There’s always been such an ominous feeling around the year 2020. At one point, we all thought our world would look like that of the Jetsons. Some even joked it would look something like Aldous Huxley’s book, A Brave New World (which wouldn’t be that far off in the future). Yet, here we are, in a global pandemic, entering an era filled with synthetic experiences.
Every year South by Southwest (SXSW) hosts a panel about emerging tech trends. In this year's digital rendition, Amy Webb, renowned futurist and founder of the Future Today Institute, took a deep dive into all things tech. She emphasized the complications of the current pandemic. Using an analogy of a car sliding on ice, she stressed that instead of pumping the breaks, in these times of uncertainty, we should steer into the slide, while gazing into the car’s future vision. This same mindset is what led Ideaison to curate Retrospekt, a cross-genre cinematic music experience that broke away from mainstream programming to mimic the feel of a real music festival. We were sick of seeing DJs playing in sub-par locations with little-to-no regard for the production itself. We saw this as an opportunity to capitalize on and concept a virtual festival with multiple stages, genres, and media. This proactive thinking also led to an influx of 406 emerging tech trends, across 31 different industries, this year.
The first trend she touched upon represents the third era of computing, the use of artificial intelligence (AI). In 2019, AI moved from machines to the cloud, which turns companies against one another fighting for server space. This $250B industry continues to thrive as the massive global rush to fund AI progresses; as people digitally transform their projects, events, etc. Along with this, AI systems are being used to accelerate the process of discovery, making a year-long process as short as 5 days. These innovations in AI will continue to shape our economies, as we enter into a new normal that includes virtual learning and novel experiences.
Adding to this, she talks about how 5G speeds will drastically change the way companies interact with their consumers. This new surge of businesses shortens the transmission latency, resulting in a nearly instantaneous connection.
Taking connectivity a step further, synthetic media technologies have recently blended reality. Past research done in this field indicated that AI systems had the capability to be given an initial set of data (photos, videos, movies, etc) and use this knowledge to create realistic looking, and sometimes sounding artificial digital content. Japan even created an entirely synthetic band member, Eguchi Aimi, part of girl band Akb48, that showed up in prints and videos but were technically not real.
This blending of reality only gets greater when it comes to editing genomes (an organism’s complete set of DNA). When thinking of biology as a form of technology, synthetic biology will allow us to code DNA. By coding the DNA of living organisms, using molecular robotics, scientists are able to create programmable viruses, called vectors, that attach to the gene and load a specific code. This technology can be translated into our natural environment through genetic augmentation. These modified forms of pollutants are neutralized, posing less harm to surrounding life. This engineering of enzymes has the capability to help clean up the pollutants in our waters and help rebuild our ecosystems. Amy then proceeds to say how this technology is the most promising of the future, reaching investments beyond $25B by 2024.
Funny to think how the same thing that threw the year off course, could save it in the future. I guess that is optimistic, finding the silver lining of our current situation. But, if these technologies are misused, Amy states that the results could be catastrophic.
Want to read more? Click here to re-watch the SXSW Future Trends panel.