History-making hot air balloon pilot Bertrand Piccard: ‘AI has to be at the service of humankind’

In 1999, Swiss explorer Bertrand Piccard and British flight instructor Brian Jones became the first people to circumnavigate the globe non-stop in a hot-air balloon. Now, John Dower’s documentary film, The Balloonists, retraces their remarkable journey. Piccard told us more.

Big Issue: How did it feel to watch your record-breaking flight unfold on film?

Bertrand Piccard: It brought me back to the real emotions, because for 25 years, I’ve been telling the story, and you start to have a little bit of distance. But when I’m in my seat, looking at the film, I’m really back in the emotions I had during the flight, and of course I knew the outcome, but I was stressed! I did not remember it was so difficult, I did not remember it was so dangerous, and it was funny, because I saw the film with my wife and children, and I felt almost bad for them, because I had never told them that it was so horrifying, and they looked at me and said, “But you said it was fun!”

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You had some very wealthy competitors, including billionaire Richard Branson. What gave you the upper hand?

We were the underdogs, but because we were the underdogs, we had to be smarter. So our balloon actually was the best balloon, because we really studied the thermodynamic behaviour of the balloon, and we had the best sponsor with Breitling, because they were not here to pay for my dream, they were here to be a real partner with me, to develop something impossible, to fund something that would belong to us, not just to me. I think most of our competitors wanted to have done it. Brian Jones and I wanted to do it. And after that flight, we continued flying balloons. Most of our competitors never touched a balloon after their failure, because they  just wanted to fly around  the world. 

The film emphasises the importance of human creativity and collaboration. Are we at risk of losing those qualities in the age of AI?

In a balloon, when you change altitude, you will find other winds that will push you in other directions, and that’s how you steer. Today, with AI, we’re facing exactly the same thing. We can have one altitude at which AI will support human beings, will help human beings to do better, to understand better, to have access to more information. But you also have an altitude where AI can take the power, can take the control, can get rid of human beings, get rid of a lot of jobs, and put humankind behind technology, and this is really an altitude that leads to a disaster, like in a thunderstorm where the balloon is destroyed, and we have to be aware of this. We have to be responsible with what we do with technology and with AI. We should not have technology leading us. We should lead it. Technology has to be at the service of humankind, not humankind at the service of technology.

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How did your flight change your relationship with the natural world?

I think we have lost our sense of marvel in front of nature. We’ve lost the sense of marvel for the elements that we cannot control, and we think that human beings are the centre of everything, which is wrong. Human beings are just part of something bigger than them. We have to remember we are not the big kings on Earth. We’re just one element, and we have to be really careful, because by destroying the other elements, we might destroy ourselves. 

After the flight, you founded Wings of Hope foundation. What is it? We support children who suffer from neglected causes. The first one was Noma, this atrocious sickness that destroys the faces of children in the poorest regions of the world through chronic malnutrition. We now finally have the World Health Organization working on it, so now we can go to our second cause, which we are launching this year, which is fighting poverty thanks to renewable energies and clean technologies. Our first action is to replace oil stoves and wood stoves with renewable energy stoves in order to reduce pollution in huts, to reduce deforestation, and to allow the poorest populations to get rid of dependence on oil and kerosene.

What impact do you hope the film will have?

My goal is not to push people to fly around the world. But it shows the importance of curiosity, because without curiosity, you do nothing new. It shows the importance of perseverance, because without perseverance, you cannot succeed in trying something new. It shows the importance of respect, because without respect, your success has no value. And it shows how much it’s important to believe in your dreams, not to listen too much when people say it’s impossible, and to go further than we think we have to; get out of our comfort zone. Everybody in this team went out of their comfort zone, and this is why we could write history and do something that had never been done before.

What’s next for you?

The next project is to go further, to do better than Breitling Orbiter [the winning balloon they piloted] and Solar Impulse [a solar-powered aircraft]. With Breitling Orbiter, it was non-stop around the world, but we had emissions, because we were burning propane. With Solar Impulse, there were zero emissions, but 16 stopovers, and it took a year and a half to fly around the world without fuel. The next project aims at flying around the world nonstop, zero emissions with a hydrogen-powered aeroplane. A lot of people say zero-emission flying is impossible, so I want to show it’s possible. A lot of people say, “It will take 50 years before all the aeroplanes can fly on hydrogen.” And I answer, “Yeah, it will probably take 50 years. This is why you have to start today and not tomorrow, otherwise it will be 50 years plus one day.”

The Balloonists is in cinemas from 22 May

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