Trends Identified
Who's afraid of artificial intelligence
After losing three games of Go to Google Deepmind’s AlphaGo, the world’s second-ranked Go player in 2016, Lee Sedol, said, “I will have to express my apologies first. I should have shown a better result, a better outcome.” While Lee was apologising for his play, many also understood his statement as an apology for the limits of human intelligence and the advent of a superior form—Artificial Intelligence (AI).
2017
Foresigth
Singapore, The Centre for Strategic Futures
Igniting the neuroscience economy
Imagine exploring one of the last frontiers of science: the more than 90 billion neurons that make up the human brain. What if a Google Maps of the brain existed and anyone could see “street views” of neural connections and explore the topography of neurons? This is what neural mapping hopes to achieve. Since they started in 2013, the US Human Connectome Project and the European Commission’s Human Brain Project have driven research about the brain’s circuitry—how the brain and thinking work. Such work has spurred innovative techniques, such as algebraic topology analysis, which uses complex algebra to explore the brain’s 3D structure.
2017
Foresigth
Singapore, The Centre for Strategic Futures
The death of ageing
The rich and powerful have long dreamt of the death of ageing, if not of outright immortality. There is now serious money in it. Anti-ageing startup Unity Biotechnology raised US$116 million in 2016 from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel and others to further its research in rejuvenation therapy and prevention of senescence (that is, wear and tear with age). Google-backed biotechnology company Calico and biopharmaceutical company AbbVie invested US$250 million each in 2014 to jointly develop drugs targeting diseases associated with old age.
2017
Foresigth
Singapore, The Centre for Strategic Futures
Feeding the future
How will the world feed a population projected to grow from 7.6 billion in 2017 to 9.8 billion in 2050? Climate change will accentuate weather volatility and the amount of arable land is projected to decline from 0.23 hectares per person in 2000 to 0.15 by 2050 due to environmentally unsound practices. Precision agriculture and biotechnology are promising solutions for achieving sustainable and stable food production. Reflecting this view, investment in agriculture technology grew, on average, 63% yearly from 2010–2015. In smart farms, moisture sensors in the soil are linked to the farm’s irrigation and humidity systems, while operations like weeding and harvesting are performed by agri-bots. With farming processes mirroring tightly-controlled factory operations, food production could become more stable, efficient and cost-effective.
2017
Foresigth
Singapore, The Centre for Strategic Futures
Satellites down
In August 2016, a 1-cm-wide man-made object collided with the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Sentinel 1A satellite, creating a 40-cm crater and a change in orbit. As more and more satellites are launched, the risks of space debris disabling satellites and disrupting navigation and communication systems will rise. Indeed, roughly one in ten functioning satellites in the Earth’s orbit had experienced collisions like that of the Sentinel 1A. The frequency of such collisions is rapidly increasing; it is predicted that over the next two decades, the average time interval between collisions could shrink from 10 years to just five.
2017
Foresigth
Singapore, The Centre for Strategic Futures
Climate winners and losers
Climate change is about more than melting icecaps and flooded coastal cities. Climate change action, or inaction, will affect which nations and economies become tomorrow’s economic and geopolitical winners and losers. Food production could shift. Canada, Siberia and potentially even parts of Antarctica could become more habitable and productive, while current bread-baskets in the US and China face increasing desertification and extreme weather.
2017
Foresigth
Singapore, The Centre for Strategic Futures
Silence is gold
"We’re seeing a dramatic escalation in the rate at which people disconnect, unsubscribe and opt out to stem the barrage of content and messages that clutter daily life. As consumers, we’ve come to realize that it’s no longer simply a lifestyle choice, but a serious mental health issue. As we put up more barriers between ourselves and digital technologies, organizations must learn how to offer value to users who crave quiet in a noisy world."
2019
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The last straw?
Our climate is changing and so is the way we’re thinking about it. Our concerns about global warming, pollution and sustainability have experienced a cultural shift. Where once it was “too big to do anything about,” now it’s personal. In 2019, it won’t be enough for companies to simply acknowledge environmental concerns; consumers will expect commitment to be proven through action. Organizations will need to redesign their systems and business models to fit the “circular economy,” where consumers are active participants, and sustainability is built into their products and services.
2019
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Data minimalism
"Data’s headline appearances throughout 2018 distorted people’s understanding of the value exchange between data owner (you) and data user (organizations). Expectations around how much people’s personal data is worth became falsely inflated, and the mystery surrounding how it’s used became a cause for concern. Moving forward, organizations must design for transparency, so that consumers can trust that they’re pursuing only the data they need to build new products and services, and that they’re using and storing that data responsibly. "
2019
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Ahead of the curb
Our cities are changing. Around the globe, lines are blurring between public and private transport, passenger transit and item delivery. The problem is that cities aren’t keeping up, so insufficient regulation and lack of central planning has resulted in a free-for-all that’s leading to urban mobile service clutter and a fragmented user experience. In 2019, organizations must start to consolidate mobility services within a single, coherent ecosystem built on real-time needs.
2019
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