Prediction: the 2020s will build on the last decade of progress for an explosion in augmented realities

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I am honored to be top of the list of Tech Predictions Gone Wrong – Top 5 Failed Tech Predictions for 2010s:

Ross Dawson, a futurist, made a prediction that people will be seen wearing AR glasses and contacts that will allow them to control machines. As shocking and intriguing this prediction was, it was a massive failure as well.

Based on this prediction, no one would have thought that Google Glass and Snap Spectacles would be seen in the lists of Worst Tech of the Decade. Although a lot of people tried it as well, it was of no use. The idea was not appreciated by most people. Google even released a warning for wearers to not be “creepy or rude”. However, the consumer sales of this product were ended by Google in the year 2015.

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How national population trajectories will shape our future

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Global population growth reached its peak of 2.09% in 1968 and has steadily declined since then to its current levels of 1.08%.

The United Nations forecasts that in 2050 the growth rate will have slowed further to around 0.3% to give a global population of 9.7 billion, however its 80% probability range of forecasts includes the possibility that world population will be shrinking, a scenario I think is more likely than suggested by the UN forecasts.

However looking at global population figures hides the massive disparity between fast growing nations and those where population is declining. For example Japan’s population was 127 million in 2000 and is forecast to be 97 million in 2050, whereas Uganda’s population is expected to be 100 million in 2050 from just 24 million in 2000.
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Designing human-AI hybrids will be at the center of the future of work

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The future of work is not about AI replacing humans. It is about designing work so that machines and humans are complementary, not substitutes.

As described in my Humans in the Future of Work framework, there are a number of uniquely human capabilities that can be brought together in a wealth of roles that transcend what machines can do on their own.

This means that in designing the future of work, we need to have a keen focus on human-machine complementarity.
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Reviewing my map of the 2010s at the end of the decade

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Ten years ago I released my map of the 2010s, consisting of 14 “ExaTrends” (Exa being the cube of Mega).

Click through on the images for the full size pdf. The complete text describing the ExaTrends on pdf is also on the post below the images.

What are your thoughts on how well I did at anticipating the decade just past?
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AI-written articles will force humans to improve the quality of their writing

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This year has seen massive advances in article writing by AI. The Open AI Institute released its GPT-2 article generator last month after earlier in the year saying it was too dangerously powerful to release to the public. You can try it with small text seeds here.
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The future of urban air: innovations shaping air quality, smells, senses, and social divides

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Long-time followers of this blog will be familiar with the beautiful and insightful work of Richard Watson, including his Periodic Table of Disruptive Technologies and Innovation and Timeline of Emerging Science and Technology (both created with the Imperial TechForesight group at Imperial College London), as well as a number of frameworks Richard and I have created together, including Life Next Year and Beyond and the Trend Blend series such as Trend Blend 2009+.

Now Richard and Imperial TechForesight have created a beautiful map of the Future of Urban Air.
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The future of healthcare lies in building value-based ecosystems

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Healthcare will be at the center of our future, as populations age, expectations for quality of life rise, and a wave of incredible new medical technologies transform the industry.

Yet a central issue is the efficacy of healthcare amid rising costs, constrained governments, and deeply entrenched inefficiencies.
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Will Apple’s AR glasses be as transformative as the iPhone?

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Augmented reality indubitably has the potential to transform our interface with technology and information.

Virtual reality can potentially take us into extraordinary realms, but always away from our everyday reality. Augmented reality (AR) can and will be woven into our everyday.

It is inevitable that AR will, in time, be a major way for us to access and interact with information.
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Agile legislation must be at the heart of the future of government

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Last week I di a keynote on behalf of a major professional services firm to a group of senior public sector executives.

The topic was The Future of Government, so I provided a high-level frame on the forces dramatically shifting the role of government, and the opportunities to reshape government to transcend the government-citizen divide and catalyze resources to generate the sociel outcomes we desire far more efficiently and effectively.

My slides and an overview of my presentation can be found on my Future of Government keynote page.

One of the topics I touched on was the importance of agile legislation.
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The future of retirement: blurring boundaries, helpful houses, robot pets, hypersonic travel

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An article on the future of retirement in the most recent Good Weekend magazine, Rethinking the future, drew extensively on an interview with me. Below are some excerpts from the article.
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