Information and Communication Technology Policy and Strategy
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11wkict2017.pptxLecture Outline
Thinking about the future
Industry demographics or dynamics
Disruptive innovations
Paradigm shifts
Meeting human needs
Thinking about the future
The study of the future or futorology is pursued professionally by a relatively
small group of professionals, most of whom are employed outside of universities
A professional association for futurologists is The World Future Society
This association published a magazine called The Futurist from 1967- 2015 – a younger leadership team is now re-developing the organisation
In academic life, two of the journals publishing future oriented material are
Futures
Technology Forecasting and Social Change
Governments and large organisations have undertaken studies of the future with a view to anticipating important developments and preparing for them
These academic or academic-like approaches to the study of the future have developed a distinctive set of techniques, some of which have been adopted as the basis for consultancies such as Gartner Group (ICT industry), McKinsey (more general management consulting), and Arthur D. Little (technology/engineering oriented consulting)
Thinking about the future
Major methods used in future studies
Foresight
Premise is that gathering stakeholder groups to identify emerging developments will provide better information than in-house groups attempting to anticipate such developments. Prominent in Europe.
Foresight is a term most widely used in Europe and has grown in popularity as long-term planning agencies have declined in importance (such as the Commissariat général du Plan in France)
Four of the major methods used in future studies are
Scenario development
Focus groups
Delphi Method and Successors
Technology forecasting including bibliometric, scientometric and patent analysis
Let’s look at these in a little more detail…
Scenario development
Thinking about the future
Here is a typical outcome from scenario development
‘Drivers’ have been depicted as axes opposing generative (innovation, competition and trust are central) and reductive (security, risk-mitigation and control through rules are central) on the y-axis
and command and control vs. decentralised and distributed on the x-axis
Scenarios usually employ some narrative (story telling) labels to distinguish the scenarios – here we have somewhat mixed metaphors – aquatic, gardens, and boutiques
Thinking about the future
Focus groups
Scenarios often employ focus groups of
analysts or experts who aim to challenge each others assumptions about which drivers are important as well as collaborate in distinguishing possible future pathways
Focus groups more generally employ samples of people from particular ‘target’ groups thought to be important in influencing process and/or outcome (e.g. possible adopters of a new product)
In the case of new product development, the group may deliberate questions such as ‘How would you use this product in your life?’ or ‘What type of people might purchase this product?’
By comparing answers to characteristics of the people in the group (male/female, young/old, sociable/quiet, etc.) the sponsors of the focus group develop an understanding of how the new product will be received and what groups in society will be most receptive to it.
They may even revise their own understanding of the product.
Delphi Method and Successors
Delphi is a relatively old technique to ‘crowd source’ views from groups of experts
For example we might ask 100 individuals with well-cited publications in biotechnology whether and, if so, when we can expect to have high protein maize (e.g moving from 9% to 18% protein content)
Delphi methods are criticised as reproducing ‘conventional’ views as outliers tend to be overwhelmed by those with more conservative views. However, sometimes we want to know what these ‘conventional’ views are to gauge novelty or originality.
The Site of the Original Delphi Method
The main successors to the Delphi method are crowd sourcing, trending analysis and ‘big data’ text processing (e.g. from science and technology literature)
Thinking about the future
Technology forecasting including bibliometric, scientometric and patent analysis
Thinking about the future
Technology forecasting often involves ideas about ‘trajectories’ of technical improvement – here forecasts of rechargeable-battery capacity. There are two elements here – one improvements within technologies and transitions between technologies.
The prospects for each type of change may be assessed by examining the scientific and technical literature or patents for indications of laboratory progress that might be translated into practice after further development.
Scientometric and bibliometric techniques can also be used to examine the relationships between different bodies of knowledge (e.g. biological techniques for building computers)
Industry demographics or dynamics
Outside of the usual techniques applied in future studies but worth considering are studies of the birth and death of firms
The impact of a technology depends upon both the demand for it (industry revenue is an indicator) and the nature of the supply (capacity) for producing it.
New opportunities give rise to new industries in a process the Schumpeter described as ‘creative destruction’ (destruction because the old incumbent industries often fail to follow new developments, e.g. Kodak and digital photography)
Disruptive innovations
Disruptive innovations either replace existing activities of human beings or add new ones
In the 1960s interpersonal professional communication often involved telephones, receptionists or personal assistants, and phone message forms, all largely displaced by e-mail
My view is that the smartphone is an extension of the personal computer, itself a disruptive innovation
The smartphone also disrupts the MP3 market, telephonic information services and even print publishing (maps, newspapers, etc.)
Smartphones are powerful ‘intermediating’ technologies – they enable us to interact with others while on the move and to ‘tune out’ from our local environment and ‘tune in’ to our own soundtrack
So what are likely to be the powerful disrupting technologies of the next 20 years?
Disruptive innovations
Predicting the medium term (7-20 years)
What is likely to appear in the medium term is already here in some form, sometimes only in laboratory demonstrations
We intermediate our aural (hearing) environment today, we will soon intermediate our vision
Intermediated vision is part of the general class of ‘wearable intelligence’ and we may expect many further innovations in this area (health monitoring, bio-feedback, augmented physical training)
These developments all of their own trajectories which I call the search for ‘higher resolution’ – the aim is to make virtual reality indistinguishable from other perceptions (or better)
In this direction we are likely to have the capacity to augment our senses by modelling (machine) observable phenomenon (hearing and vision at a distance, scanning other people’s body temperature, analysing body language)
Disruptive innovations
Another line of prediction concerns the future of ‘artificial intelligence.’ I am a sceptic regarding the medium term achievement of machine consciousness although it cannot be ruled out as a ‘paradigm shift’ (see below)
In the medium term, however, we will see that computational methods will allow us to anticipate people’s desires and behaviours and respond to them. We already see this in ‘data analytics’ (e.g. the processing of your online behaviour to feed you advertising)
An extension of current capacity is ‘intelligent agents’ – computational entities that are able to navigate the complexities of human motivation and behaviour to anticipate your actions or desires and offer you choices/opportunities
With voice recognition and language processing it will become more difficult to distinguish whether you are speaking to another human or an automata
The extension of intelligence into robotics will allow creation of pets or other companions whose behaviours will meet human needs from assistance to companionship (now ancient experiments with Eliza, a software simulation of a psychotherapist found many people were able/willing to interact and even preferred the software to a human)
We will probably need better filters and screens to maintain some modicum of privacy as these capabilities develop
Disruptive innovations
While some of these developments are alarming, it seems likely that there will be some truly frightening possibilities. The US is committed to the ‘automated battlefield’ – the ability to wage armed conflict without humans being present. Drones are the first step down this path.
Initially lethal force is likely to be carried by familiar forms (people, airplanes/missiles, pack animals)
Towards the end of the medium term lethal force can be packaged in much more compact forms, e.g. the size of a rat
What is done by militaries can be improvised by others so we can expect improvised lethal robots once robots are more broadly dispersed in society (a new meaning for attack dog)
Disruptive innovations
I have covered developments that are particular obvious to me. As I observed,
in the medium term, we see mostly see extensions of innovations that are already observable
Medium term predictions should take account of practical difficulties in technological development (research costs are small in relation to development costs) so innovations like driverless cars are clearly technologically possible. They are, however, unlikely to be in widespread use (the costs of development to assure their safety will be very high). Of course driverless transport is always possible in controlled settings – e.g. the train connecting the North and South terminals of Gatwick airport is driverless as is a number of metro services in other countries.
In addition to the developments I have mentioned, we can expect major advances in medical diagnosis and treatment including increasing use of robotic surgery, advances in 3D printing that making ‘printed’ artefacts increasingly common, and ever more automatic ways to order, sell, or exchange goods and services online (including digital content).
Paradigm shifts
Paradigm shifts are larger changes that are much more difficult to anticipate
because their basis is either not yet demonstrated in the laboratory, has not yet been conceived, or is latent in something already here but which has unrecognised potential
Paradigm shifts take longer at least 20 years and perhaps more than 100 for their full potential to be exploited (e.g. in some ways we are still extending applications for electrical energy after Edison opened public power stations in London and New York)
Predicting paradigm shifts is very difficult, but can be very
profitable
An investor that bought £5,000 of Microsoft stock in 1981
would today be a multi-millionaire
Pearl Street Station, New York
1882
Paradigm shifts
So what are some possible paradigm shifts that might occur in your lifetime?
Strong Artificial Intelligence (AI) – variously defined but I prefer the definition that a strong AI is capable of creating an AI with greater capabilities than itself. This would suggest a ‘runaway’ intelligence exceeding human understanding.
von Neuman machine – a variant of the first which is not necessarily very intelligent – a machine that can reproduce itself (we are von Neumann machines as are all life forms). Artificial life is an example, but not one that necessarily is so important as to create a paradigm shift (e.g. artificial algae might be useful for food or chemicals but maybe not very scary compared to a strong AI
Commercial exploitation of outer space – the solar system is amply supplied with energy and materials, but we have to get there much more cheaply and live there indefinitely, both things we don’t know how to do at present
These paradigm shifts can also be combined – e.g. von Neumann machines in space would make possible a post-scarcity world or strong (but beneficent) AI might tell us how to get to outer space cheaply and live there indefinitely.
Paradigm shifts
Direct input to the brain – currently we can observe brain patterns and even stimulate the brain to produce memories or sensations. Being able to do this in a sophisticated way would produce a paradigm shift
‘Uplift’ – making it possible for other life forms to have near human intelligence
Gene editing in mature organisms – changing your genetics first to correct ‘defects’ and later to change yourself including how you age
All of these and more ideas (some less credible like para-psychology) have been explored by science fiction authors. It is not that science fiction authors have any special competence to predict paradigm shifts, but they have a license to use their imagination to visualise what such paradigm shifts might mean.
For example, science fiction has been speculating on the consequences of ‘first contact’ between humans and some other intelligent species for decades and has also speculated on the reasons for Fermi’s paradox – if the universe is abundant in life, why have they not (yet) contacted us?
Meeting human needs
Returning to the more immediate world in which we live it seems clear that the most important priority is meeting human needs without destroying our planet
This may be easier to imagine than to do – it appears that we have released sufficient greenhouse gas (primarily CO2) that future generations will suffer very serious consequences which will become increasingly apparent in your lifetime
ICTs, in principle, can help to mitigate (reduce) this problem by helping to reduce the need to burn ever more fossil fuels and to coordinate efforts to reduce CO2 (e.g. through coordinating re-forestation efforts)
Developing greater levels of sustainability also means addressing global conflicts that displace people, making cities more energy efficient (since the world is urbanising at a rapid pace), and meeting health care and social needs to allow human beings meaningful lives.
Norbert Wiener, who coined the term cybernetics, wrote a book The Human Use of Human Beings arguing that there were two paths in the use of computers and all they make possible – one humanising, the other dehumanising. I would vote for the former.
