The Future of Work, Social Media, Democracy, Commuting, Relationships, & More
Future Essentials - Edition 43
Hey friends!
Future Essentials is moving to Sundays.
Enjoy this edition.
See you next on July 16th.
Misha
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Scan the whole thing, from top to bottom.
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FUTURE OF WORK
The future of work is more human than you think.
It’s time to wake up to the fact that the current state of work isn’t working. The future of work won’t be better if we don’t do things differently. But how do we shift the way we work?
Social entrepreneur, Joe Mechlinski, believes that by humanizing the workplace, we can change the way we work and live. The reality is that the future of work begins with you. In this mesmerizing talk, Joe will inspire you to think differently about the future of work, take back your power, and embrace your role in shaping a workplace that works for you.
FE Take: The future of work is remote, automated, non-permanent, entrepreneurial, self-directed, more creative, more fun, and more human. This is a must-listen if you are unhappy at work.
FUTURE OF LEARNING
Only a matter of time before AI chatbots are teaching kids in school.
Artificial intelligence is beginning to prove that it can accelerate the impact teachers have on students and help solve a stubborn teacher shortage.
Chatbots backed by large language models can help students, from primary education to certification programs, self-guide through voluminous materials and tailor their education to specific learning styles.
AI, and specifically chatbots backed by programmed large language models, can help students, from primary education to certification programs, self-guide through voluminous materials and tailor their education to specific learning styles. LINK
FE Take: Teachers can focus on planning, coaching, and overall wellbeing of students in the classroom, and AI can do the grunt work. This is probably the most positive, human-centric use case of generative AI.
FUTURE OF AUDIO
Microsoft’s new AI needs just 3 seconds of audio to clone [and OWN] your voice.
Microsoft’s new voice-cloning AI can simulate a speaker’s voice with remarkable accuracy — and all it needs to get started is a three-second sample of them talking.
Microsoft also demonstrates how the AI can mimic a speaker’s emotion and the acoustic environment of a sample — if the speaker sounds angry, VALL-E can generate angry-sounding audio, and if the original clip sounds like it was recorded over the phone, the AI can generate audio that matches those acoustics. LINK
FE Take: Be prepared for the scammers and the companies that will steal the rights to your own voice.
FUTURE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
With 70 million signups in 2 days, Threads surpasses ChatGPT to become the fastest growing app of all time.
FE Take: Threads is not the future of social media. It’s just another version of Instagram, i.e., a space for the famous. The 4.65 billion people who use social media are looking for something else: social apps where anyone can be social, encounter like-minded people with similar interests, and form a connection.
Also, egregious privacy issues:
FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY
The antidemocratic turn of technology, and how we turn it back.
Democracy, above all else, is about a multitude of voices, critically including those of ordinary people, being heard and becoming significant in public policy directions.
AI is choking democracy while also providing the tools for repression and manipulation to both authoritarian and democratically elected governments.
Unless the direction of digital technologies is altered fundamentally, they will continue to fuel inequality and marginalize large segments of the labor force, both in the West and increasingly around the world.
AI technologies are also being used to more intensively monitor workers and, through this channel, create even more downward pressure on wages. LINK
FE Take: Technology can be used in two ways: to support and empower or oppress and enslave humans. Enter web3/blockchain technology as a vital counter to the latter. In web3, the technology itself is designed to empower humans.
FUTURE OF BUILDINGS
3D printing promises to transform architecture forever.
For centuries, wood, masonry and concrete formed the basis for most structures on Earth.
In the 1880s, the adoption of the steel frame changed architecture forever. Steel allowed architects to design taller buildings with larger windows, giving rise to the skyscrapers that define city skylines today.
Since the industrial revolution, construction materials have been largely confined to a range of mass-produced elements. From steel beams to plywood panels, this standardized kit of parts has informed the design and construction of buildings for over 150 years.
Now large-scale additive manufacturing (3D printing) is changing how we build and live. LINK
FE Take: We need 21st century building technology. Let’s get on with this.
FUTURE OF COMMUTING
The world’s first self-flying electric taxi.
Over 1,300 test flights in, Wisk’s self-flying taxi will transform city commutes by 2028.
Urban transit could use a facelift — or perhaps a takeoff. To escape traffic and ease the burden on existing transit systems, companies have been working to develop flying taxis, more specifically known as eVTOLs: electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.
In California, the aerospace manufacturer @WiskAero has developed an all-electric eVTOL that can transport passengers along predetermined flight paths, all without a human pilot onboard. Unlike conventional taxis, however, the eVTOL won’t pick up passengers from anywhere: The aircraft takes off from and lands on designated spaces called vertiports. Wisk is aiming to be on the forefront of the future of urban transportation.
FUTURE OF AUTHENTICITY
Generative AI is forcing people to rethink what it means to be authentic.
There are three major dimensions of authenticity:
Historical authenticity - whether an object is truly from the time, place and person someone claims it to be. An actual painting made by Rembrandt would have historical authenticity; a modern forgery would not.
Categorical authenticity - the kind that plays out when, say, a restaurant in Japan offers exceptional and authentic Neapolitan pizza.
Authenticity that comes from our values and beliefs - the kind that many voters find wanting in politicians and elected leaders who say one thing but do another.
And then there is another kind of authenticity - one that relates to our expectations about what tools and activities are involved in creating things.
Generative AI will upend all of these.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, everyone will need to consider that it may not have actually hatched from an egg. LINK
FE Take: It’s fine for AI to be a part of the creative process, we just need to let people know. This product was partly/entirely made by a machine. In the future, products that are entirely human made will have a higher value than those that are machine-made.
FUTURE OF RELATIONSHIPS
“Relationships 5.0”: Are people going to start dating AI?
Online dating is so mainstream that you’re an outlier if you haven’t met your partner on an app — so why not AI?
There was once a stigma attached to online dating: Less than a decade ago, many couples who had met online would make up stories for how they met rather than admit that they had done so via an app.
Not so anymore. Online dating is so mainstream that you’re an outlier if you haven’t met your partner on Tinder, Grindr or Hinge.
We bring up online dating to show just how quickly conventions around romance can change. With rapid advances in AI technology over the past few years, these norms may well evolve to include sex, love and friendships with AI-equipped machines. LINK
FE Take: Practicing with AI could help a person to become more effective in their human-to-human relationships. That said, approach with caution.
FUTURE OF YOU
A Future Self Meditation
An 11-minute guided meditation that connects you with your future self.
Dr. Nicole LePera was trained in clinical psychology at Cornell University and the New School for Social Research and studied at the Philadelphia School of Psychoanalysis. She is a holistic psychologist whose work addresses the connection between the mind, body, and soul incorporating overall lifestyle and psychological wellness practices.
FE Take: Any form of meditation is life changing. Try it out!
"Threads is not the future of social media. It’s just another version of Instagram, i.e., a space for the famous. " - so true. Loved the newsletter! A bit long but packed with interesting stuff. The "threads" privacy settings are hideous! Thank you for your work!
This was cool!