Keeping an eye on the future is important as how it unfolds will effect our lives and how we live them in so many ways. Science fiction has historically been pretty good at painting the picture of the real future with a little artistic license.
With that in mind this sci-fi/technology analysis hybrid can help better predict which helps us better plan more intelligently influencing where we live, areas of study, career directions, health care and finance planning just for starters.
AI 2041 – Ten Visions For Our Future is a very readable collaboration between Taiwanese computer scientist Kai-Fu Lee and popular Chinese science fiction author Chen Qiufan. This combo is unique as stories flow with real world imagination while also offering realistic technical industry based feedback from someone who has worked as executive with google, apple, SGI and Microsoft.
Ten imaginative yet realistic short stories piece together a world that is already quickly taking shape in 2022. Stories are themed with character backstories that nicely aid the introduction of particular types of AI technology and how they influence the world and the characters within its lives.
A few of the AI technologies introduced include:
- Personal data tailored services and technology pointing to the future of GDPR disruption and monopolisation.
- A new age of drone warfare and AI weaponization.
- AI autonomous vehicles, smart homes and smart stream devices used for everything from healthcare and hospital tech to monetary and payment systems.
- Deep learn technology use and the next level of deepfake internet and its implications in politics.
- The speed that quantum computing is developing and the effects this could have on many things such as the stability of blockchain designs.
- Virtual reality, augmented reality and beyond.
- The effects of AI service and robotics on job markets the global economy and broadly human psychology as a whole.
The projections paint the picture of a mixed dystopian / utopian world and highlight positives along with foreseeable problems that need resolving in order to progress.
Stories follow on from each other not in the characters but in the technology previously introduced so by the end you get an intense vision of the possible future world.
Each chapter is followed by a technical or analytical review along with more in depth introductions and explanations of the technology and their true impact. The analysis also gives slightly more realistic predictions than the more elaborate short stories giving the reader opportunity to make up their own mind on the likelihood and the timescale involved in the predictions.
There are plenty of present day examples mentioned for comparison such as tech companies google, facebook, amazon and Tesla. And if you piece it together with a little research is also hinting towards companies such as Hanson Robotics, BAE systems, Teradyne, illumina and Oxford Nanopore to name a few.
Many of the stories are a stones throw from reality including themes of global politics and the global warming situation, I think this book gives some clear visualisation of where we are heading and gave me plenty of ideas for personal research in areas I was not previously familiar with which is exactly what I hoped for.
