against the forces of digital leverage. In fact, he says we must create digital ethics that are preemptive.

One of Blasingame’s primary conclusions is that our greatest danger is not from AI or a robot, but from ourselves. That as we democratize digital leverage, we also have to become devoted to digital ethics that can be applied simultaneous with the pressing of an “Enter” key.

That’s the purpose of The 3rd Ingredient – to foster the conversation about how to accomplish this transition. Because just as no machine ever created itself, and no lever ever kick-started itself, no ethical principle ever materialized out of the mist. Only humans create leverage and only humans create ethics.