Trends Identified
AI That Can Argue and Instruct - New algorithms will enable personal devices to learn any topic well enough to debate it
Today’s digital assistants can sometimes fool you into believing they are human, but vastly more capable digital helpers are on their way. Behind the scenes, Siri, Alexa and their ilk use sophisticated speech-recognition software to figure out what you are requesting and how to provide it, and they generate natural-sounding speech to deliver scripted answers matched to your questions. Such systems must first be “trained”—exposed to many, many examples of the kinds of requests humans are likely to make—and the appropriate responses must be written by humans and organized into highly structured data formats.
2018
Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2018
Scientific American
Messaging eats the world
Top messaging apps—WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, QQ, and Skype—now collectively count nearly five billion monthly active users, according to We Are Social and Hootsuite’s 2018 Q3 Global Digital Statshot.
2019
Social media trends 2019
Hootsuit
Systems Metabolic Engineering
Trace the products we buy and use every day—from plastics and fabrics to cosmetics and fuels—back to their origins, and you’ll find that the vast majority were made using stuff that came from deep underground. The factories that make the products of modern life do so, by and large, out of chemicals of various kinds. And those chemicals come from plants powered primarily by fossil fuels that transform feedstocks—also mainly petrochemicals—into myriad other compounds. It would be much better for the climate, and possibly better for the global economy as well, to make many of the chemical inputs to industry from living organisms instead of from oil, gas, and coal. We already use agricultural products in this way, of course—we wear cotton clothes and live in wooden houses—but plants are not the only source of ingredients. Microbes arguably offer even more potential, in the long term, to make inexpensive materials in the incredible variety of properties that we now take for granted. Rather than digging the raw materials of modern life from the ground, we can instead “brew” them in giant bioreactors filled with living microorganisms. For bio-based chemical production to really take off, it must compete with conventional chemical production on both price and performance. This goal now seems within reach, thanks to advances in systems metabolic engineering, a discipline that tweaks the biochemistry of microbes so that more of their energy and resources go into synthesizing useful chemical products. Sometimes the tweaks involve changing the genetic makeup of the organism, and sometimes it involves more complex engineering of microbial metabolism and brewing conditions as a system. With recent advances in synthetic biology, systems biology, and evolutionary engineering, metabolic engineers are now able to create biological systems that manufacture chemicals that are hard to produce by conventional means (and thus expensive). In one recent successful demonstration, microbes were customized to make PLGA [poly(lactate-co-glycolate)], an implantable, biodegradable polymer used in surgical sutures, implants, and prosthetics, as well as in drug delivery materials for cancer and infections. Systems metabolic engineering has also been used to create strains of yeast that make opioids for pain treatment. These drugs are widely needed in the world, and in particular in the developing world, where pain is insufficiently managed today. The range of chemicals that can be made using metabolic engineering is widening every year. Although the technique is not likely to replicate all of the products currently made from petrochemicals, it is likely to yield novel chemicals that could never be made affordably from fossil fuels—in particular, complex organic compounds that currently are very expensive because they must be extracted from plants or animals that make them in only tiny amounts. Unlike fossil fuels, chemicals made from microbes are indefinitely renewable and emit relatively little greenhouse gas—indeed, some could potentially even serve to reverse the flow of carbon from Earth to atmosphere by absorbing carbon dioxide or methane and incorporating it into products that are eventually buried as solid waste. As biochemical production scales up to large industrial use, it will be important to avoid both competing with food production for land use and also accidental releases of engineered microorganisms into the environment. Although these highly engineered microbes will likely be at a great disadvantage in the wild, it’s best to keep them safely in their tanks, happily working away at making useful stuff for the benefit of humanity and the environment.
2016
Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Opening doors
Traditionally, the complexity and opaqueness of government has served to limit participation and minimise public value for underserved and at-risk populations. Only those with the means or knowledge to navigate this environment have been able to maximise the value of government. However, new technologies, open data and the emergence of new business models in the private sector are creating space for government to explore a range of possibilities. Such mission-oriented and adaptive innovations seek to explore ways to open doors for everyone to access the public value of government, while also embracing the major shifts occurring in people’s everyday lives.
2019
EMBRACING INNOVATION IN GOVERNMENT-Global Trends 2019
OECD
Transnational Extremism
Transnational armed criminal, terrorist or insurgent groups, experienced in conflicts around the world will be part of the strategic landscape. Many extreme political groups will have a transnational following, and may increasingly employ sophisticated methods of coercion, including cyber attack and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). They will remain highly unpredictable and a continued cause of tension and instability especially in regions that have underlying governance and economic problems, such as in sub-Saharan Africa and possibly Latin America. Most will demonstrate features associated with organised criminality, terrorism, disorder and insurgency, fuelled by perceived or actual grievances. There is likely to be an increased sponsorship of irregular activity by states, seeking to utilise and exploit, through proxies, gaps in the international system, either to assert themselves or to secure advantage without exposing themselves to state-on-state risks. Acts of extreme violence, including mass casualty attacks, will continue to be used by groups with sophisticated networks and the ability to exploit the media in order to maximise the impact of the ‘theatre of violence’.
2010
Global strategic trends - out to 2040
UK, Ministry of Defence
Smart and transparent land use management
Transparency of real-time land use practices enabled by 4IR technologies including IoT sensors, cloud and big data, drones and advanced satellites, will be a game changer for implementing climate smart land use practices, and driving accountability in agriculture and forestry value chains.
2017
Innovation for the Earth - Harnessing technological breakthroughs for people and the planet
PWC
Transportation could be very different in the future than it is today.
Transportation could be very different in the future than it is today. Autonomous vehicles, electric cars, high-speed trains, drones and even space travel have the potential to revolutionize the movement of people and products. Understanding these shifts is critical to choosing investments tied to the transportation sector.
2018
Eight long-term trends for growth investors
Morgan Stanley
The Future of Transportation
Transportation is humanity’s greatest lever for economic growth. More than any other technology, transport is the catalyst for big leaps in culture and ideas. And transport has itself been the engine for growth on a global scale. The Great Acceleration of the Rail Age enabled the transport of produce and people in volume, which in turn enabled urbanisation and the development of the mass market. Powered by coal, constructed of iron and steel, and financed on new capital markets, the railways themselves became a primary driver of the Industrial Revolution. That was then, this is now. The great question facing global leaders is whether our current transportation options can meet the inexorable and conflicting demands of growth and environmental stewardship. At current 2.7% annual rates of growth, mobility demand in the developed world will double in 25 years and rise sixteen- fold in a century. Existing modes have served us well, but offer only incremental improvements when a step- change in performance and energy efficiency is required.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Pace of Development
Trend analysis indicates that the most substantial technological developments are likely to be in the areas of: ICT; sensor/network technology; behavioural and cognitive science; biotechnology; materials; and the production, storage and distribution of energy. Advances in nanotechnologies will underpin many breakthroughs. Developments in individual areas are likely to be evolutionary, but where disciplines interact, such as in the combination of cognitive science and ICT to produce advanced decision-support tools, developments may be revolutionary, resulting in the greatest opportunities for a novel or breakthrough application.
2010
Global strategic trends - out to 2040
UK, Ministry of Defence
Connected societies, empowered individuals?
Trends in connection, education and empowerment are interlaced in multiple ways and act as drivers, multipliers and indicators of progress towards addressing societal challenges. Overall, six major trends are identified in this report.
2013
Europe's Societal Challenges: An analysis of global societal trends to 2030 and their impact on the EU
RAND Corporation