Future Today #058 - Musk, Artificial empathy, Crypto millionaires, Time

Welcome to Future Today!?A newsletter for those curious about social innovation, disruptive technologies and futures studies. In it I share weekly articles, reports and interesting links, and recommendations of books, movies, series, events and courses.

?? Elon Musk: A future worth getting excited about . What's on Elon Musk's mind? In this exclusive conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, Musk details how the radical new innovations he's working on -- Tesla's intelligent humanoid robot Optimus, SpaceX's otherworldly Starship and Neuralink's brain-machine interfaces, among others -- could help maximize the lifespan of humanity and create a world where goods and services are abundant and accessible for all. It's a compelling vision of a future worth getting excited about.

?? Artificial empathy: the upgrade AI needs to speak to consumers . In a proliferated, multi-channel world, every brand needs to win the heart and mind of the consumer to acquire and retain them. They need to set up a foundation of empathy and connectedness. Artificial empathy allows brands to target individual consumer needs. AI can be used to analyze customer behaviour at scale for personalized insights. But artificial empathy still needs human input and interpretation to work most effectively.

?? Is the metaverse the future of the internet? A Globe journalist steps inside to find out . In the metaverse, I saw things that were strange, confounding, depressing and intriguing – and once, even beautiful. Some analysts say we will spend much more time in the metaverse in the years ahead. But what’s the appeal? The Globe’s Joe Castaldo suits up and gets lost in the Decentraland and Horizon Worlds platforms.

???? Top 4 predictions for the audio metaverse . But what if the only thing people needed to engage with brands and one another in the metaverse were almost ubiquitous technologies like headphones or smart speakers (Alexa, Google Home, etc.)? The most recent Infinite Dial Study estimates that 94 million households have a smart speaker in the home and this number is growing year over year.2 The future of the audio-only metaverse is bright and far more immediate.

?? Scientists Invent Weird Device to Simulate Kissing in VR . Pucker up baby, because researchers from Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, aka the Future Interfaces Group or FIG, figured out how to make users feel sensations on their lips, teeth and tongue in virtual reality. Pulses are aimed in and around the mouth, and footage shows a user testing the tooth brush, cigarette, hot coffee, and other simulated situations researchers created to go along with the new tech.

?? Crypto millionaires are pouring money into Central America to build their own cities . A new class of crypto investors have bold plans to rebuild society from scratch. But their pet projects risk repeating the region’s long history of corporate colonialism. The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, announced in November 2021 that the volcano will become home to a glittering new Bitcoin City. A vast construction project to remodel virgin forest into a vibrant metropolis could soon be underway.

?? Redesigning the design department . But what makes for a successful design department? And how do you avoid siloing it from the rest of the business? To answer these questions, we looked at data from three million designers and design leaders in more than 100,000 design departments, combined with their organizations’ financial performance.

?? A second life: Welcome to the metaverse, the next frontier in filmmaking . Shows such as Severance, Upload offer a glimpse at life in a metaverse. What if you could live two lives at once??That's the premise of Ben Stiller's Apple thriller series Severance. Employees of a mysterious tech corporation undergo brain operations in which a chip is inserted and divides their work memories from their personal memories.?

? Time Might Not Exist, Physicists Say; Causation Is the Basic Feature of Our Universe . Does time exist? The answer to this question may seem obvious: of course it does! Just look at a calendar or a clock. But developments in physics suggest the non-existence of time is an open possibility, and one that we should take seriously. How can that be, and what would it mean? It’ll take a little while to explain, but don’t worry: even if time doesn’t exist, our lives will go on as usual.

?? Design for a Just Transition: Co-design, community & care . The climate crisis — and Design for Planet — is a social justice issue and linked to systemic inequalities. The people responsible for producing the crisis sit far away from those who are feeling its impacts on their health and wellbeing.?

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