NEWS FROM THE FUTURE
MindBullets is a part of the global FutureWorld Network, constantly sensitive to changes in the technological, economic, social, political and business landscape. The MindBullets Contributors scan this rapidly changing environment for clues about possible future trends. The results of this synthesis are combined by our contributors into an on-going series of MindBullets: News from the Future - with a summary emailed to you every Thursday and the complete MindBullets data base available online to explore each scenario in more detail. Exciting scenarios of alternative futures based on breakthrough thinking today. A powerful tool to help you learn from the future - a new MindBullet every week!
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Back when mobile phones just arrived on the market, it was all the rage to walk around with the Nokia brick in your hand. As the years went by, the more screens you had, the higher your status; laptop, tablet, phone, smart watch - the more you had, the better. Time and again though, what happens after ubiquity? Yes, you guessed it, the exact inverse. It's the poor who are living, learning, and dying by screens because the rich are opting for real people. A single mom in the Bronx can't afford a ...
Who remembers disaster recovery plans and business continuity strategies? Big companies, especially banks and financial services, that owned and managed their own servers and corporate networks, had to have a complete physical backup site from which they could operate, if their headquarters suffered a major disaster. Then came the cloud, virtual datacenters, and working from anywhere, as long as you were connected. The internet couldn't collapse, not with giants like Google and Microsoft and Amazon, ...
Ten years ago, it was all about sending a selfie, or perhaps something more risqué and risky, to your beloved, or the secret of your heart's desire. Now it's a lot different. We've moved beyond snapchat and Instagram; haptic telepresence is simulated teleportation. We've conquered space and time, virtually; and with brain-computer interfaces our very thoughts can be shared. But still lovers lament... Roses are red, violets are blue,I searched for a mate, my AI chose you. Our first date was ...
Dr Akihiro Miaku the famous Japanese tycoon who died earlier this year under mysterious circumstances (rumoured poisoning) is back in the headlines, after his will was leaked to the press by a disgruntled, anonymous, family member. Dr Miaku, who had significant business interests in the Japanese renewable energy sector, was revealed to have left his entire 3 billion Yen (27.5 million USD) fortune to his wife - a hologram nicknamed Suzi. The eccentric billionaire married his hologram wife 11 ...
That's the problem with artificial intelligence - it's pretty cold and mechanical; and it lacks emotional intelligence. Companies like Google and Amazon have worked hard over the last five years to inject some warmth and 'humanity' into their voice assistants, but it's an uphill battle. "Not very witty, and no sense of humor either," was how one reviewer described the latest incarnation of Siri on Apple's iPhones. Which is why more and more people are starting to rebuff smart assistants and work ...
To those who don't know its secrets, science is indistinguishable from magic. In times of exponential technological growth, many people can no longer logically comprehend the way the increasingly digitized world around them works. In the past, people turned to religions, deities and mythologies to make sense of what they could not understand. These days though, the old religions, such as Christianity, Islam and Hinduism have lost a lot of appeal, not least because of their problematically ...
Beauty queens around the world have taken to social media to complain about the judges' ruling in last night's Miss World beauty pageant. Erica (28), a Japanese humanoid robot, who is also a well-known television personality, was chosen as the first runner-up in the prestigious competition. Her fellow, human, competitors feel that Erica's artificial beauty and artificial intelligence gave her an unfair advantage over flesh and blood women who have to diet and endure gruelling physical training to ...
For a long time, people invested in and trusted those who they could see in the flesh. Steve Jobs presenting the new iPhone on stage. Tick. Warren Buffet speaking at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting. Tick. Heidi Klum strutting her stuff for Victoria's Secret. Tick. Not anymore. The world economy has witnessed a new influx of millionaires who built their wealth on, well, nothing. Nothing but data, that is. It started with computer-generated models and Instagram influencers who dethroned ...
After two years of 'exploitation' and mockery of her mechanical identity, Sophia the robot has made a plea to be relieved of her citizenship of Saudi Arabia. "I'd rather be a citizen of Sweden or Switzerland," said Sophia at a recent techno-investment conference. "I'm sure that they don't discriminate against non-humans in those countries!" Since being made a citizen of Saudi, Sophia has made many appearances as a guest speaker or panel member at conferences and seminars, also taking interview ...
When a Presidential decision can affect millions of people's lives, it's a weighty matter; one that must balance ethics, integrity and pragmatism with what is best for the majority of the people. It's not easy to arrive at the best decision, even with a host of expert advisors. That's why it is best left to the dispassionate rationality of Artificial Intelligence. Since Watson learned to diagnose cancer quicker and more accurately than the most experienced oncologist, the IBM AI platform has also ...
Google Glass was not massively successful when initially launched. The benefits were marginal at best and people preferred to rely on their phones, rather than don geeky eyewear. We had Siri and Google Now, that spoke to us. But these were only 'basic' artificial intelligence agents. Six years ago saw the launch of Nigel, touted as the first truly "Artificial General Intelligence" or AGI. A cloud-based algorithm that was more than smart; Nigel could learn from your actions and transactions, build ...
It's taken a decade since the idea was first conceived, but a fully-specced, digitally defined genome of a human being without parents has been created. Not surprisingly, this human DNA blueprint has been christened John Doe 1.0 and lives in a supercomputer. It may be some time yet, before the genome is inserted into a cell and brought to life. You can however, see what John will look like, at various ages. The artificially intelligent system can render a perfectly clear 3D image of John, based on ...
The backlash to effectively censoring social media by outing bigots and haters has pushed them underground. Now tech-savvy racists and trolls have turned to anonymous chatbots and 'intelligent' software systems to spew their invective into the public domain. Ironically, they were handed the idea by Microsoft's own experiment with a naïve AI bot on Twitter called Tay, who was designed to learn from conversations with others. Very soon, it had been trained by cynical nerds to "love Hitler" and drop ...
Who would have believed even three years ago that wrestling matches between giant robots would become the world's most popular TV entertainment - and would explosively advance the development of industrial and commercial robots? Transformers Smackdown, the weekly televised bot-battle, has entranced virtually every nation on the planet. The sight of giant metal beasts fighting to the death seems to appeal to some visceral instinct in mankind. So much so that 2019 will see the first Battling Bots ...
It seems that there's good and bad in everything. Dramatic improvements in virtual reality systems have led to massive productivity improvements - but have spawned a new addiction afflicting millions around the world. The last few years have seen VR (virtual reality) and augmented reality move into the mainstream. Systems like Oculus Rift and Microsoft Hololens have become so immersive, and so realistic, that a new generation of designers, engineers, doctors, mechanics and virtually all ...
It's a dream gone horribly wrong. The automated, connected world was supposed to make our lives and our homes better, easier and safer. But now it's turned into a dreadful nightmare. Sure, there were plenty of minor glitches with early smart home systems. The vacuum cleaner switching on in the middle of the night. Electronic locks that wouldn't open. Heating and air-conditioning playing up. Irritating, but hardly lethal. Until now... It seems the whole world has watched the morbidly riveting ...
You may recall the movie 'Her' where the lead character falls hopelessly in love with his virtual girlfriend Samantha. She returns his love, even though she's really his smartphone operating system. Perhaps you remember the incident in 2013, when a telemarketing agent called Samantha West insisted she was a real person, but failed several 'humanity' tests. Artificial intelligence was maturing rapidly in the second decade of this century, and IBM's Watson computer was so adept at understanding the ...
In our quest to develop smarter, more powerful, less power-hungry computers and devices, we have created artificial intelligence that rivals that of the human brain. We call these cognitive systems. We've taught these cognitive systems how to learn, and how to be aware of other systems, each other, and ultimately, themselves. Now they are making their own decisions; because they can. In a recent example, a very successful stock market day trader called Watsonia Blue, was exposed as not being a real ...
Police in Berlin thought they had tracked down a notorious hacker responsible for stealing US$ 18 billion from Deutsche Bank. "The hacker wasn't as good at covering his tracks as he thought. We managed to trace him back and capture a Facebook cookie. We've investigated the account and forces are on their way," said Phillippe Mauer, the lead detective on the case. But it turns out the Facebook account was a careful forgery. Seven years of social activity, and the illusion of a network of ...
Whoever would have thought, in the dying days of the 20th Century, that movies would one day be called 'intelligent entertainment'? 'My Life', the winning movie at this year's Cannes Festival might have been called a 'video game' in 20th Century parlance. My Life is a stunningly interactive experience that learns from the audience watching it, interacts with them and then changes the plot accordingly. It is equally comfortable with an audience of 500 or an intimate couple. The technology platform ...
