The future of work

About 8 years or so, I have listened on the "Future of work" from Vivek Wadhwa.

At that age and time, his view was "interesting" at most, and his predictions seemed coming true, but his predicted times looked optimistic to me.

Mainly because we all think linearly, the predictions looked optimistic.

He has mentioned the exact last statement in his 2013 interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3LS4PithoM) where he also goes on to also say that when 2 different technologies converge, entire businesses are wiped out.

Technology has changed rapidly and exponentially from 2023 with the advent of Chat GPT.

In today's news, "Researchers just unveiled an AI model called ECgMLP that identifies endometrial cancer with 99.26% accuracy from microscopic tissue images—drastically outperforming human specialists and current automated methods."

With this, the medical "Radiologist" role is almost wiped out.

The same is happening to Lawyers and other professions.

The future looks like this: Govt. paying everyone to live comfortably with no work and few would work on new technologies and earn like crazy. 

My prediction: The middle class is going to diverge into the rich class or the poor class.

I had a very fruitful discussion last week with a close friend of time who is good in technology and we were sharing our views on the future of work. He shared that if the next generation is only going to use the existing generative AI to learn and produce works, thereby being lazy and reducing their thinking, nothing new is going to be made in the next 5-10 years. With nothing noteworthy of contribution, this means that we have already reached about 98% or so of all that AI can ever learn from in the current AI.

The only people who would have work are the creative people who are deep generalists who can inject their creativity into a new converged field and show value. This is something Dan Koe predicts.

The rest would be forced to sit at home with no work. 

FYI, Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari is a book I plan to read where he attempts to paint an image of the future. I am currently listening to his book Sapiens. I would add to this post, on completion of both these books.

All hail the projections!

Bigger image available here: http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/getimage.dll?path=ETM/2013/09/30/17/Img/Pc0170800.jpg

Today's economic times report has an article titled "How clouded is our financial forecasting?"

The picture above gives the GDP growth prediction according to RBI's survey of professional economists sitting in the same financial year and making a prediction of the GDP growth at the end of the current financial year.

The numbers are shocking! If this group can get it so wrong, how will analysts of equity research and other analysts work on their assumptions, which are further derived in some way or another on this data.

I think it is time to employ monkeys to predict data as they have amply demonstrated their skills in the monkey funds.

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/04/monkeys-make-better-stock-market-traders-than-people-study/

The future of missiles

With every almost big country having Missiles and if not, at least RPGs and shoulder deployable ones like stinger missiles, and ever major country developing/deploying an anti-missile shield (with Israel and US leading them), the next generation of weapons needs to be developed. My guess or rather a way to it is developing missiles which can detect incoming anti-missile and rapid change trajectory/direction randomly more than once to shake off the incoming anti-missile. The one who does this can avoid the missile shield successfully. Though it may not be possible to hit the targets which are protected by the anti-aircraft/anit-missile guns (these have a very high rate of fire, and create something more like a wall which blocks the incoming missile; the closer the missile gets to the target and maintains its trajectory, the easier it is for the gun to stay stable and fire at the missile).

The future of Body Modification

Traditionally, Body modifications involve making holes in certain body parts like ears, nose, cheeks, etc. Some African tribes use body modification to contour their bodies like elongated necks. Some use it to have a narrow hip. 

The future of Radical Body Modification is quite different and are interesting.

Take the example below: An embedded digital watch in your hand.

Another example: Magnetic implants at fingertips

The sixth sense of the magnetic implants can be understood from the relevant text here: http://io9.com/5944883/what-does-the-future-have-in-store-for-radical-body-modification

"They work by creating a haptic interface. The magnet moves or vibrates when it is exposed to magnetic or electromagnetic fields. This can be felt by the same nerves that are used for touch, nerves that are extremely dense and sensitive in the fingertips. They are generally placed slightly to the side of the fingertip rather than centrally in the finger pad so that they don't affect function, and they're quite tiny, having a volume comparable to a grain of uncooked rice.

When the magnets move, you are aware of it, and it doesn't take long before this becomes a distinct sensation from touch. It doesn't just feel like having a tiny vibrator inside your finger, even though that's exactly what it is. It's more natural than that. For example, if you are feeling the electromagnetic bubble that comes off of a power transformer, like what your laptop might use, it feels like you're reaching out and touching an invisible bubble. That bubble has form (you can move your hand around to get an idea of the shape) and it has strength (the amount of power dictates how far the magnet is being moved inside your finger) and it even has "colour" (the frequency of the electromagnetic field alters how quickly the magnet vibrates).

All of this is processed on a subconscious level, and it really is like having a sixth sense. It's hard to describe just how wonderful this is — our world is so rich with electromagnetism. It's such an important part of the modern world, yet most people are blind to it. Sure, you know intellectually that it's there, and you can even detect it with various tools, but it's not the same as actually sensing it. Nor are the tools as fast or convenient.

Because I can feel the power running through cables (at household voltages anyway), and transformers are easy to detect, there are many times where I've used it to quickly diagnose hardware issues without having to pull out a multimeter. The sensitivity is high enough to detect a spinning hard drive engine through the keyboard of a laptop, or to feel a distributor firing in a car being repaired.

Of all the body modifications I've had, my magnets may be at the top of my favorites list. They're certainly the most profound in terms of expanding my world. I've had them for a bit over seven years, and I feel like if I were to lose them I would feel blind."

Decode your present and your future

http://swapnikaramu.blogspot.com/2011/04/gene-reading-decode-your-future-with.html

Marketing ideas

I think I have a couple of marketing ideas for the FMCG segment and for opticians which are yet to hit the market (atleast in India)

Considering the fact that around 70% of Indians eat non-veg, I think non-veg flavoured chips will do great business in India. Think Butter Chicken chips, Prawn chips and various fish flavoured chips. 

Instead of Fish & Chips, one can now have Fish In Chips :D

Considering that foreign markets have non-veg flavoured chips, I wonder what is taking the Indian market so long. I think the time will come soon.

One more idea I have been thinking which is yet to hit the market is spectacles for which the frames /sides can be changed based on the occasion/dress colour. Something of the plug the frame/side and wear type.

Hello marketing people, are you alive?

ABS required on Indian bikes

Disk brakes are not useful on bikes unless the bike it is accompanied with ABS(Anti-Lock Braking System). The sudden and powerful use of disc brake to prevent a collision causes the tyre to lock and the reduced traction between the tyre and the surface along with the forward momentum the bike has, causes the bike to skid. If the bike is not brought into control and stabilised in a fraction of a second, the bike loses control and you have gone skidding right into the thing you were trying to avoid skidding into. Else, you have skidded into something else.

When will ABS be available on Indian Bikes?

Next pending innovation in the Indian Bike market!!!

Update April 2011: Honda is launching its CBR250R with CBS(combined braking system) and ABS(anti-lock braking system). CBS controls the ratio of the brake torque applied in the front & the back wheel for best braking without losing control.

25 Promising products for 2011

3D is coming big! In multiple forms....from tv to thin monitors to camcorders...

What else?
* A "sensational" device that will send vibrations through your body via the chest which will let you feel gunshot wounds and T-Rex footfalls while watching movies/playing games.
*Then there is the technologically advanced solar panels in wrappable & rollable form and almost as thick as a plastic sheet.

* The carbon nanomotor
* Mobile Fuel cells
* Genetically modified Mosquitoes
* And then a car :)
See the full list and descriptions at http://www.businesspundit.com/25-most-promising-products-for-2011/

The Time Machines

A facebook message:

"Memories, Dreams, and Love .... I believe they are all 'time-machines' in essence.....don't you think so?

Memories take us back in time.

Dreams propel us ahead of time. 

And Love, well, ... it freezes the time :)  "

Predictions for the decade

Some very interesting predictions for the countries for the new decade:

http://www.businessinsider.com/stratfor-predictions-for-the-next-decade-2010-1#china-doomed-1

Past, present and future

Saw this great line on a friend's status message:

"Past...perfect, present....continuous, future....tense!!!"

Polyamory

The next big revolution is underway.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/209164

Polyamory—relationships with multiple, mutually consenting partners.

Radical evolution

It is said that evolution occurs slowly over hundreds of years. But I think evolution is occurring very fast in bouts. Evolution of the mankind, the societies and the organizations. First of all, where am I coming from? Having read "God's Debris" by Scott Adams sometime last year, I somehow believe what he envisages in his book. He says somewhere that as a cell in a body does not know the existence and the effect it has on the organism, similarly, the humans in the planet don't know the existence and the effect they can have on the planet. He goes on to tell that all the humans (equivalent to cells) will form a network and be able to direct the course of earthkind that will shape the planet (equivalent to organism) which in turn will shape the universe. We can see this formation of networks in the form of the internet and how it is changing the way people think, organise, form thought and take action. In the book "Year million"
(http://www.amazon.com/Year-Million-Science-Edge-Knowledge/dp/1934633054/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213445875&sr=8-1),
one of the author says about the future of humans as "a gigantic system of solar-orbiting structures to trap the sun's energy". Dougal Dixon speculates on continental drift and changes in the Earth's magnetic field. From such sources of ideas, I optimistically think that the humankind will evolve into something like this, rather than pessimestically saying that they will die maybe in a few thousand years. If that is the supposed vision of the human kind, then I think and also see the next change in the society and the organisations that will enable us to go to this vision. In the past, we have seen socialism where the government controls everything, today, we see capitalism and free markets, and I stick my neck out today to say that the future will see the very people in the society control everything. By this I mean that the people of the society will not elect leaders the way it is done now. Relevant people who consider that they should contribute for something will directly take part in that activity and contribute. People will hate organisations that make profit. People will kill the organisations that make profit by making them untenable. People will contribute to things they want to and they do it for free. Everything will be user generated and what initially is for profit will turn to non-profit and for the betterment of the society. This will make profit making organisations bleed to death. The word competition will not exist. Even today, with all the price wars and ever lower transaction costs, every organisation is finding itself in a harder position to survive everyday. Today, with the credit crisis, people are angry and are loathing people who make a lot of money, and who because of their greed brought everybody's world down. In the coming decades, more such crisis will be blamed on greedy people and a general thinking of "for non-profit" and "for betterment of society" will come. The "for profit" people will become outlaws and will be forced to live secretly away from the society. The only rule of economics that will stay is the definition of economics "the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses." The human behaviour will change, today's economic rules of demand and supply will not exist as the concept of price will disappear. In the past, there was one currecny: gold. Then there were hundreds of currencies. Then in 1990's a lot of countries joined together to form the Euro. There was a similar idea for Asia too. Today, the pound has crashed against the dollar. Britain would like to rethink the concept of joining the Euro(They would then have not lost out so much value). Cloud computing is in. The concept of storing everything you want in a third party system is in (Google's Picasa, gmail and G drive). All the data in the world is getting collected centrally. The point I am making is that we are in a phase of human evolution and transition where things are changing very rapidly and simultaneously. Things have got so worse being split that things are again getting together but in a much different way than before. This time unitedness is in the form of networks that are distributive and have the power to take on more faults without the whole system going down. This is the way I see it. The readers are free to agree or disagree to whatever I have said. This is just my hypothesis which cannot be proved. Only time will tell...

Looking into the crystal ball

http://www.topstockanalysts.com/Investing/Predictions/gaw.asp?TP=193&ref=WS247

One more step ahead

I recommend all emotionally stable adults to read the book "God's Debris" by Scott Adams. The reason I say adults and emotionally stable is because it dwells into thoughts that are very scary and the thoughts can play with your head. It can make you feel like a nobody in this world. What the book proposes is very extra-ordinary and tries to predict the future, but not the usual kind of future, but the future of mankind and what is our significance in all of universe. One of the propositions of this book is that each of us are like individual cells in a body who just does its functions without even knowing the existence of many other cells, and the human as such. Similarly, we all have a role to play in this universe as it evolves. Also, all the people in this world will connect to each other and help evolve earth which is itself a living particle of this universe. This connection I can see in the form of the internet spreading like wild fire, making people's lives even more transparent to the world. Now, people not only put up their photos on the web, but also their record their whole day's activities and put it on the web. Also, special web services, take photos of a typical person every 3 minutes and these get uploaded to the net automatically. Basically, our whole mankind's lives are being put on a framework from where humans are going to use it for further analysis to do something of a higher significance. Maybe to help test a human robot. The below link just made me think of God's debris and the future. http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/oct2008/gb20081027_886542.htm I am not very sure if the distant future is bright... I am not even sure if the near future is bright... I am not even sure if we had to have something known as conciousness to do whatever we are supposed to be doing to help evolve the universe...