SOME EMERGING TRENDS AND ISSUES WE’LL BE SEEING NEXT YEAR AND BEYOND:

According to FAST COMPANY

  • “OUT WITH USER INTERFACE, IN WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE,” where 90% of Microsoft Research is now focused. “The emergence of new silicon architectures will result in more natural and competent speech interactions with computers and smart phones, to make virtual persona assistants like SIRI genuinely helpful… Online conversations will increasingly be mediated by conversation assistants who will understand tasks and help (e.g. compiling research automatically) almost like a real personal assistant… also helping us laugh and become more productive… as perky companions who keep us upbeat and motivated.”

According to THE ECONOMIST: THE WORLD IN 2016  

  • NEW FINANCIAL STRUCTURE which involves permissive ‘block-chain’ technology – essentially transparent private transactional databases which are shared and decentralized in order to provide a real-time and transparent ledger of activity (i.e. Bitcoin-Plus). “Resilience is enhanced by elimination of central points of failure: if one location suffers an attack or breakdown, others are able to maintain integrity of the ledger, with security and privacy achieved by encrypted credential-checking technology… Additionally this reduces duplicative recordkeeping, eliminates the need for reconciliation, minimizes error rates and facilitates faster settlement…in contrast to current legacy structure which is inefficient, expensive and vulnerable to both operational failure and cyberattack.”
  • INCREASED SCRUTINY FOR THE LEGAL INDUSTRY as (1) More companies are disputing the ‘billable hour’ system which “traditional law firms continue clinging to for dear life,” that demands and compensates attorneys for chargeable hours (generally between 1,500 minimum to 2,000+ depending on experience level) charging fees on that basis, but with often arguable correlation to value of services rendered; and (2) Investigators increasingly pursue law firms who serve as “gatekeepers for transactions by shell companies including all manner of offshore shenanigans” to obscure criminal activities and taxation.
  • THE COMING DAWN OF ‘RoboHumanity’: Mechanized body parts are now commonplace; beyond routine knees, hips and shoulders, 3-D printed titanium chests and mind-controlled prosthetics are already here. Also wireless chips which communicate with people & products including “adorable bots helping kids with homework and caregiving to elderly… playing concierge at deluxe hotels… and on the way to becoming sexbots… The robots are coming and we will soon be merging, mating & morphing with them – humans enhanced by technology, and robots infused with humanity.”

According to BREITBART.COM:

  • WHAT WILL THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE? Philosophers, Scientists and Futurists have widely varying perspective. “Optimists believe in the limitless capacity of smart machines – Artificial Intelligence – to solve problems including ignorance, disease and even death itself… Pessimists do not doubt the limitless possibilities, but foresee much grimmer implications: political strife, violence (even widespread civil wars), and the possible obsolescence of humanity. Skeptics believe both sides of the debate are barking mad and wildly overstate the potential of A.I. …Recently IBM hired 2,000 new consultants to build and sell services from its ‘Watson’ Supercomputer, arguably the closest thing humanity has to genuine A.I., with encyclopedic knowledge, superhuman data analysis skills, capability to both understand & talk in natural language and unravel complex verbal puzzles (demonstrated by beating humans on a special episode of Jeopardy).”

 

  • FINAL YEAR-END THOUGHTS                                                                                                                                                        
  • 30 years of radio commentary by Paul Harvey is summarized in a 3-minute forecast (produced 20 years ago): “If I were the devil”—essentially depicting every facet of today’s cultural chaos. Amazing speech, now depicted with video:   http://stg.do/9LDc