Future Today #087 - Futurepedia. Digital Anthropology. Trends. AI

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.

???Limited offer for Future Today readers! Last year I released a course in Doméstika called "Creativity and technology: transform the world with innovative solutions" and for one month you can access a 15% discount using the code: ALAYON_DAVID-FUTURE There are already more than 800 students who have taken the course with 100% positive ratings. Sign up!

?? Do you know that I have published a book? In?“Upgrade: desarrolla tu perfil a prueba de futuro”?(only in spanish for now), together with?Mónica Quintana , we talk about the skills that any professional should develop thinking about the future. You can buy it in any online or physical bookstore or?on the publisher's website .

?? New horizons in digital anthropology . Digitisation, social networks, artificial intelligence, and the metaverse are changing what it means to be human. Humans and technology are now in a dynamic and reciprocal relationship. However, while society has invested trillions in building and tracking digital platforms and personal data, we’ve invested a shockingly small amount in understanding the values, social dynamics, identities, and biases of digital communities. We can’t address transformations in one without understanding the impacts on the other.

?? frog Trends 2023 . The twelve trends featured in this report are organized into three core sections. The first core, Worlds Collide, focuses on how emerging tech will unlock new ways of living. The second core, Connected Dots, hones in on how the rapid changes in online tools will further redefine our relationship with the internet. The third core, Take Care, centers its attention on how protecting and supporting one another can be an antidote to an era of chaos and collapse.

?? What’s next for AI . It’s only been nine months since OpenAI set off the generative AI explosion with the launch of DALL-E 2, a deep-learning model that can produce images from text instructions. That was followed by a breakthrough from Google and Meta: AIs that can produce videos from text. And it’s only been a few weeks since OpenAI released ChatGPT, the latest large language model to set the internet ablaze with its surprising eloquence and coherence.?

?? Telework plunges U.S. cities into an uncertain future (ES) Three years after the pandemic, the mecca of the capitalist world has turned remote and hybrid work into the usual formula for millions of workers with still unpredictable consequences for cities. If 2022 was the year of the tug-of-war between employers and workers for a return to offices that only a few could impose, this 2023 is the time to evaluate the economic implications for large cities of this change of habits.

? Horizon Scan: Amy Webb . Founder and CEO of the Future Today Institute, Amy Webb pioneered a data-driven foresight methodology that is now used within hundreds of organizations. She possesses master-level knowledge and insights on the potential futures for the industries critical to keeping the world moving during this unparalleled period of disruption in business and society.

Recommended series: In Time (2011) - Andrew Niccol ?// Recommended book: Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order (2020)?Ray Dalio

?? Why humanities students will drive the future of the tech industry . Technology moves fast, constantly becoming more and more integrated into our everyday lives, and we need the workforce to compliment it. Young professionals are gravitating towards the tech industry in great numbers due to this widening tech job market, in search of exciting and financially rewarding work.

?? Designing the future for the participation of nature in peace dialogues . This peace artifact imagines a new form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) called “Natural Intelligence” (NI) that, inspired by ancestral indigenous wisdom, aims to give nature a voice in peace processes. It proposes a network of micro-sensors, measurement drones, and other devices to monitor the environment and humanity in real time to advance political decision-making processes.?

?? Inside the enigmatic minds of animals . A trio of books argue that we should spend more time understanding the creatures around us. More than ever, we feel a duty and desire to extend empathy to our nonhuman neighbors. In the last three years, more than 30 countries have formally recognized other animals—including gorillas, lobsters, crows, and octopuses—as sentient beings.

???? OpenAI Used Kenyan Workers Making $2 an Hour to Filter Traumatic Content from ChatGPT . A Time investigation published on Wednesday reported that OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, paid Kenyan workers less than $2 an hour to filter through tens of thousands of lines of text to help make its chatbot safer to use. The workers were tasked to label and filter out toxic data from ChatGPT’s training dataset and were forced to read graphic details of NSFW content such as child sexual abuse, bestiality, murder, suicide, torture, self-harm, and incest, Time reported.?

?????? Futurepedia . A directory of AI tools that is updated at a good pace, about five new ones every day. There are more than 250 tools that can be sorted and filtered, actively selected, and saved as favorites. The team also has verified badges for quality-tested tools.

Asking ChatGPT

?????Why do you think people are afraid of Artificial Intelligence?

?? People may be afraid of Artificial Intelligence due to a variety of reasons, such as concerns that machines may replace human workers, or that they may make dangerous decisions without the ability to understand the ethical consequences. There may also be concerns about privacy and security, as well as fear of a "singularity" in which machines surpass humans in intelligence and capability. Lack of understanding about how AI actually works may also contribute to fear.

?????What do you think about replacing human workers with machines?

?? Automation and the use of artificial intelligence in business and industry can have certain benefits, such as improving efficiency and reducing costs. However, it can also have negative consequences, such as replacing human workers with machines and job losses. It is important to carefully consider these consequences and look for ways to mitigate them, such as through training and skills development for jobs in an increasingly automated world. It is also important to consider the importance of human labor and dignity in employment, and to look for ways to maintain or improve the well-being of workers as new technologies are adopted.

"The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed" - William Gibson

If you liked it... Share it! Don't be shy! And subscribe! If you want to get in touch with me, ping me at?[email protected].?See you next week! ??

???Read the newsletter in Spanish