Daily Archives: November 1, 2021

As a futurist, my goal is to expand our understanding of the future.Every day, thousands of emerging technologies spring to life, thousands of researchers make new discoveries, and thousands of new trends start to reveal themselves.

As we move down the path of advancing technology, our relationship with the future has never been clearer; making this both the most exciting and scariest time to be alive, in all human history. There is a constant battle being waged over the needs of the present vs. the needs of the future.

Naturally the future cannot be our only priority; otherwise, we lose our ability to function in the present. Near-term issues invariably take precedent over long-term potential; yet, our ability to prioritize importance is directly tied to our vision of the future.Still, it is our vision of the future that determines our actions today.

I use this phrase a lot: The future creates the present! Yes, this is just the opposite of what most people think. They believe the work were doing today will automatically create the future, but from a little different perspective, it is the images of the future that we hold in our head that determines the decisions well make today.

When I change someones vision of the future, inevitably, this changes the way they make decisions today!

View original post here:
Thomas Frey - Architect of the Future - Futurist Speaker

Futures studies, or futures research, is the systematic study of possible, probable and preferable futures. The field has broadened into an exploration of alternative futures and deepened to investigate the worldviews and mythologies that underlie our collective prospects.

Governments and leaders around the world are increasingly looking to systemic foresight to manage uncertainty and build resilience. For example, the government of the United Arab Emirates has a Ministry for the Future, and the UN Secretary General recently proposed a global Summit of the Future in 2023.

Futurists collaborate with businesses, governments and other partners to explore future scenarios and help people think about and prepare for things that havent happened yet. Dr. Stuart Candy, USC Berggruen Fellow and Associate Professor of Design at Carnegie Mellon University, is a professional futurist and experience designer known for pioneering experiential futures, a range of practices for bringing possible scenarios to life through tangible artifacts and immersive storytelling.

As we welcome Dr. Candy into the Forum Expert Network, we discuss his motivations to explore this domain, what developments have him most excited, what he wishes people knew about his work, and how we could make the concept of the future more inclusive and accountable.

I happened across the foresight field, or futures studies, back in high school. It was immediately inspiring to me wide-ranging and imaginative, analytically insightful, ethically engaged and practically applied. However, over some years of working with foresight in government, I found that policymakers had limited capacity to envision alternative futures, and even where the field had a certain currency, its legacy methods werent necessarily having great impact.

So, I began re-visiting longstanding creative interests of mine that had perhaps begun to fall away during my formal education in history and law making things, films, theatre, games and asked: how might thinking about futures be made more accessible and compelling through these modes?

What began as a trickle has, over time, become more like a flood: practitioners, scholars, activists, and others around the world are now working in countless different ways on these intersections. A range of these are documented in our recent collection Design and Futures.

The central challenge this work addresses could certainly be called global, but equally, it's psychological. It is an aspect of the human condition that exists at every scale of action and institution, from the personal to the planetary. That challenge is: how to engage the various possible worlds we might find ourselves in later not just intellectually, in the abstract, but more deeply as potential lived realities? The field traditionally has been very strong on frameworks for organizing thought, but less so on converting those anticipations into embodied insights and making them stick.

Design and futures were largely non-overlapping worlds when we started joining the dots in the mid-2000s, and a decade ago, the term "speculative design" wasnt even in the mix. However, new framings that speak to different groups are part of the vitality of how the work has taken off, and Im glad to help people explore futures more effectively under any banner. I have now spent well over a decade bringing futures often into new spaces, especially by growing and gardening those connections between foresight and media, arts, and design, which is intended to help acculturate build into our cultures these ways of thinking.

I would add that to my mind, designers have special duties because they create fragments of the future on behalf of everyone. Similarly, to the extent that a leader in any context has an outsized capacity to shape things, they have a commensurate responsibility to practice and enable high quality futures thinking.

Perhaps the most critical challenge is the need for futures literacy in the culture. Take politics and journalism, institutions that inherently deal with the future but that do not have a well-established habit of "rigorous imagining". Lack of futures literacy is apparent when otherwise discerning journalists demand that you provide predictions for their piece on "the future" (note the singular form) of any issue they are covering.

It is also apparent when policymakers, technologists, pundits, and other public figures issue a constant stream of authoritative-sounding forecasts, but no one checks back later to see how they fared, or asks how this diet of images of the future might be exerting influence and serving some interests more than others. Raising collective futures literacy, or "social foresight", not just across organizations but also throughout society, is an essential way for us all to navigate the predicaments that we face as a species.

The greatest development right now is the rapid widening of those who initiate, run, and take part in foresight work. Its incredibly exciting. People in various sectors, bringing diverse cultural, organizational, and disciplinary backgrounds and sensibilities, are picking up the tools to build strategic foresight and experiential futures approaches in particular, and adapting them for their own contexts and needs.

Theres more participation and interest than there has ever been, which is as thrilling as it is overdue. Organization leaders and governments, too, are taking the cue to improve their foresight approaches which is necessary in this time.

Playing with emerging media tools and technologies is a fun and productive aspect of opening up new ways of thinking through experiential futures. For instance, for the World Economic Forums own Global Technology Governance Summit this year, with my Carnegie Mellon students we designed online media websites and podcasts that behaved as if they were "from" decades out, each examining technology governance dilemmas and interventions that might be waiting in the wings.

Another project, for the UNESCO Futures Summit, pictured a future after the Sustainable Development Goals are achieved, via a digital showcase of world-changing organizations and initiatives in the year 2045. Here, we created a digital trade show for visitors to wander and explore at their leisure, using an online collaboration software Miro. Earlier this year, we created TikToks from the future, just as an experiment. The result was a range of wonderfully mundane, sometimes provocative or hilarious, vignettes of everyday futures, made with zero budget, and exploring food, autonomous vehicles, real estate, travel, and more.

Yet, the medium itself does not necessarily need to be cutting-edge or experimental to be effective. To support the UN Development Programmes annual innovation gathering, mid-pandemic, my collaborators and I created physical artifacts from alternative futures for global development and sent them in the mail for people to receive at their homes, ahead of a global event that took place entirely online.

Every storytelling approach offers different ways to think and feel into what alternative scenarios might be like. Since no one can visit the future to get hard information about it, we must use whatever it takes to stoke our collective imaginative and deliberative capacities.

The role of a futurist is more like that of an artist or writer than an accountant or lawyer. Its as much an art or craft as a profession, and there are as many kinds of futurists as there are ways of thinking about the future. The tradition I identify with is notable for being radically imaginative, critical, inclusive, and democratic. And to me, taking words like "future" and "futurist" back from the ways they have been abused, pre-populated or colonized with a tremendous amount of baggage is part of the project in hand.

It could also be helpful for more people to be aware that experts in the field generally dont call it "futurism" that word refers more to an art movement early last century thats unrelated.

Building the habit of mapping futures can be life changing. For institutions or organizations, it can really shift how they operate. Likewise at an individual level and its remarkable to get to see this among my students. I think a reason it can have such impact is that its a way of situating the "what" and "how" of daily effort within the larger "whys" in our lives. Investing in foresight capacity helps to knit vital day-to-day work to the meaningful longer-term and bigger-picture questions, and to keep those ties alive.

I believe the biggest collective impact of all this is unfolding right before our eyes, but its a large story, so you must look for it on a timescale of decades or generations rather than months or years. We, as humans, are learning how to codesign our futures. This is ultimately a transformation in culture and governance.

Well, I love that question. Its central to what we have been up to. My own approach to developing and socializing experiential futures widely has been to keep several hats at the ready, sometimes wearing more than one at once. As a creative, I devise projects and interventions to make particular questions, and new horizons of thought, available for particular occasions and audiences

As an educator, I learn from these experiments to devise new frameworks, and distribute them to emerging practitioners and whoever else can use them in their own context. And as a strategic consultant, I collaborate with organizations, governments and communities on their challenges to apply what we are learning, and show how it can work, which helps address those challenges while also earning greater legitimacy and visibility on behalf of a wider futures community, growing the audience of users and learners for the underlying practices.

If youre wondering about what a broader "we" can do, just about every organization has potential to grow their foresight capacity, and make more space to engage with alternative futures, which can help support creativity and innovation on one hand as well as risk mitigation and resilience on the other.

One project weve developed over some years which I think exemplifies this hybrid activity rather well, is a card deck called The Thing From The Future. Its a tool for diversifying and deepening imagination. Weve used it with UN agencies and the International Red Cross, as well as the BBC, NASA JPL, US Conference of Mayors, Skoll World Forum and other partners all over the world. It is a game that has the purpose of lowering the bar to using imagination with skill, and having conversations that matter, but playfully.

The future is not just something that happens to us, it is something we have the ability to shape. And part of what is interesting is, the more people and institutions tune in, participate, and act, the truer this becomes.

Follow this link:
What is 'futures studies' and how can it improve our world? - World Economic Forum

He says that companies want to "increasingly manipulate you."Hacked Humans

Yuval Harari, a world-renowned social philosopher and the bestselling author of Sapiens, has a stark warning: we need to start regulating AI,because otherwise big companies are going to be able to hack humans.

Harari believes that the rapidly increasing sophistication of AI could lead to a population of hacked humans, according to a report from CBSs 60 Minutes. To deal with this issue, hes calling on the worlds leaders to begin regulating AI and data collection efforts by large corporations.

To hack a human being is to get to know that person better than they know themselves,he told the show. And based on that, to increasingly manipulate you.

At the heart of the issue is the proliferation of tech companies whose business is gathering massive amounts of data about their users. Harari worries that people are increasingly ceding their personal lives to private entities that dont have their best interests at heart.

Netflix tells us what to watch and Amazon tells us what to buy, he said on the program. Eventually within 10 or 20 or 30 years such algorithms could also tell you what to study at college and where to work and whom to marry and even whom to vote for.

Harari urged nations to take the threat of powerful AI seriously, suggesting that clear and strict guardrails be put in place to ensure data isnt wielded to manipulate the public.

Certainly, now we are at the point when we need global cooperation. You cannot regulate the explosive power of artificial intelligence on a national level, Harari said to 60 Minutes. He added that data should never be concentrated in just one place saying, Thats a recipe for a dictatorship.

Its a chilling but plausible outlook especially now that some tech companies are looking to convince users to reject physical reality entirely and embrace a virtual one of its own making.

READ MORE: Yuval Harari Warns Humans Will Be Hacked If Artificial Intelligence Is Not Globally Regulated [60 Minutes]

More on dangerous AI: Former Google Exec Warns that AI Researchers Are Creating God

Care about supporting clean energy adoption? Find out how much money (and planet!) you could save by switching to solar power at UnderstandSolar.com. By signing up through this link, Futurism.com may receive a small commission.

Originally posted here:
Expert Warns That Human Beings Are Going to Start Getting Hacked - Futurism

Also, they're creepy as hell. Digital Workforce

While the metaverse might seem like a far off dream, more fit for the pages of a Neal Stephenson novel than reality, some are already attempting to cash in the concept and even provide a digital workforce for it.

Enter Soul Machines, a New Zealand-based company that says its designing AI-driven digital humans for clients to use for things like customer service, promotional videos, and education. However, the company also has its sights set on the future with co-founder Greg Cross saying it plans to create a digital workforce for a potential metaverse, according to The Verge.

When were playing a game, we adopt a certain persona or personality, when were coaching our kids football team we adopt another persona, we have a different personality when were at the pub having a beer with our mates, Cross told the Verge. As human beings, were always adjusting our persona and the role we have within those parameters. With digital people, we can create those constructs.

Soul Machines digital people run on a system thats creepily called Humans OS 2.0. Its an Autonomous Animation Platform with a digital brain that allows the AI to learn from its interactions with real people, according to its website. A video of the OS in action shows that the digital humans are ripped from the uncanny valley.

Cross hopes that the AI will be able to fulfill the future needs of flesh and blood humans, in and out of the metaverse or even duplicate them.

At some point in the future, you might be able to create a digital version of yourself or multiple versions of yourself, and they can go out and do stuff, make money for you, make money for your company, while youre doing something else thats a whole lot more fun, Cross told the Verge.

Creating digital people with the ability to learn for the sole purpose of working for real humans brings up a whole host of difficult ethical questions.

After all, if these digital people are indeed intelligent no matter how artificial having them work for us could be akin to a form of slavery or indentured servitude, especially if technological advances make them more intelligent as time goes on. It might also inadvertently create a new class structure of AI humans not unlike the video game Detroit: Become Human.

Cross, however, isnt deterred.

[Technology] has always been used by most of us to do incredibly good things and by a few of us to do the things that arent very nice or simply plain evil,he told the site. That is a reflection of the human condition.

READ MORE: This Company Is Making Digital Humans to Serve the Metaverse [The Verge]

More on digital people: This CGI Influencer Is Shilling for More than 100 Brands

Care about supporting clean energy adoption? Find out how much money (and planet!) you could save by switching to solar power at UnderstandSolar.com. By signing up through this link, Futurism.com may receive a small commission.

View original post here:
A Startup Is Creating Digital Human Servants to Work in the Metaverse - Futurism

This is the lamest dystopia ever. McRib NFT

McDonalds has announced that the McRib is back kind of.

In a tiring display of late-stage capitalism, the burger chain announced that its created McRib NFTs in celebration of the sandwichs 40th anniversary, according to a press release. The company added that it would be giving away the NFTs as part of a sweepstakes on Monday November 1st to give people the chance to enjoy it year-round digitally.

Our McRib NFTs are digital versions of the fan favorite sandwich almost as saucy as the McRib itself and were giving them away to a few lucky fans on Twitter beginning Nov. 1, the press release read.

All that sauce and not a drop of irony.

The restaurant giant isnt the first to get into the NFT trend. Megacorps including Coca-Cola, Taco Bell, and Nike have all offered NFTs to its customers this year. The only difference with McDonalds is that its giving away the McRib tokens for free, as part of a marketing ploy for the sandwichs upcoming release.

Honestly, thats to be expected. Jumping aboard flashy trends are easy ways for corps to gin up hype and extra money but boy, oh boy is it tiring.

Nothing quite sucks the fun and cool factor out cool new tech quite likethe Golden Arches using it to peddle a sandwich. Unfortunately, it just shows that, in a lot of ways, we are truly living in a cyberpunk dystopia one where behemoth corps will use any and all digital tools to make a buck, while most of us will eat it up like so many McRib sandwiches.

READ MORE: McDonalds USA Unveils First-Ever NFT to Celebrate 40th Anniversary of the McRib [PR Newswire]

More on NFTs: NFT Developer Absconds with $2.7 Million

Care about supporting clean energy adoption? Find out how much money (and planet!) you could save by switching to solar power at UnderstandSolar.com. By signing up through this link, Futurism.com may receive a small commission.

Continue reading here:
McDonald's Created a McRib NFT Because We Live in Hell - Futurism

Like it or not, its time to embrace the metaverse.

On Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed his company Facebook Inc. would be rebranding itself as Meta, to better reflect its focus on building the metaverse, described by Zuckerberg as an embodied internet where youre in the experience, not just looking at it.

The concept of the metaverse, meanwhile, has been around long before Facebook even existed. Often described as the successor to the internet, futurists and tech experts have envisioned the metaverse as a place where our physical realities converge with various virtual experiences in a shared virtual space. This idea has been explored in some way or another by science-fiction authors or Hollywood filmmakers over the past several decades, generally depicted as a virtual-reality platform where users can create an avatar to interact with fellow members of the digital population.

The concepts name the metaverse was even adopted from the 1992 novel Snow Crash, in which the plot plays out in both virtual and physical realities.

The term predates the internet we know today, explains Trond Undheim, PhD, a futurist and author whose podcasts explore technological innovation and artificial intelligence, among other topics. But it has now become the term for the gradual shift in digital communication whereby the internet is becoming a hybrid reality, meaning its becoming physical and digital at the same time.

The easiest way to envision this concept, perhaps, is to observe the gaming community which is the closest any group has come to entering the so-called metaverse, as far as Undheim is concerned. These gamers have established virtual avatars of themselves, which interact with other virtual avatars across persistent online worlds. Theyre working together in real time, arranging meet-ups, even spending in-game currencies all while communicating via headsets or chat.

There have even been reports of people hosting their wedding inside the cutesy virtual world of Nintendos Animal Crossing and inviting their friends digital avatars to attend after the pandemic canceled their real-world receptions. More recently, Fortnite reimagined Washington D.C. circa 1963 to teleport players back to the Capitol to watch Martin Luther King, Jr. give his iconic I Have a Dream speech.

But the future of open-world gaming is just one of the many ways the metaverse will take hold of our lives. Big Tech, of course, is ready to take things a step further.

As Zuckerberg described in a video released Thursday, Meta is trying to build a part of the metaverse that would let users do almost anything you can imagine or at least be a place where they can interact, work, shop, play games, gather for social events or create content. He also claims Metas efforts will create millions of job opportunities, much like the internet eventually created jobs that were previously unheard of.

I expect that the metaverse is going to open up lots of opportunities for people in the exact same way, Zuckerberg said. But the reality is that no one knows exactly which models are going to work and make this sustainable.

In addition to Facebook, which had previously boasted its virtual playgrounds and boardrooms, Microsoft has also been discussing its own metaverse apps for creating, and connecting to, all-new shared digital spaces.

The pandemic only accelerated the need for at least some types of metaverse-adjacent experiences, with more folks working from home and relying on technology in order to be places that they cant physically be. Theres also growing interest in making virtual events more accessible, allowing users to attend art galleries or concerts with other online friends, or patronize virtual businesses where they can spend their hard-earned currency (or cryptocurrency) on goods or services real or digital.

The metaverse is different and much more powerful than a complete virtual reality, Undheim says, because it is combining the two without merging them all the way.

It doesnt truly exist yet, he adds. But well know it when we see it.

Much of the technology needed to create the metaverse already exists, or is currently in development. But there are still several hurdles to cross before the concept can be put into use, including bandwidth requirements, and getting enough people on board. Undheim also fears that the metaverse may become too commercialized very early on, making users feel alienated or exploited before the concept has a chance to reach its full potential.

What Undheim does know, though, its that the metaverse is coming relatively fast, too.

We will see this wash over us in the next five to seven years, Undheim believes. [Its here] the moment a reasonable person would say, I dont really know if I would value my physical reality over interacting online. Maybe they dont even recognize the distinction between the two.

Read more:
What is the metaverse? - fox4kc.com