The 2018 Update on The Future of Everything

AR/VR/MR/Haptics/Holographics and XR

Misconceptions

Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Mixed Reality (MR), Haptics and Holographics, are all in gradual market diffusion stage as of 2018, after having long been the stuff of science fiction content. Even so, even as of 2018, the misconceptions remains overwhelmingly widespread and strong, that these are for gaming, entertainment, leisure and recreation. None of these technologies or interface methods, however, were ever meant to be for just that alone.

Covergence

Amongst much else in convergence, whether existing technology or emerging technology, AR, VR, MR, Haptics and Holographics will serve as critical ingredients for the all encompassing X Reality (XR) which will redefine not only our interaction with technology, but our entire experience of being human. XR, will redefine everything about learning, work, power and society for the human race. It will change the rules of education, commerce, industry, consumption, social interaction, domestic life, leisure and governance. It will reshape production and other functions of businesses, such as Marketing and Accounting, warranting the rewriting of Organisational Structure, Organisational Design and Organisational Systems, as subject matters.

XR and the Future

As of 2018, the future of anything significant at all, cannot possibly be discussed credibly, without consideration and mention, of XR, even if most of human society yet remains ignorant about it or in denial of its rapid approach. And hence I begin this 2018 update, on the future of everything, as such.

The Future of Fintech

The Evolution

Technology has always driven change and evolution of how human society and industry works, across any field or subject matter. When somebody invented the ledger for account keeping, that pretty much was Financial Technology of that time and era. The difference today with new emergent technologies to support the more contemporary financial needs or aspirations of tomorrow, is that they are more hyped up and fussed about. There is also an unprecedented explosion of ideas as well as possibilities presented by the current stage of tech maturity.

The Paradox

The subject of Finance, thanks to the rapid tech evolution that has begun in the 2010s, will look nothing by 2030, like it did by 2010. The emerging Financial Models made possible by the emerging Financial Technologies will render everything a Finance graduate knew about his or her subject by the end of the 2000s, obsolete and redundant. Paradoxically, the field will grow in complexity by overwhelming folds for the past to matter, while at the same time, will be contrasting in its simplicity for persons outside the know of the subject matter, than ever has been possible till now.

Banks and Insurance Companies

The biggest winners of the currently hyped "Fintech" and its future, will be the very organisations that have been asserted to have the need to fear it or that have been said to be threatened with disruption by its advent; the banks and insurance houses. I reiterate the bad news for the disruption conspiracy theorists, that, no, the banks and insurance companies will neither lose out to Fintech nor be disrupted by it. They will evolve with it, quite naturally and gain from it. There really isn't a possibility of a debate here on sensible empirical grounds.

Transactions

Getting to what is useful, The Future of Fintech as of today, means, relative cash-free transactions, accompanying a mass-extinction of plastic cards, processes that involve tapping of devices and smarthphone based payments. It also means the end of queues or checkout counters at retail outlets, keying in or writing down of credit card numbers and ibanking passwords.

The Future of Fintech, is about the authorised account holder being the biological password to the account and transactions being processed as well as improved instantly, automatically, seamlessly and at will.

Currency

As far as currency itself is concerned, if you disagree with one Mr Warren Buffett on Cryptocurrencies, you are one of the following:

1. Not smart or not intelligent
2. Desperate or in blatant denial
3. A charlatan or a fraud
4. A gambler

However, national currencies of tomorrow will pretty much exist more in virtual state than in physical state. And much of the technological models that have been used to support the traded commodities called cryptocurrencies today, will be co-opted by central banks and state governments, as well as commercial banks, to support currency accounting and transfers ahead. That is a certain eventuality, unless a freak solar flare knocks out everything electrical, with it the net, and sends us all back to the stone age.

The Future of Production

Goods

Goods will be 4D-Printed after being designed and modeled and Mixed Reality environments. 3D-Printing will be obsolete. The term "Sharing Economy" will take on a whole new meaning, to imply the common use of globally spread individually owned objects that are connected. Production will not necessarily be limited or restricted to factories or dedicated plants. This new reality, will cause a rapid drop in the cost of production for all sorts of items, along with the market price. The barriers to entry for the production of most goods will also collapse. The collapse will not just be of the financial or economic or logistical barriers, but also, competency barriers, as technology takes over the translation of thought into execution in the XR environment.

The biggest game changer to production, besides the Internet of Things, will be the paradigm shift in human-computer interface, with the Brain Computer Interface technology. You simply think or imagine something, and technology will take care of the production automatically, virtually instantly, as long as your thought or imagination is scientifically sensible.

Content

Consider the cost of producing film or recording a song today. Now, thanks to the XR environment, consider, imagining or playing a story or a song in your mind, and then transferring it or recording it, with technology, thanks to the Brain Computer Interface. Imagine recording your dreams for others to watch.

The collapse of barriers to production of goods will outright pale in comparison with barriers to production of content, where thought and imagination is all you need. While this may not necessarily put thespians and other performers out of work, work in the creative and entertainment industries will surely be more disrupted, than anywhere else.

We will see a complete redefinition of production for games, movies, television, music and advertisements, as these will be generation from mere thought, just about anywhere, by anyone, with good taste or imagination.

The Future of Work

Mass Automation

Anything physical, routine, repetitive or quantitative can and will be automated. We are at the doorstep of the age of mass automation already, as of 2018. Needless to say, the key drivers of the mass automation that is in progress are Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, that will be further augmented in terms of capability, in the XR environment.

The Human Prerogative

You cannot program sentience. Therefore you cannot automate dynamic qualitative decision-making, judgement and conception. The work that cannot be automated will dictate the distribution of work through tomorrow's workforce. This will leave no occupation, present or future, unaffected.

Occupations of tomorrow will be about invention, innovation, ideation, conception, creation, collaboration, compassion, empathy, education, inspiration, instruction, oversight, governance, entertainment and all things as such that require sentience, the core critical irreplaceable strength of the human species. The workers of tomorrow, will necessarily have to optimally draw on their sentience, with wisdom. Skills, will be for machines. Wisdom, will be for workers.

Workspaces

If you do not need to do work of physical nature, your need to be at a specific place for work, diminishes. This is not to say that commercial workspaces or offices will disappear altogether, or that, people will not travel for work anymore. Tele-presence however will simply become a far more practical option for people and organisations. Especially with the XR environment, in which, physical or virtual presence may not be too different in effect.

Human Resource Management

Given the nature of the human prerogative of work ahead, and the nature of its distribution, there will need to be a shift in how the management of Human Resources is perceived. For ingenuity and wisdom to thrive, you need a conducive, nurturing and happy environment, in ways beyond just the physical workspace.

The Future of Education

The education sector or industry supports the world of work by preparing economic contributors in all roles. With the future demanding Wisdom Workers, at some point, education will have to begin to be about solely Wisdom, rather, than skill at all. And that point perhaps has already passed, and the shift is overdue, in some geographies at least.

To produce a workforce entirely of Wisdom Workers, the global education system will have to evolve to help every child identify his or her individual intelligences, early on, and help each child best cultivate the combination of unique strengths he or she possesses or wishes innately to develop. This means mass-customisation of education. It will also have to be a flexible and fluid system to provide maximum opportunities to each individual to nurture and tap on one's genius factor, while allowing cross-functional and inter-disciplinary development.

While this herein may seem like an assertive statement, gradually education systems are already evolving in the direction, where they moving away from focus on homework or textbooks. Universities around the world are more widely and more extensively supporting inter-disciplinary development of their students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

The Future of Travel

You will not need to leave your home, your neighbourhood or country to see or explore the world with the advent of XR. Put on a headset plus a bodysuit and you could experience any place on earth, or beyond, as if you are right there.

This does not mean the travel industry or the hospitality industry will come to a halt. They will, however, have to transform and evolve. The future of travel will be more about experience that technology of time cannot simulate or replicate.

The future traveler, will be better drawn, with promises of cultural immersion, credible first hand educational experience, unique tastes of unique flavours, the opportunity to personally interact with people they otherwise would not be able to interact with, and so on.

In fact, the travel and hospitality industries are likely to see unprecedented growth trajectories for many foreseeable decades ahead. However, it is businesses that deliver new and unique experiences beyond the visual, that will survive.

THANK YOU

Thank you for reading this update. Let me know what you think. If you believe I have missed out on something that should have been addressed or mentioned, leave a comment, and I will try visiting it, in a follow-up article.

Harish Shah is Singapore's first local born Professional Futurist and a Management Strategy Consultant. He runs Stratserv Consultancy. His areas of consulting and Keynote Topics include EmTech, Industry 4.0, HR, Digital Transformation, Product Development, X Reality, Marketing, Strategic Foresight, Systems Thinking and Organisational Future Proofing.