The future has to be now at some point?

The news (certainly my news ) is full of "cool stuff that is coming in the future". It's exciting (and a bit scary). We've all seen the Jetsons/Bladerunner.?

The future isn't a destination we are travelling to. We never get there. It's a gradual change. But at the same time, a version of the future has to 'now' at some point. The Industrial Revolution was 'now' from roughly 1760 to 1840. The Information age 'started' in 1947 when the transistor was developed, and has continued to roughly today.?

The 4th Industrial Revolution (the original was the 1st, the Information age was the 3rd) is characterised by technologies like AI (of course) and robotics (plus things like gene editing). One unique element of the the 4th industrial revolution is velocity?. The changes to work and society could happen very quickly, arguably we are seeing this already (for sure with AI, maybe only literally last few years in robotics).

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So the (or 'a') future could be now very soon, maybe the next 24 months? The following feel like significant developments that point to a very different future happening very quickly.

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AI models that think

ChatGPT o1 preview (that you can use now) is an early version of 'reasoning' tech. The fully featured version is not out yet. It's not really thinking, but this new direction has massive potential . Slightly more out there Sam Altman (who has a history of talking up things as he now owns stock) said AGI is achievable on todays hardware . As in we need no new inventions. That's pretty big.

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New ways of working

'Voice mode' sounds like a dull feature. But when you try it in any of the ChatGPT apps it really does open your eyes to a whole new way of working with computers. This is an interesting demo . And as our own?Owen?Steer?said:

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AI controlling a computer

Code is clever. Code can do anything. But you know what is even more clever? A human controlling a computer. It has offers flexibility. With a web browser a person can achieve huge things - build a business, explore outer space, learn new skills, participate in a global volunteer program, create and trade art, travel virtually anywhere, make friends and build relationships.

So what if AI can control a computer? Or 1million AI's in parallel, 24x7x365? What could we/it do then? It starts with this, my 2min demo . Where it ends, literally no one can yet fully imagine.

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Robotics

The new version of Atlas (this came out a day ago): Atlas Goes Hands On - YouTube . The key thing here is this is working under it's own steam, no one is guiding or controlling it. The flashy (though still impressive) Telsa Optimus robots showcased a few weeks back where controlled and voiced by humans.?

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So where does this leave us all?

Well in a work / marketing context:

• How we all work is about to change a great deal. The way we and our clients interact with computers. How we use Word. Or a web browser.
• The type work an agency like us is capable of producing is about to go 10x 100x in terms of ambition, size, scale - without adding the kind of headcount we would have needed 5 years ago. We can do more. We can do almost anything we can imagine.?
• Client expectations will change a lot. They will expect more, or faster, or cheaper. Are all three. They will want to know how we use the new tech to create our work, and how we don't. They will want to know how we use it in terms of process, and how it fits into the workflows of any project. They will want to know how it effects their data, where is is stored, who can see it. And they will want to know the cost savings.

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