Future Beat: Our habits

The future isn’t only about technology. It’s about habits, too.

Those habits can make or break new companies and ideas.

That’s the case with WeWork. The shared-workspace start-up gained popularity because of changing habits around short-term office space and collaborative working.

Those habits, however, also helped to bring about its demise with the pandemic solidifying work from home and hybrid work into our routines.

Of course, it didn’t help that the company had an unrealistic business model and failed to generate long-term profits.

There are also our purchasing habits, which tell a bigger story – a civically engaged story of consumers seeking to make a difference .

Our habits can be dictated by the weather. From what we wear to when we go outside, those changes are certainly on the minds of many, especially around climate change.

Yes, we talk a lot about technology in this newsletter, but ultimately, what we’re really talking about is habits, because they are what fuels change.

Cody Sigel Combs , Future Editor

The Big Story

WeWork isn't working

In brief | It has been quite a fall from grace for WeWork. The shared-workspace company that became one of the world’s most valuable and talked about start-ups finally came crashing down to reality and filed for bankruptcy this week.

There was something for everybody with WeWork’s rapid rise. You had Adam Neumann, known for his visions (or delusions) of grandeur, you had a major injection of cash from SoftBank’s chief executive Masayoshi Son, and you had the company’s quirky vision of “elevating the world’s consciousness”.

There was even a movie about the company’s ascent, starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway.

In the end, for a variety of reasons, WeWork, simply didn’t work. It couldn’t turn a profit, it couldn’t maintain investor interest and, perhaps most importantly, it couldn’t halt the work-from-home tide that arose with the pandemic.

The business model once touted as the future of real estate went bust .

Why it matters | First off, WeWork’s meteoric rise came during a time when tech unicorn start-ups took all the oxygen out of the room in terms of lofty promises and ample media coverage. It’s akin to what we’re seeing today with AI-based start-ups trying to make their mark in a crowded marketplace. WeWork’s rise and fall should definitely be a cautionary tale for any company, investor or entrepreneur feeling overly confident.

Secondly, WeWork was caught in the middle of one of the first battles to be fought in a post-pandemic world: the ongoing and polarising “return to office” versus “work from home” versus “hybrid working” debate.

The spirited skirmish continues to influence property markets, business strategies and overall economies around the world. The ability to work from home, coupled with less-than-stellar business decisions made WeWork incredibly vulnerable. As the “return to office” dialogue keeps on shaping the world around us, expect to see more fallout.

Having said that, there’s still some hope for WeWork , it seems.

Quoted | “They could leverage their networks to offer flexible workspaces, capitalising on the short-term gap in the market. This strategy could appeal to businesses seeking agility and minimal capital expenditure during uncertain economic times.” – Oliver Baxter, founder of Dubai-based Workplace Maven

Future in focus

A cyber security superstorm is brewing | Continued ransomware attacks, a fast-evolving generative artificial intelligence landscape, and the increasing vulnerability of supply chains could create a perfect storm of cyber security vulnerability in the months and years ahead, according to one expert.

Mining cryptocurrency in rural America | An unassuming former paper mill in the foothills of eastern Appalachia is buzzing with a new kind of activity these days : dozens of shipping containers full of computers now populate the facility, all of them mining cryptocurrency

Clearing the air about cloud seeding | One of India's leading technology institutes is planning to create “artificial rain” to mitigate the air pollution crisis in the capital New Delhi

Who's at fault if a self-driving car crashes? | Owners of self-driving cars will not be held responsible for any accidents under a new legal framework to develop autonomous vehicles in the UK, the government has announced

Predicting the future: Signal or noise?

Although they broke up in 1970, somehow The Beatles managed to briefly dethrone Taylor Swift on Spotify. It wasn’t magic, it was artificial intelligence. AI was instrumental, pun intended, in the process of enhancing and replicating John Lennon’s voice on several unreleased demo tapes, and the Fab Four were able to bring out a new single , Now and Then. Paul McCartney, echoing the sentiment many have about AI, described the process as “kind of scary, but exciting”. He also insisted that it was in line with what the Beatles have always been about, trying new musical approaches. This AI method of music is raising a lot of ethical questions around using and replicating voices of artists who have died, so is this a path the music industry will continue to pursue?

This is a signal. Who wouldn’t want to see their favourite group get together one last time? Sure, there are ethical concerns and worries about the misuse of such AI vocal technology, but at the end of the day, people still wanted to hear the Beatles' new song. There’s something about being able to reconnect with friends and family who have died – or in this case, John Lennon and George Harrison – that appeals to humanity. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think older bands will be regularly breaking into the Top 10, but we certainly haven’t seen the last of AI being used to create new songs by defunct groups. There’s already plenty of technology to make artists sound good, AI is the next logical step.

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