The rise of the machines (aka AI everything) is like fire. In that it's awesome and dangerous. Particularly dangerous in that it (like fire) is seductive - indeed, more literally seductive than fire. AI generated girls and boys paired with AI generated conversational (manipulation) skills can give you everything you want, all of the time, … Continue reading Don’t Sleep With The Fire
Tag: bronwyn williams futurist
grève du zèle
"Evil is when you treat people as things" ~ Granny Weatherwax A modern tragedy: Trust no one, do not be trusted. Treat people as things, get treated as a thing. We are all part of the problem. Or... we could focus on adding value and valuing each other as ends and not as means. Break … Continue reading grève du zèle
Control the Narrative, Control the World
Jim Morrison once said, “whoever controls the media, controls the mind”. Today the media that moves our minds and markets is increasingly digital, and contagious. Viral memes, in particular, are emerging as a new source of both wealth and power. The rapid rise of both NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), and their values, have cemented the financial … Continue reading Control the Narrative, Control the World
Assets to Liabilities
Demographic dividend, or demographic disaster? As India is about to overtake China as the world's most populous country, it's worth considering if holding that title is still the win it once was. Not so long ago, more people meant more growth, more productivity, more progress. Hence the term: demographic dividend. If your working age population … Continue reading Assets to Liabilities
The Future of You
"We don’t exist unless there is someone who can see us existing . . . to be surrounded by friends is constantly to have our identity confirmed."~ Alain de Botton Tracey Follows is one of my favourite contemporary futurists. Her new book, The Future of You explains why I love the way she thinks. For … Continue reading The Future of You
Postalgia / Prostalgia – Is this as Good as it Gets?
Postalgia is a term used by science fiction writer William Gibson to explain the future fatigue plaguing contemporary culture. Postalgia is a hankering after the present; as opposed to nostalgia, which is a hankering after the past. Postalgia is the sense that things right now are as good as they will ever get. It is … Continue reading Postalgia / Prostalgia – Is this as Good as it Gets?
Trend retrospective, a decade in the rearview mirror
At the end of last year, I was asked to write a few thoughts on the most important, most disruptive technological milestones for each year of the last decade that will continue to have an impact in the future of the decade to come. Here follows the original version of that article, before it was edited … Continue reading Trend retrospective, a decade in the rearview mirror
Package Deal (or No Deal)
For me, one of the biggest issues with democracy today - and one of the biggest threats to our collective (and individual) futures is that of package politics (or party-pack politics as I shall call the system). Party-pack politics forces you to pick your politicians off a set menu, with no additions or substitutions to … Continue reading Package Deal (or No Deal)
Can we build a shared future without a shared past?
As deep fake technologies "improve", they now have the ability to manipulate the past as well as the future. We can no longer be sure that a historical document, photograph or even video footage has not been manipulated to change history (in ways not even Orwell's Big Brother could have imagined). Case in point, here … Continue reading Can we build a shared future without a shared past?
(A)I Am
When fallible human priests fail to fill the void, and reveal themselves to be more human than divine; we turn to man-made synthetic deities. Japan's robot priest confirms that we are looking for new gods for our new age - made in our own image, yet perfectly, and programmable. (And not all that different from … Continue reading (A)I Am