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Author: Future Agenda | https://www.futureagenda.org
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https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/page/7/
New perspectives on the future are gained from multiple expert discussions around the world. Our ten year foresights offer rich, insightful views on some of the most important changes shifts – and challenges - that lie ahead.
Automation spreads beyond trading and managing systemic risk. As we approach technology singularity, autonomous robots and smarter algorithms make ethical judgments that impact life or death. In ten years time, driverless cars will fill our roads, machine-learning algorithms combat disease and drones will deliver our shopping. Rapid advances in machine learning, visual and voice recognition and neural network processing mean that computers are getting better at perception tasks. This puts Artificial Intelligence (AI), once the mainstay of science fiction writing, at the forefront of next generation computing. AI brings extraordinary benefits, particularly around disease diagnosis, while it also does a…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/ethical-machines/
We are developing key technologies that could integrate humans and data to make us safer, more informed and potentially super-human in performance – but should we? The idea of human enhancement is not new. For years now we have variously been seeking to improve our cognitive, emotional and physical capabilities using training, drugs or technology. What we are now seeing however is the convergence of a whole series of pharmaceutical, biological and mechanical developments from different arenas coming into view. Whether from DARPA-sponsored military programmes aimed at creating the super-soldier; medical projects looking to overcome blindness, Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s; or…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/enhanced-performance/
Storage, and particularly electricity storage, is the missing piece in the renewables jigsaw. If solved, it can enable truly distributed solar energy as well as accelerate the electrification of the transport industry. After years of rising prices and increasing demand, there is change in the air for energy supply, with many seeking to accelerate the shift to renewables. Although there are short-term factors in matching current supply and demand in varied regions, most agree that long-term we will move to a renewables-based energy system. At the moment solar energy is playing a small role, contributing around 0.6% of the world’s…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/energy-storage/
Broader access to improved education acts as a major catalyst for empowerment, sustained economic growth, overcoming inequality and reducing conflict. We need an education system fit for the digital revolution. In schools and institutions across the world questions are being asked about how to make education fit for purpose, from both a supply and a demand perspective. On the supply side the problem is around quality and quantity; there is a global shortage of qualified teachers and those who are in the profession are often obliged to deliver an inflexible curriculum with an over-dependency on exams not fit for…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/education-revolution/
Over the past 40 years China has grown apace, mostly without concern for long-term environmental impacts. However, now faced with major challenges, a bright light of sustainable development is emerging. If you ask the man in the street which countries have some of the most ambitious targets for protection of natural resources and improving the environments, few, if any, would name China. And if you look at the academic rankings such as Yale’s Environmental Performance Index then you would find it way down at number 118 out of 178 in the overall rankings – and even lower when you look…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/eco-civilisation/
The algorithms of Amazon and Uber cross over to affect more businesses, from energy use to parking. Real-time transparency allows better purchasing at the same time as margins and yields are automatically enhanced. In the past, prices of things, whether the cost of a loaf of bread, a litre of petrol or a train ticket, have changed on a regular but not constant basis. By contrast, in the world of trading stocks, commodities or currencies, prices and rates have always been in constant flux, moving up and down by the millisecond as buyers, sellers and increasingly automated trading platforms around…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/dynamic-pricing-2/
Money is not coins and banknotes; it’s anything that people are willing to use in order to represent systematically the value of other things for the purpose of exchanging goods and services. Money enables people to compare quickly and easily the value of different commodities, to easily exchange one thing for another, and to store wealth conveniently. Before coins and banknotes, different cultures chose objects or materials to represent value: shells, cattle, skins, salt, grain and cloth. The sum total of money (M2) in the world is about $60 trillion of which c. 1/10th is held as coins or bank…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/digital-money/
Partnerships shift to become more dynamic, long-term, democratised, multi-party collaborations. Competitor alliances and wider public participation drive regulators to create new legal frameworks for open, empathetic collaboration. Given the challenges we are facing, many see the need for a different way of working across and between organisations. The time when one company alone could develop scalable solutions is fast disappearing, and even traditional cross-industry partnerships are unlikely to have the resources and reach required. Addressing some of the big meaty future challenges will rely on deeper and wider collaboration that will no longer be driven solely by intellectual property and…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/deeper-collaboration/
With diabetes consuming 5% of GDP, a combination of fat taxation, patient data mining and personal budgets play a role in stabilising the obesity epidemic. Diabetes is the world’s most costly epidemic. Over the next ten years there will be an increasing number of technical solutions to help manage the condition but few expect this to counter its growth, particularly the escalation of type 2 diabetes, which is mostly caused by a high-calorie diet and sedentary lifestyle. If governments and public healthcare systems are to manage the direct and indirect costs, significant action to change behaviour is critical. The World…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/diabesity/
Increased transparency on food availability and security, land use and eco-literacy accelerate mass consumption of locally grown and processed foods. After nearly a century of interest in global foods sourced from different countries, some developed-world nations have seen a steadily growing middle-class focus on returning to locally produced foods over the past few years: the organic movement, seasonal produce and ‘locavores’ are all now on the food industry radar. Across the globe, in the various workshops and discussions undertaken as part of the Future Agenda programme, we can see an alignment of multiple drivers of change around food, from GM…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/local-foods/
Smarter, better-connected, self-monitoring homes and offices provide safer, more secure, low-energy buildings able to self-manage utilities. One of the much discussed, but yet to be realised, dreams for architects, engineers and progressive developers is the idea of the zero-waste, zero-energy building – one which, when in use, has zero net energy consumption and zero carbon emissions. As operation accounts for 85% of the total whole-life energy consumption of a building and buildings account for the majority of global CO2 emissions, this would be an enormous step forward. Alongside the design of an office, home or factory, and the materials used…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/intelligent-buildings/
As urban migration increases, efficient, densely populated cities, not distributed options, are the blueprints for more sustainable places to live. By 2025, nearly 2.5 billion Asians will live in cities. This urban growth is being fuelled by new levels of mobility and the migration of diverse populations within and across nations – especially in China, India and Brazil. These rural-to-urban migrants are attracted to live in cities by a number of factors – more opportunities, better jobs, better education and better healthcare. Cities like Mumbai experience over forty people moving into the city every hour. However, while a better quality…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/dense-cities/
