Signals: Predictionzzz ... Luddite Shaming ... Technolife 2035 ... and more

Vol. 2, No. 3 | January 13, 2016 | AAI Foresight

News for the Foresight Community

> Hot Topic: Predictionzzz

> Unnecessary Roughness: Luddite Shaming

> Publication: Technolife 2035

> Special Issue: Journal of Futures Studies and Science Fiction

> On the Move: Brian David Johnson

> Foresight Report: Digital Citizenship

> ICYMI: End of Year Report

> Feedback: On “How Technology Professionals Will Work”

Hot Topic: Predictionzzz

The beginning of a New Year was greeted with the usual popular media attention to “the future,” which means collections of ongoing and imminent trends disguised as click-attracting predictions. For futurists and other foresight professionals, it is an opportunity to capture the imaginations of those otherwise preoccupied by the present, even as we remind ourselves of our true purpose.

The usual futuristic subjects—artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and robotics—appeared in some lists, but a few twists on these topics caught our eye: In Ireland, a Future of Law and Legal Tech Conference, warned that lawyers could go extinct if they don’t reduce their fees and streamline their practices. “Eight out of ten U.S. law firms believe that robots will take over most low level and data- driven procedures within 10 years,” reports the Independent.

Writing on LinkedIn Pulse, Singapore futurist Harish Shah had a slightly different take on the annual predictions exercise: He offered a list of technologies that will be obsolete by 2030, including physical monitors, which will be replaced with holographic displays, and nearly all forms of computer we now rely on—PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones—which will be replaced by wearables.

Comment: I find the latter forecast a bit disconcerting, as I attempt to execute this newsletter on a five-year-old (no longer manufacturer-supported) laptop with a dead battery. Though I’ve achieved the paperless future, I’m not yet ready for the holographic one. —CGW

References: “Lawyers Told to Cut Fees or Face Future Led by Robots” by Dearbhail McDonald, Independent (December 17, 2015).

“Obsolete By 2030: A List of Tech Items We Cannot Imagine Life Without Today” by Harish Shah, LinkedIn Pulse (January 6, 2016).

Unnecessary Roughness: Luddite Shaming

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation’s second annual Luddite of the Year Award is still taking nominations. The “honor,” ITIF says, “recognizes the year’s most egregious example of a government, organization, or individual stymieing the progress of technological innovation.”

Topping the not-in-any-particular-order list of nominees for 2015 are the duo “alarmists” Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking, nominated for their endorsement of last year’s open letter to their scientific peers warning of the danger of creating an artificial intelligence. (See the story in the April 2015 Foresight Signals.)

Comment: While we certainly admire ITIF’s work to encourage innovation, shaming respected scientific leaders for encouraging others to consider the potential negative consequences of their work strikes us as counter to the mission of foresight generally and technology assessment specifically. The real Luddite awards should be reserved for those who attempt to ban the research they fear,* which Musk and Hawking did not do; they asked for broader research, not no research. —CGW

*For example, see the North Carolina legislature’s 2012 ban of research on climate change. 

Source: ITIF Announces 2015 Luddite Award Nominees (press release).

Signals: artificial intelligence, innovation, Luddites, technology

Publication: Technolife 2035

The English-language version of Elina and Kari Hiltunen’s Technolife 2035: How Will Technology Change Our Future? has now been published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

In addition to providing a comprehensive overview of technology forecasting methodologies, the authors offer an insightful vision of where technologies may lead us into the future. The text concludes with three extended scenarios based on a reimagining of the Romeo and Juliet story, first presented in The Futurist magazine (July-August 2014).

In their preface, the authors invite readers to put the book away and leave it in a drawer for another 20 years, the open it again for a “burst of laughter” at how “silly were they back then.” For we no doubt will all predict a few silly things and miss quite obvious ones, the authors admit. But prediction, they point out, is not the point, but rather raising “discussion about what technology can bring with it—both the good and bad.”

Source: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Signals: foresight, scenarios, society, technology

Special Issue: Journal of Futures Studies and Science Fiction

The December 2015 issue of the Journal of Futures Studies, co-edited by Thomas Lombardo and Jose Ramos, focused on the relationship between science fiction and foresight. In the lead article “Science Fiction: The Evolutionary Mythology of the Future,” Lombardo writes that those science fiction works that deal with the future may be viewed as narratives of tomorrow's possibilities.

“A good story about a possible future, with its drama, action, and sensory detail, is psychologically more compelling and realistic than an abstract theory, static image, depersonalized futurist scenario, or statistical prediction,” Lombardo writes. “Science fiction personally draws us into a rich vicarious experience of the future through its vivid and memorable characters. We live the story through the characters. All told, through science fiction narrative, we live and feel the future at a deep and intimate level.”

Reference: “Science Fiction: The Evolutionary Mythology of the Future” (PDF) by Tom Lombardo, Journal of Futures Studies (December 2015).

Signals: futurism, science fiction

On the Move: Brian David Johnson

Longtime Intel futurist Brian David Johnson has joined the faculty of Arizona State University as a “professor of practice” in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and futurist in residence for the spring 2016 term. At ASU Johnson will lead two major projects: The Future of the American Dream and the 21st Century Robot.

“I’m so excited about the future and what we’ll be able to accomplish,” Johnson said. “ASU is one of the world’s most innovative and forward-looking institutions. It’s the perfect place to collaborate with a broad, diverse set of people and to explore the future in exciting, intellectually rigorous and surprising ways.”

Source: Arizona State University.

Signals: education, futurists, robotics

Foresight Report: Digital Citizenship

In AAI Foresight's latest Foresight Report, “Digital Citizenship,” futurist consultant Karl Albrecht describes many advantages of a national digital ID system, including what might be the “killer app”——immigration reform. The digital citizenship program he describes would tackle at least one fundamental issue: determining who is a citizen and who is a “guest.” What to do with guests determined to be where they shouldn't be has yet to be resolved.

Albrecht observes that the technical obstacles to creating a connected but secure and anonymous database system to establish national identity are not as daunting as are the political and social obstacles. Fears of government overreach match fears of hacking and terrorism, and as long as the supporters match the opponents of a national ID system, a satisfactory system is unlikely to come about soon.

Reference: “Digital Citizenship: The Case for a National ID Card” by Karl Albrecht (Foresight Report, Winter 2016). Contact Albrecht at www.karlalbrecht.com. “Digital Citizens” is AAI Foresight’s sixth Foresight Report and is available as a free PDF download. Access the series at www.aaiforesight.com/foresight-reports.

Signals: citizenship, digital society, information technology, privacy, security

ICYMI: Mack Report

In case you missed it: In his end-of-year report, Tim Mack reviews the activities and accomplishments of the first full year of operations for AAI Foresight Inc. In addition to a number of internal and external publishing projects, Mack participated in a new science-focused series, SciTech Voyager TV series for Turkish Radio Television. See AAI Foresight Year-End Report, Foresight Signals (December 2015).

Feedback: Technology Work and Technological Displacement

In response to Timothy Mack’s Foresight Report “How Technology Professionals Will Work” (Foresight Report, Fall 2015), Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist at NASA Langley Research Center, writes:

What is new this time with machines replacing humans is that … we are now producing a second intelligent species. The unanticipated huge and evolving success of the combination of deep learning, big data, and fast machines is producing greatly improved machine intelligence via soft computing long before brain emulation is slated to do so. Therefore, the machines taking the jobs, including the creative jobs, is now being accelerated.

Much of [Mack’s] piece is nearer term, as humans try to fight desperately to hang onto traditional thinking and functions. It is all going to have to be wholly reinvented, [as I discussed in] “Creating Problems and Enabling Solutions” (Foresight Report, Summer 2015). “We reinvented humans … twice before: the agricultural age and the industrial age. In each there was a major change in what humans did and [in] their social fabric. This new “Machine Revolution” [will] have essentially all of the human capabilities for economic activities, including creativity, only far greater and far more than humans. If anything this is even more of a sea change to the human existence theorem than the Agricultural and Industrial [revolutions].

Humans have simply been too successful and have invented themselves out of their jobs. Humans 3.0 is now “our” horizon. Much of what you cover in this present piece is rapidly being transcended.

Contact: Dennis M. Bushnell, dennis.m.bushnell@nasa.gov.

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Send us your signals! News about your work and other tips are welcome, as is feedback on Foresight Signals. Contact Cynthia G. Wagner, consulting editor. mailto:CynthiaGWagner@gmail.com

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Feel free to share Foresight Signals with your networks and to submit any stories, tips, or “signals” of trends emerging on the horizon that we can share with other stakeholders and the foresight community.

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Jumping Technology Categories

By Timothy C. Mack

Over the years, I have written concerning the unexpected consequences for companies of moving into technologies completely new to them, encouraged by their success in other, unrelated arenas. The illusion that success is a quality that travels with its recipient to new endeavors is a form of hubris that seems most endemic to areas like Silicon Valley in California. There, the blessing (or curse) of vast disposable resources appears to be leading a number of companies out of the arena of computer software and hardware development into such terra incognita as Google’s self-driving, electric-powered car.

Vox’s Timothy B. Lee has observed that the data being collected for a number of years by the Google Street View program—which has built the detailed 3-D maps of streets worldwide that could guide such a car—and a corporate “moon shot” culture that encourages broad-based engineering endeavors provide some baseline for such an undertaking. But even breakthrough innovations in batteries and power management would be within the range of possibility.

Google already has five years of R&D invested in this self-driving car project. However, how well would Google find its way in an entirely new marketplace with technology of a distinctly new level? As Mashable writer Lance Ulanoff notes, there are as many as 6,000 parts in an automobile (although battery power does reduce that number a bit), and there is a much higher standard for drivability and driver safety than is required for software and hardware. Finally, this undertaking would require a whole new universe of suppliers and logistics.

The price points involved in such a quantum shift are quite intimidating, considering both the overhead investment per unit and the volume of units that would need to be sold to make the numbers work. While overseas production is an option (perhaps with partners), that choice could become a political football within the United States.

Competitors like Apple are in fact entering the automotive market, but by working from existing strengths, such as the CarPlay dashboard interface, says Lee. While Apple has been hiring from within the auto industry to better understand that marketplace and technology, moving from the Apple Store model to the automobile showroom floor is also tough to imagine. Google does not even have brick and mortar sales structures, meaning sales might have to go entirely digital. Then what happens to the automobile test drive?

New technology and the tight integration of hardware and software is a compelling story, as Apple demonstrates. But self-driving software for conventional cars is also compelling, and this latter approach more closely matches Google’s history of building products that run on other people’s devices.

Note: As I have observed elsewhere, the liability issues for self-driving cars are likely to take years and maybe even decades to sort out. Unintended consequences arise from even small shifts in direction. The outcomes of such an adventure are difficult to estimate, but they are likely to be substantial and messy.

Timothy C. Mack is managing principal of AAI Foresight Inc.

Further reading: Is Apple building a self-driving vehicle or is it not?

“Apple really seems to be building an Apple Car. That's not as crazy as it sounds,”

Timothy B. Lee, Vox (updated February 19, 2015).

“6 reasons why Apple is not building a car,” Lance Ulanoff, Mashable (February 18, 2015).

Images:  Google Blog; Apple.

The Solar Power Industry and Its Growing Pains

By Timothy C. Mack

The Kauai Island Utility Cooperative in the Hawaiian Islands would seem to be the poster child for the increasing market penetration of solar power. KIUC has quintupled utility-scale solar capacity over the past year and soon may approach 80% of peak power generation for solar on the island, as MIT Technology Review contributing editor Peter Fairley recently reported.

However, the path to the cutting edge has not been an easy one, underlining that basic futurist warning not to overlook the unintended consequences and systemic weak spots of technological innovation.

KIUC’s growth-related problems are grounded in that perennial challenge of renewable energy, the curse of power fluctuation, Fairley notes. Even in high sun-day settings like Hawaii, there are always a few clouds that pass by, sending power outputs dropping in less than a minute by 70% to 80%. The result is alternating current (AC) levels that fall below 60 hertz, which may damage customer equipment or even trigger a local blackout.

Naturally, utilities have installed diesel or gasoline-fired generators to take up that frequency droop, as well as large battery banks. But those generators ultimately wear out from frequent heavy use. They also pump petro-carbons into the atmosphere while continuing to consume petroleum, instead of largely replacing them with clean, renewable power.

On the battery side, the 4.5 megawatt bursts of replacement power needed to offset AC disruptions soon wore KIUC’s lead-acid battery banks out: They failed in one-quarter of the lifetime promised by the supplier. As Fairley reports, the utility is trying again with lithium-ion batteries, which are now rated for four to six times as many cycles and can absorb any excess solar power generation that might occur.

Judging from the subsequent (and related) bankruptcy of KIUC’s initial battery supplier, it is clear that performance projections for new applications are always an iffy business.

Note: It appears that foresight tools will always have a useful role in accurate technology assessment and adoption analysis, especially concerning the systemic impacts of new technology applications in new settings and configurations. In this case, the economic imperative to meet local energy needs on one side, and to make sales quotas on the other, led development partners to underestimate the challenges of such a massive conversion to renewables.

Balancing of normative optimism about desired outcomes with realistic assessment of possible shortfalls is essential for effective technology upgrades, and the cross-assessment of opportunities and potential threats is a central part of responsible foresight.

Timothy C. Mack is managing principal of AAI Foresight Inc.