6 Technology Impacts That Will Either Accelerate or Kill Your Business in the Next Decade
Every business leader is aware of the challenge of the overwhelming complexity of technology. As we embrace the depth of insight we now have into the lives of our customers, and the new digital channels in which we can interact with them, it may be easy to miss or ignore the overwhelming impact that a wave of advanced technology will have on both businesses and consumers in the next decade. Prior to digital technology, businesses had time to adapt their marketing and operational capabilities to take advantage of the new opportunities. However, the wave of advances since has sped up the innovation cycle and operational requirements to a pace that is running ahead of most companies. The top six waves we predict will have the most impact are:
- Everyone Everywhere – this tidal wave of information, referred to as big data has been signalled by the World Economic Forum in its article “14 tech predictions for our world in 2020” as personalising the ‘Internet of Things’ – with humanized interfaces constantly evolving to understand user patterns and needs to self-optimize our experiences.
- Connected Identities – That business will become more humanised – as the data we shared is analysed by advanced analytics, the Internet will know more about us and understand our needs, optimising our online world to meet those needs.
- Global Sustainable Solutions – new solutions will replace scarcity with abundance – through the transformation of competitive economies into sharing ecologies to solve global problems. For example, overcoming the energy scarcity challenge through a combination of new sources and data driven optimisation. With Space-based Solar Power [SSP], where energy from sunlight in space is transmitted wirelessly to Earth, we are on a path to solve both our energy and greenhouse gas emissions problems. According to the National Space Society “the solar energy available in space is literally billions of times greater than we use today. The lifetime of the sun is an estimated 4-5 billion years, making space solar power a truly long-term energy solution”. And connecting that power across the world in a fully connected in a global electricity grid will be not be done by expanding current capabilities, but by optimising the new power source through leveraging the “exponentially expanding wave of data being generated by smart meters”. This advanced power optimisation system, known as Autogrid, will essentially turn big data into power.
- Frictionless Transactions – overcoming the resistance to transactions through language, borders and sales processes will lay the foundation of global trade transformation. Technologies such as Google Translate to abstract the transaction from language barriers, using digital currencies like Bitcoin to overcome economic and banking borders. In the article ‘Six Apps Making Mobile Transactions Frictionless’ we see examples of how product search and comparison and one click purchasing are ‘smoothlining’ consumer transactions.
- Deep Learning – machines are at the point of learning faster than humans, making them not only an asset in cognitive reasoning, but also a threat in their potential to ‘go rogue’ and instil their own version of ethics into human society. In an article by Facebook AI Director Yann LeCun “Facebook AI Director Yann LeCun on His Quest to Unleash Deep Learning and Make Machines Smarter” LeCun defines deep learning as “machines that learn to represent the world” and shares the limits and dangers of the cognitive mammoths, and how taking an entirely empirical approach to their future development can risk the belief that artificial intelligence [AI] has the capability of modelling the brain. Our concern is that without emotional intelligence, these machines are no more than rational cognitive convolutional neural networks.
- Singularity – the convergence of AI, robotics, drones, sensors has given rise to machines with superhuman like capabilities. Currently such machines as exoskeletons are only destined for medical and military use where it with either supplement human physical capability in cases of bodily damage or to use in operations that prevent the risk of human life. However, with films like “the Terminator” and Shane Stadler’s book “Exoskeleton” the potential for misuse of this type of technology is easy to project. It is just as easy to dismiss, as Ray Kurzweil himself first dismissed. Just as IBM chief Watson claimed there would be no need for computers in the home. The Guardian attempted to balance views on singularity in its 2014 article “Are the robots about to rise?”.
In summary, I think Vernor Vinge, Department of Mathematical Sciences, San Diego State University said it best. In his 1993 article “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era” he claimed that within thirty years [by 2023], we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. He argued that “we are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth, and that the “precise cause of this change is the imminent creation by technology of entities with greater than human intelligence”.
There is no doubt as to the value of technology in our world – both in terms of business and personal existence. However, in an effort to keep pace with the changes the digital revolution has empowered us with, are we losing sight of the value of being human? Technology has expanded our business capabilities across global time zones and keeps us all connected 24x7x365. As our expectations of our business enterprise grows, so too do the expectations on individuals within those businesses. This is leading to burn out, loss of identity, poor relationships, poor health and a general loss of a sense of what it is to be human.
So what is the solution?
Take control of your digital connection – in this video “Un-Hooked: Increasing Focus in the Age of Distraction” Nir Eyal, author of “Hooked” talks about how to manage digital distraction using the Hook Model to prevent productivity and relationships from suffering from the addiction we have to being digitally connected. Getting unhooked from technology for some part of every day is not only a great way to preserve energy, it has also shown to provide invaluable energy renewal time and time to think – both of which improve productivity beyond the alternative of working another ‘connected’ hour.
Embrace the machines: sustain the humans – it’s time to zero base. The future is no longer about incremental advancement, it is about total transformation of global models, business models and personal lives. Unless we abstract the difference between machines and humanity we are at risk of creating our own Frankenstein models, not of machines, but of human existence. New business models based on sharing ecosystems, and integrating elements of self-awareness, emotional intelligence and social relationships into corporate cultures will be needed to ensure that we continue to value who we are as individuals, and what bind us as groups and communities. Embracing what makes us human will keep humanity human.
References
Montresor, Fulvia. (Aug 26, 2014) “14 tech predictions for our world in 2020”. World Economic Forum Agenda website. URL:https://agenda.weforum.org/2014/08/14-technology-predictions-2020/
PSFK and Braintree Partner Content (Apr 24, 2015) “Six Apps Making Mobile Transactions Frictionless” URL:http://www.psfk.com/2015/04/mobile-apps-frictionless-commerce-google-shift-keep-snapup.html
Gomes, Lee. (Feb 18, 2015) “Facebook AI Director Yann LeCun on His Quest to Unleash Deep Learning and Make Machines Smarter” IEEE Spectrum website. URL:http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-intelligence/facebook-ai-director-yann-lecun-on-deep-learning
Cadwalladr, Carole {Feb 23, 2014) The Observer “Are the robots about to rise? Googl’e new director of energineering thinks so” URL:http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/22/robots-google-ray-kurzweil-terminator-singularity-artificial-intelligence
Vinge, Vernor. Department of Mathematical Sciences, San Diego State University. (1993) “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era” URL: https://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.html
Eyal, Nir. (Jun 11, 2015) “Un-Hooked: Increasing Focus in the Age of Distraction” URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j2Wg3kwZIk