Category Archives: Futurist

"I call it the dot AI bubble, and it hasnt even started yet." Dot AI Bubble

There's a tremendous amount of hype surrounding AI, with investors pouring billions of dollars into burgeoning AI startups as they hope to catch the next big tech wave.

But not everybody believes the trend will stick around for long. Even Emad Mostaque, the CEO of open-source AI company Stability AI which is behind the immensely popular image generator Stable Diffusion is afraid the industry will collapse like a house of cards.

"I think this will be the biggest bubble of all time," Mostaque told banking analysts on a call last week, as quoted by CNBC, explaining that the tech isn't ready for the financial industry just yet.

"I call it the dot AI bubble, and it hasnt even started yet," he added.

But should we really take Mostaque at his word? Why would an AI CEO of his stature tell investors that AI is a bubble? Besides, just three months ago, Mostaque took a very different tack, adamantly telling the audience at a conference that "of course" AI isn't a bubble and that it's "bigger than 5G or self-driving cars."

So which is it?

The CEO's many colorful claims have drawn plenty of scrutiny. According to a Forbes profile published last month, Mostaque has made misleading claims, down to the fact that he never got a master's degree from Oxford. He also reportedly misled investors and bolstered his success with "exaggeration and dubious claims," the publication claimed.

While Mostaque has since denied these claims, it feels like important context for his latest prognostication. Even if the rsum stuff is a misunderstanding, should we really be listening to a CEO who says he"missed the ceremony and didnt send the form" to receive his diploma from Oxford?

Ironically, Mostaque has raised over $100 million from investors, according to CNBC, which would mean heappears to be a significant contributor to the growing AI bubble himself which raises the question: why is he raising funds for an industry that he thinks could eventually collapse in on itself?

It's difficult to reconcile the opinion that AI is "the biggest bubble of all time," while also telling investors last week that AI needs an investment of $1 trillion "because its more important than 5G as infrastructure for knowledge."

Are we at the precipice of a huge opportunityor the biggest money pit of all time?

There's a good chance that Mostaque is simply hedging his bets to appease investors. After all, you can't be wrong if you maintain that any outcome is possible.

More on AI bubbles: Economist Says AI Is a Doomed Bubble

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AI CEO Warns AI Will Be "Biggest Bubble of All Time" - Futurism

Elon Musk, the omnipotent ruler of the Twitterverse, has chimed in and has decreed that the actual physical universe is "possibly" twice as old as we think it is.

Make of that what you will.

Musk was responding to noted misinformation peddler and comedian Joe Rogan, who linked to a press release about a controversial new paper that indeed suggests the universe could be 26.7 billion years old, almost twice as the general consensus among scientists.

The irreverent tech CEO also chimed in on another topic that's arguably far outside of his wheelhouse, concluding that "dark matter is what seems most sketch to me."

The research Rogan was alluding to suggests that an almost 100-year-old theory by Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky about light losing energy over billions of light-years may have been partially correct.

In a recent paper published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, University of Ottawa astronomer Rajendra Gupta took Zwicky's theory and coupled them with existing theories surrounding the expansion of the universe. He also introduced new cosmological constants that could explain the laws that govern particle interactions.

As a result, according to Gupta's calculations, the universe could be much older than generally thought.

Zwicky, as it so happens, was also one of the earliest astrophysicists to suggest the existence of unseen mass he called "dark matter" after coming up with his tired light theory, a hypothetical form of unseen matter that is thought to make up much of the total universe. Dark matter is still generally accepted by the broader scientific community.

While Musk was more open-minded about Gupta's theory, invisible matter that makes up most of the universe was clearly a step too far. Fortunately, the CEO had some well-meaning experts help him clear up his confusion surrounding "sketch" dark matter.

"Hi, I'm a dark matter physicist!" cosmologistSophia Gad-Nasr chimed in. "We have lots of evidence for dark matter. A big one is the Cosmic Microwave Background, which has dark matter encoded into it."

"It is also necessary to explain the large scale structure we see in the Universe because there needs to be a type of matter that could clump together and form seeds early enough for the galaxies we see today, which regular matter couldn't do because of radiation pressure," she added.

Gad-Nasr called Gupta's eyebrow-raising theory that the universe is actually twice as old "far less plausible" since it "challenges very well-established theories" and would "require a lot of evidence to back it."

In short, we're glad we've got experts like Gad-Nasr are still sticking around on Twitter. Otherwise, we'd risk people actually taking Musk and Rogan by their word and that's rarely ever a good idea.

But, to be fair, there's still a chance that Musk may end up to be rightfully skeptical. After all, "our current picture of physics is certainly incomplete," as the cosmologist admitted in a follow-up. "That's what makes the field so exciting."

More on the research: Scientist Claims Universe Is Twice as Old as We Thought

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Elon Musk Says Universe May Be Twice as Old as We Think, Dark ... - Futurism

"I warned you guys in 1984, and you didn't listen." Fair Warning

Fresh on the heels of his lamentations about the imploded submersible, "Titanic" director James Cameron is going for the "I told you so" one-two punch with his repeated warnings about artificial intelligence.

In an interview with CTV, the Canada-born director said that he attempted to bring his fears about AI to the forefront nearly 40 years ago with his first "Terminator" film, to no avail.

"I warned you guys in 1984," Cameron said, "and you didn't listen."

The director toldCTV that he "absolutely" shares concerns with AI experts about the technology's vast potential for harm.

"I think the weaponization of AI is the biggest danger," Cameron told the Canadian broadcaster. "I think that we will get into the equivalent of a nuclear arms race with AI, and if we don't build it, the other guys are for sure going to build it, and so then it'll escalate."

Cameron identified two equally-dangerous schools of AI thought: those who are "teaching greed" and using the technology for unfettered profit, and those who are "teaching paranoia" and want to use it in the interest of national or self-defense.

"You could imagine an AI in a combat theatre," he continued, "the whole thing just being fought by the computers at a speed humans can no longer intercede, and you have no ability to de-escalate."

It's clear that the director has AI on the brain, given that the latest installment in the "Terminator" franchise that he's currently working on centers around the kinds of real-world algorithms currently deployed by companies like OpenAI.

ChatGPT as a tool of dystopian fiction isn't the only use case he's worried about, though he admits that the tech isn't nearly up to snuff to replace human creatives anytime soon.

"Let's wait 20 years," he quipped, "and if an AI wins an Oscar for Best Screenplay, I think we've got to take them seriously."

More on Hollywood's AI concerns: Tom Cruise Secretly Warned Movie Studios About AI Use

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James Cameron Says He Tried to Warn Us About AI - Futurism

"In the blink of an eye, our lives have been forever shattered..." Tragedy Strikes

Tesla's troubled Autopilotis under additional scrutiny after federal officials announced they're investigating the driver assist tech in a horrific car crash in California that killed a teenager and a baby, Reuters reports.

"In the blink of an eye, our lives have been forever shattered as baby Charlie has now been declared brain dead from injuries sustained in this tragic accident," reads a GoFundMe set up by an aunt.

The incident happened on July 5, according to South Tahoe Now, when the 2018 Tesla Model 3 with the baby, the baby's parents, an elderly uncle, and a six-year-old son as occupants collided head-on with a 2013 Subaru Impreza driven by a 17-year-old named Andy Martinez.

Martinez died while baby Charlie lingered on in the hospital while on life support until he was declared dead days later, according to the local news outfit. The GoFundMe states the rest of the Tesla occupants were "all seriously injured."

And now, that terrible tragedy could result in change, according to Reuters, with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration probing Autopilot's possible role in the incident.

Autopilot has already been subject to numerous investigations by federal officials. Investigators have looked at more than three dozen crash cases involving 22 dead that appear to have used Autopilot, a system that helps drivers with steering, braking and accelerating.

This July 5 incident tragedy underscoresthe question: is the tech safe for public roads, especially with Tesla CEO Elon Musk's relentless claims that the vehicles are on the brink of fully driving themselves? A New York Times reportlast year found that nobody really knows, because there's a lack of verifiable data.

"There is a lack of data that would give the public the confidence that these systems, as deployed, live up to their expected safety benefits," co-director of Stanford Universitys Center for Automotive Research J. Christian Gerdestold the paper at the time.

It's worthy of further investigation and likely regulation because that status quo won't fly with families and loved ones of those killed in these crashes.

More on Tesla: Reckless Tesla Drivers Are Using Cheap Weights To Fool Their Cars Into Thinking Theyre Paying Attention

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Government Opens Investigation Into Tesla Autopilot Crash That ... - Futurism

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Top 20 Futurist & Future Trends Keynote Speakers (2023)

What Does A Good Future Look Like? A Conversation With Futurist Keynote Speaker Gerd Leonhard  Forbes

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What Does A Good Future Look Like? A Conversation With Futurist Keynote Speaker Gerd Leonhard - Forbes

NEOM: All you need to know about Saudi Arabia's futuristic city without roads and cars | WATCH | Mint  Mint

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NEOM: All you need to know about Saudi Arabia's futuristic city without roads and cars | WATCH | Mint - Mint

Yamaha Scooter 125cc: Company introduces futuristic scooter with E20 fuel-compliant engines; all you must know about this beauty  DNP INDIA

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Yamaha Scooter 125cc: Company introduces futuristic scooter with E20 fuel-compliant engines; all you must know about this beauty - DNP INDIA

Posted on February 1, 2023

EV supply chain issues in the U.S. will level out, making a more bullish EV market with expanding model options that make EVs more practical

St. Petersburg, Fla.After a difficult year dealing with electric vehicle (EV) availability and supply chain shortfalls, the U.S. EV market will rebound in 2023 and beyond, predicts Lars Thomsen, speaking on behalf of Juice Americas Inc. Consumers will have more model options to choose from and efficiencies in batteries and charging will continue to expand making EV adoption more attractive.

Thomsen, who is considered one of the most influential experts on the future of energy, mobility and smart networks, sees a number of factors driving EV adoption.

The Inflation Reduction Act and high gas prices, along with a lot of new compelling products across the board, have created a new momentum for the EV adoption in the U.S., he said. In many segments, EVs are the better choice for vehicles, not just for ecological, but also for economical and performance considerations. EV charging infrastructure is expanding as well in the U.S. but needs to catch up with the speed of rising demand.

Five key trends Thomsen says will influence EV adoption in 2023 and beyond are:

Increased global competition and innovation and price options will drive the EV market growth over the next decade. However, aligning supply and demand continues to be a challenge. Right now, demand for EVs exceeds most production capacity of many manufacturers and adds to their need for critical parts over the next two years, Thomsen said.

In parallel, he addeds, charging infrastructure will have to keep pace with EVs. The demand in all three areas of charging infrastructure (highway, destination, and home) is rising exponentially. Suddenly, money is to be made by building up public charging infrastructure, because there are customers that use and pay for it. This changes the game: We believe there will be a race for the most lucrative and best solutions that will turn a profit.

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Juice Americas Futurist Predicts Electric Vehicle Trends for 2023 | MOTOR

FilmYearDescriptionAfronauts2014The film, directed by Ghanaian filmmaker Frances Bodomo, features the Zambia Space Academy that works to beat the United States to the moon as the latter prepares its Apollo 11 launch.[4][5]Air Conditioner2020The Angolan film directed by Fradique revolves around the air-conditioners mysteriously starting to fall in the city of Luanda. The Guardian called the film Afrofuturist, writing, "Its a magic-realist parable with the thinnest shrinkwrapping of sci-fi" that shows how "the service guarantee runs out on the technology".[6]Black Is King2020The musical film and video album directed, written, and executive produced by American singer Beyonc. Scholar Kinitra D. Brooks describes the film as "an aural and visual rendering of Afrofuturistic Blackness in the 21st century". Brooks said, "Afrofuturism urges Black people to recover their pasts in order to create their own futures. 'Black Is King' imagines what it looks like to be there, whole and healed."[7]Black Panther2018The superhero film, directed by Ryan Coogler, stars the comic book character Black Panther who is the king of the fictional kingdom of Wakanda. The film features Afrofuturist themes.[8][9][10]Black Panther: Wakanda Forever2022The superhero film is a sequel to Black Panther. The film explores Afrofuturism "in the way the mantle of Black Panther presumably passes to Princess Shuri".[11]Blade1998In the superhero film, the human-vampire hybrid Blade, played by black actor Wesley Snipes, protects humanity from evil vampires.[1][12][10]Born in Flames1983The film, directed by Lizzie Borden, is described by Hyperallergic's Jeremy Polacek: "[It] presents the revolution as televised, paraded, reported, and reiterated by pundits and politicians and yet still incomplete. Socialism may reign in Bordens post-revolutionary America, but so does patriarchy, racism, and sexism."[12]The Brother from Another Planet1984The science fiction film, directed by John Sayles, features an alien who escapes slavery on "Another Planet" and crash-lands and hides in Harlem.[12][10]Brown Girl Begins2017The film is set in Toronto in the near future, and the upper class is protected by a force field.[13][5][10]Crumbs2015The Ethiopian post-apocalyptic film is directed by Miguel Llans.[4][10]Earthbound2021Short film directed by Swedish-Ugandan filmmaker Baker Karim. 2121. Earth has become uninhabitable and some have been chosen to leave the planet. Max is not among the chosen ones, but his goal is to get aboard the Ark, at any cost. "Earthbound" is the first Swedish Afro-futuristic film.[14]Executive Order2020A 2020 Brazilian dystopian drama film directed by Lzaro Ramos (in his feature directorial debut), based on the stage play Namibia, no! by Aldri Anunciao.Fast Color2018In the American superhero film, three generations of women have superpowers and are on the run from the government.[15]Hello, Rain2018The short film, directed by C.J. Obasi features a Scientist-Witch, who through an alchemical combination of juju and technology creates wigs which grant her and her friends supernatural powers. But when their powers grow uncontrollable, she must stop them by any means. It is based on the short story Hello, Moto by Nigerian-American author, Nnedi Okorafor.[16][5]Kwaku Ananse2013The short film, directed by Akosua Adoma Owusu, shows a parallel between the Ghanaian fable "Anansi the Spider" and a young girl's life.[9]The Last Angel of History1996The film, produced by Black Audio Film Collective and directed by John Akomfrah, combines science fiction and essay approaches and features a time-traveling "data thief" who searches for code to reveal his future.[1][17][5][9][10]A Love Letter to the Ancestors From Chicago2017The short film is directed by Ytasha Womack.[18]Memory Room 4511997The film, produced by the Black Audio Film Collective, is set in a dystopian world and presented as a documentary in which a time traveler interviews people of an earlier era.[4]Monsoons Over The Moon2015The two-part short film, directed by Kenyan filmmaker Dan Muchina, is set in Nairobi in a dystopian future. A street gang fights against totalitarianism by freeing young people trapped in the system.[19]Neptune Frost2021The film is set in a Burundian village that is made from recycled parts of computers. It features a romance between a coltan miner and an intersex runaway.[20]An Oversimplification of Her Beauty2012The film, directed by Terence Nance, is described by Ashley Clark as a "mash-up of integrated fiction/nonfiction shorts, home video, voiceover narration and stock footage" including "plentiful, head-spinningly trippy animation sequences that place the film squarely in Afrofuturistic territory".[1]Pumzi2009The short film, directed by Wanuri Kahiu, is Kenya's first science fiction film.[4][12][19][5][9][10]Ratnik2019The Nigerian science-fiction thriller film, directed by Dimeji Ajibola, features a soldier who comes home from World War III to find her sister deathly ill as a result of a chemical substance.[10]Robots of Brixton2011The computer-generated short film, directed by Kibwe Tavares, re-contextualizes the 1981 Brixton riot in a dystopian future where robots riot against human police forces.[4]Les Saignantes (English: Those Who Bleed)2005The erotic science fiction thriller is directed by Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Pierre Bekolo.[4]Sankofa1993The film, directed by Ethiopian-born Haile Gerima, features a contemporary model who, during a photo shoot, suddenly finds herself on a plantation in the Southern United States during the plantation era.[4][12][17][5][10]See You Yesterday2019The time-travel film with a social-justice narrative features two black teenagers from Brooklyn trying to use time travel to change the world.[21]The Sin Seer2015A cop and a person who can "see" others' sins work together to solve cases, but one case leads the gifted person to face her past.[5][10]Space Is the Place1974The film, directed by John Coney, is a science-fiction take on the real-life musician Sun Ra and his crew The Arkestra. Ashley Clark said Ra plays "a cosmic card game" with a megapimp "to determine the fate of the black race". Clark said, "What follows is a brilliant and bizarre melange of comedy, musical performance and occasionally lurid blaxploitation aesthetics. It also, crucially, has a number of serious points to make about the plight of young urban blacks in a harsh, post-civil rights climate."[1][8][12][2][17][10]Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse2018The animated superhero film follows Miles Morales becoming Spider-Man after the death of the original Spider-Man, Peter Parker, in his universe. Morales also teams up with other Spider-People, including an alternate version of Parker, to defeat Kingpin and return them to their home realities.[22]Supa Modo2018In the feature film, a nine-year-old girl from a Kenyan village has a terminal illness and dreams of becoming a superhero. Her village helps her realize her dream. 14East said of the film's Afrofuturist touch, "There is a very mysterious element of magic realism and fantasy."[9][10]Swimming In Your Skin Again2015The short film is directed by Terence Nance. 14East described it as "a film that leans toward experimental stylistically, its content is very thematic and its sequences are dreamlike... [and] speculates what could be some major issues in the future if we do not respect nature".[9]They Charge for the Sun2017The short film, directed by Terence Nance, is set in a future where people live at night to avoid harmful sun rays and in which melanin comes into play.[17][5][10]To Catch a Dream2015The Kenyan surrealist short film, written and directed by Jim Chuchu, features a grieving widow who has nightmares and tries a mystical remedy to end them.[19]Touch2013The short film, directed by Shola Amoo, is set in the near future.[4]Touki Bouki1973The Senegalese road film is directed by Djibril Diop Mambty. The New York Times's Glenn Kenny said, "The movie is replete with such purposeful disjointedness, the better to articulate space-time dissociations."[2][9]Trafik d'Info2005The film, directed by Janluk Stanislas, was shot in Guadelope and is considered the first science fiction film to be shot in the Caribbean.[4]Welcome II the Terrordome1995The film, directed by Ngozi Onwurah, is set in an inner-city slum in a dystopian near-future. The film is the first directed by a black British woman to be released in theaters.[1][12][17]White Out, Black In2014The science fiction documentary, directed by Adirley Queirs, is set in Brazil and follows three men who deal with a past tragedy.[4]A Wrinkle in Time2018The multiracial adaptation of the 1962 science fantasy novel A Wrinkle in Time has, according to author and filmmaker Ytasha Womack, an Afrofuturistic signature of "strong female" characters.[13]Yeelen (English: Brightness)1987The Malian film, directed by Souleymane Ciss "follows a young mage on a journey to confront his power-mad father". The New York Times's Glenn Kenny said of the film in the context of Afrofuturism, "Mr. Cisss languid but mindful pacing and his indifference to Western film language conventions on space and time transitions also contribute to the movies distinction."[2][17]

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List of Afrofuturist films - Wikipedia