By 2012 all print media will be forced to radically adapt towards an online multimedia model. Newspapers are already in turmoil as they switch to a primarily online model with advertising revenues collapsing as traditional revenue streams dry up and loss of classified and banner advertising unable to be compensated by online revenues. Already mass layoffs of journalists and support staff are in train- 12,000 this year alone, as page layouts and editorial are contracted out.
Traditional news media, both local and global, is rapidly being reduced to a stream of headlines with minimal analysis. Special editions and feature articles will continue in reduced quantity, but online short-burst information- text, video and audio streams will be increasingly popular, distributed via multimedia platforms such as new generation smart phones, already in common use.
By 2020- traditional free to air television channels will have largely disappeared, along with many cable channels, with television advertising similarly caught in the headlight glare of change. The switch will be to web channels covering every topic- personalised to individual taste- viewable anywhere, anytime and watched primarily on mobile media screens. The personalised channel will be ubiquitous- news and information will be filtered and customised to every personal taste.
All print media including magazines and books will have followed newspapers to a multimedia model distributed over the web, using almost exclusively eBook readers such as Amazon's Kindle, iPads and smart phones for flexible viewing. Terabyte flash memory will be used for offline personal media storage- but will be largely redundant due to the availability of virtually unlimited online storage cloud/utility sites run by Google, Amazon, Microsoft etc.
Most print and video media will be available via direct ultrafast wave division multiplex wireless downloads. Bookstores, despite the use of print on demand xerox machines as a short term stop-gap will also convert exclusively to downloads and be forced to compete for business with coffee houses and other social/cultural hubs offering direct media experiences. These will morph into the dominant local community knowledge and workplace centres of the future.
In addition, the trend towards alternate realities will continue, with entertainment media such as virtual worlds combining with social gaming to bcome a dominant form. News and sport will also become interactive, overlapping with gaming and increasingly available within 3D holographic spaces for maximum immersive effect.
The media will focus on a number of differentiated streams available from thousands of web hubs, aggregation sites and social networks in three broad forms. First- news headlines and short synopses of current events as currently available online, competing with traditional news feeds and wire services. Second- indepth reviews and features relating to past events and narratives, merging with traditional book and blog formats. And third- future scenario analyses and forecasts tied to current trends. These scenarios will also feed back into current events creating news.
In addition the number of individual and small group freelance mulltimedia blogs and wikis, distributed via syndicated web sites, webcasts, social networks, media feeds and aggregation sites, will have grown exponentially- to at least triple current levels- exploring every aspect of societal experience.
By 2030- free to air networks, except for a small proportion of public, special demographic and dedicated sponsored channels will have disappeared, eliminated by reduced advertising revenue and the ready availability of unlimited web on-demand material.
Specialised channnels covering realtime activities, such as major sporting events, will survive, but increasingly these will be produced by freelance groups and directly brokered to consumer groups for distribution on social networks for example.
Film amd video makers will be largely independent individuals and groups working on particular projects within virtual fluid teams- marketing their services directly to consumer groups or market brokers.
All news including generic geopolitical, weather, economic, financial, environmental and technology coverage, will be handled automatically as 24 hr feeds, operating without human intervention. Analysis will be available as a product of specialist freelance individuals and groups, not permanently connected to any particular media organisation.
The web behemoths such as Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook will have become the largest media as well as advertising players. However a reverse trend will have begun, with citizen journalism playing a major role together with greater acceptance of the Global Commons model- a free sharing marketplace of material and knowledge accessible for the global benefit. This will make inhouse news gathering and reporting functions largely redundant. In addition, traditional advertising will have become increasingly irrelevant as markets fragment and consumers begin to take control, dictating their own information indepth requirements on a need-to-know basis. Low key informational advertising embedded within social media and available on a request basis will become the dominant form.
Alternate knowledge and social hubs such as the thousands of Wikipedia lookalikes, controlled by consumer groups, will start to compete with and displace the power of the media and ultra web enterprises such as Google, which will be forced to cede part of its global knowledge control in its own survival self-interest. The Web will be controlled by all nations via the global commons in conjunction with a specially constituted body such as the present ICAAN, devolving away from US control.
By 2040- news analysis, as well as its gathering and distribution, will be largely automated and fluid- available independently on demand and on a push feedback basis- tailored to all netcitizens and ever-changing special interest groups, operating in diverse virtual social realities.
Traditional advertising as we know it will have largely disappeared. Product and service information will be available instead via reliable consumer assessment feedback networks based on the semantic and intelligent web assessment (ref Future Web blog) and assisted by a small number of specialised human information researchers - continuously updated, with factual information available on demand or pushed to meet personal preferences.
Advertising will have morphed to provide consumer virtual experiences on an entertainment and support knowledge basis. At the same time future trend analysis and scenario creation will become increasingly significant and the largest media growth segment, merging with the gaming and entertainment markets.
By 2050 traditional major media organisations will be extinct, with the last of the media barons and dynasties departed. Instead media control and dissemination will begin to shift to countless creative individuals and small-scale media groups operating cooperatively and seamlessly in tandem with the medium of the global commons and intelligent web.
At the same time there will be an inevitable loss of direct individual control over media outputs, as all aspects of news and event discovery, aggregation, processing, analysis and distribution are automated as a function of the combined fusing of artificial and human intelligence and the rigorous decision-making capacity of the Web 5.0.
The media will instead become a pervasive medium for recording local and global experience, generating new forms of knowledge and imersive entertainment for human civilisation- including automatic collection by embedded sensors in every artefact and environment on the planet, to instant delivery via ultrafast bandwidth and direct neural/brain connection. It will encompass, document and support the evolutionary progress of all cultural, political, scientific and technological experience of life's existence.
Web 5.0 starts to take control.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Future of Work
By 2015- the traditional notion of an individual's job and work-related role will be recognised as outdated in developed countries. Output will be measured in terms of flexible value-added criteria or contributions to the goals of the organisation, together with social utility, rather than in terms of hours worked on a particular job.
The traditional office will also become redundant as the wireless web expands, allowing information workers- fifty percent of the workforce, to operate from home or local social hubs such as coffee bars as already occurring- (Ref Future Cities). All such centres will be linked seamlessly via the Internet's multimedia Grid/Mesh Utility supporting Web and Cloud Infrastructure. This will also enable enormous time and energy savings for workers and the planet in general, having a beneficial impact on the quality of life for millions.
By 2025- most tasks, even in the traditional labour-intensive sectors of health, construction, manufacturing and transport will be largely automated or robot-assisted. Projects will be managed and resourced on a real-time basis within the Web's global knowledge network- (Ref Future Web), with creativity and innovation recognised as critical competitive inputs.
Boundaries will blur between traditional full-time, part-time, contract and volunteering modes of employment as well as between worker and management roles, with most workers sharing time between their own creative projects and enterprise applications- the two often overlapping.
By 2035- organisational boundaries and work practices will be fluid and porous, with individuals moving freely between projects, career paths and virtual organisation structures; adding value and in turn continuously acquiring new skills, linked to ongoing learning programs.
The semantic distinctions between workers and management will have disappeared and robots will perform a large proportion of operational roles without human supervision. Union roles will have morphed to largely providing advisory, research and support services.
By 2045/50- work will relate primarily to the generation of new knowledge and services, by combining human, robot and web intelligence to maximum potential. Most processes will be fully automated both at the operational and strategic level within the context of the intelligent enterprise. New products and services will be generated from concept to design to production within days or hours. Individual creativity and skills will remain in high demand but will increasingly will be amplified and modulated within the context of the Web's cooperative decision-making and intelligence capacity.
Welcome to a brave new world.
The traditional office will also become redundant as the wireless web expands, allowing information workers- fifty percent of the workforce, to operate from home or local social hubs such as coffee bars as already occurring- (Ref Future Cities). All such centres will be linked seamlessly via the Internet's multimedia Grid/Mesh Utility supporting Web and Cloud Infrastructure. This will also enable enormous time and energy savings for workers and the planet in general, having a beneficial impact on the quality of life for millions.
By 2025- most tasks, even in the traditional labour-intensive sectors of health, construction, manufacturing and transport will be largely automated or robot-assisted. Projects will be managed and resourced on a real-time basis within the Web's global knowledge network- (Ref Future Web), with creativity and innovation recognised as critical competitive inputs.
Boundaries will blur between traditional full-time, part-time, contract and volunteering modes of employment as well as between worker and management roles, with most workers sharing time between their own creative projects and enterprise applications- the two often overlapping.
By 2035- organisational boundaries and work practices will be fluid and porous, with individuals moving freely between projects, career paths and virtual organisation structures; adding value and in turn continuously acquiring new skills, linked to ongoing learning programs.
The semantic distinctions between workers and management will have disappeared and robots will perform a large proportion of operational roles without human supervision. Union roles will have morphed to largely providing advisory, research and support services.
By 2045/50- work will relate primarily to the generation of new knowledge and services, by combining human, robot and web intelligence to maximum potential. Most processes will be fully automated both at the operational and strategic level within the context of the intelligent enterprise. New products and services will be generated from concept to design to production within days or hours. Individual creativity and skills will remain in high demand but will increasingly will be amplified and modulated within the context of the Web's cooperative decision-making and intelligence capacity.
Welcome to a brave new world.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Evolutionary Thrashing and Social Chaos
Society may be on the cusp of social chaos triggered by ‘Evolutionary Thrashing’, which could result in major social breakdown for many decades. The ‘evolutionary thrashing’ phenomenon occurs when the rate of change in a system’s environment exceeds its capacity to effectively adapt or evolve, before again being overwhelmed by the next wave of change.
At the biological level this can result in an organism’s inability to reach its optimal potential, making it less fit and more susceptible to extinction. This is currently occurring on the planet at an unprecedented rate. Many species are finding it increasingly difficult to adapt to the continuous changes in their habitat resulting from global warming and human destruction, with a quarter of vertebrate species predicted to become endangered or extinct by 2050.
However the phenomenon of ‘evolutionary thrashing’ is not restricted to biological systems. According to David Tow’s recently published generic evolutionary theory, outlined in his book– The Future of Life: A Unified Theory of Evolution, it can apply equally to social systems, including human society.
In this generic scenario, the same laws and principles of evolution apply to all systems at the quantum information level. Support for this thesis has recently been provided by physicist Wojciech Zurek’s ground-breaking work on Quantum Evolution and Decoherence, analogous to Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
Such ‘thrashing’ at the human level can therefore lead to ineffective decision-making, social breakdown and eventually chaos, before long-term optimal evolution reasserts itself.
Global warming is a significant primary driver of this process because it has the potential to adversely impact all the planet’s ecosystems, which in turn will affect most aspects of human civilization including its social and democratic institutions.
A high level of ongoing adaptation is therefore required, but if critical social needs cannot be met in response to rapidly changing constraints, dysfunctional outcomes on a global level such as increased conflict, work and lifestyle stress, loss of community cohesion etc, will inevitably result.
But global warming is not the only contributor to social evolutionary thrashing. The second major driver is globalization, which is also occurring at hyper-speed, resulting in the blurring and mixing of cultures, religions and social norms as populations spread across the planet.
This is most apparent for example in the emergence of the major geopolitical blocs such as the EU linking nations in Europe, Asia, America and Africa, together with an increasing number of regional groupings and cross-over trading and political alliances such as APEC. In addition, each of these networks is increasingly coordinating its influence through global decision-making bodies such as the United Nations and more recently the G20.
In order to manage global issues such as climate change, crime and terrorism, disease, natural and man-made disasters, refugee flows and the allocation of key resources such as food, water and energy, global cooperation will be essential. But at the same time, traditional cultural and commercial practices that have evolved sometimes over thousands of years are being swamped in less than a generation- the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms; resulting in racial blowback, which can trigger reactions such as paranoia and conflict.
The third major driver of hyper-change is the information and communication revolution, facilitated by the Internet and Web Mark 2.0 incorporating the new cyber-world of virtual reality, mobile communication, social media and instant information access.
This is beginning to accelerate exponentially, threatening to outpace the capacity of populations of both developed and developing countries to adapt their social and cultural practices relating to democratic, educational, legal, financial and governance processes. With a third of the world’s population, including developing nations, now connected via inexpensive mobile phones and laptops to this infinite resource, the rate of change will become hyper-exponential within the next few decades.
No-one disputes the benefits of this massive egalitarian knowledge gain, providing the potential to deliver quality of life improvements to both poor and rich nations- combating the adverse effects of poverty and climate change. But there is the real risk that such hyper-change will outstrip the capacity of humanity to absorb and utilize it to the best advantage, succumbing to the centrifugal forces that threaten rip the fragile fabric of society apart.
In the space of a generation, the rate of social evolution driven by these three mega-forces- global warming, globalization and knowledge acceleration, each catalyzing the others in a frenzy of complex feedback systems, now threatens to destabilize the foundations of human civilization.
Non-adaptive evolutionary thrashing is likely to reach a critical threshold within the next decade, mirroring the likely point of no return for global warming.
This effectively means that coordination and synchronization of the major practices and protocols for managing the planet will be essential. It will involve the intermeshing of not just trade, but decision-making on all critical social issues.
It will require the rapid creation and strengthening of common frameworks for managing commerce, finance, economics, education, science and technology- including the management of energy, food, water and air quality on a world-wide scale. This has already begun on a regional basis with the strengthening of the European Union and on a global basis since the recent financial melt-down with the creation of the G20.
In other words, it will demand achieving an excruciatingly fine balance between continuing to encourage the creativity, innovation and development that drives our civilization and the risk of social overreach, with the potential to implode it. Only global commitment and good will by all populations on the planet can achieve this resolution.
At the biological level this can result in an organism’s inability to reach its optimal potential, making it less fit and more susceptible to extinction. This is currently occurring on the planet at an unprecedented rate. Many species are finding it increasingly difficult to adapt to the continuous changes in their habitat resulting from global warming and human destruction, with a quarter of vertebrate species predicted to become endangered or extinct by 2050.
However the phenomenon of ‘evolutionary thrashing’ is not restricted to biological systems. According to David Tow’s recently published generic evolutionary theory, outlined in his book– The Future of Life: A Unified Theory of Evolution, it can apply equally to social systems, including human society.
In this generic scenario, the same laws and principles of evolution apply to all systems at the quantum information level. Support for this thesis has recently been provided by physicist Wojciech Zurek’s ground-breaking work on Quantum Evolution and Decoherence, analogous to Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
Such ‘thrashing’ at the human level can therefore lead to ineffective decision-making, social breakdown and eventually chaos, before long-term optimal evolution reasserts itself.
Global warming is a significant primary driver of this process because it has the potential to adversely impact all the planet’s ecosystems, which in turn will affect most aspects of human civilization including its social and democratic institutions.
A high level of ongoing adaptation is therefore required, but if critical social needs cannot be met in response to rapidly changing constraints, dysfunctional outcomes on a global level such as increased conflict, work and lifestyle stress, loss of community cohesion etc, will inevitably result.
But global warming is not the only contributor to social evolutionary thrashing. The second major driver is globalization, which is also occurring at hyper-speed, resulting in the blurring and mixing of cultures, religions and social norms as populations spread across the planet.
This is most apparent for example in the emergence of the major geopolitical blocs such as the EU linking nations in Europe, Asia, America and Africa, together with an increasing number of regional groupings and cross-over trading and political alliances such as APEC. In addition, each of these networks is increasingly coordinating its influence through global decision-making bodies such as the United Nations and more recently the G20.
In order to manage global issues such as climate change, crime and terrorism, disease, natural and man-made disasters, refugee flows and the allocation of key resources such as food, water and energy, global cooperation will be essential. But at the same time, traditional cultural and commercial practices that have evolved sometimes over thousands of years are being swamped in less than a generation- the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms; resulting in racial blowback, which can trigger reactions such as paranoia and conflict.
The third major driver of hyper-change is the information and communication revolution, facilitated by the Internet and Web Mark 2.0 incorporating the new cyber-world of virtual reality, mobile communication, social media and instant information access.
This is beginning to accelerate exponentially, threatening to outpace the capacity of populations of both developed and developing countries to adapt their social and cultural practices relating to democratic, educational, legal, financial and governance processes. With a third of the world’s population, including developing nations, now connected via inexpensive mobile phones and laptops to this infinite resource, the rate of change will become hyper-exponential within the next few decades.
No-one disputes the benefits of this massive egalitarian knowledge gain, providing the potential to deliver quality of life improvements to both poor and rich nations- combating the adverse effects of poverty and climate change. But there is the real risk that such hyper-change will outstrip the capacity of humanity to absorb and utilize it to the best advantage, succumbing to the centrifugal forces that threaten rip the fragile fabric of society apart.
In the space of a generation, the rate of social evolution driven by these three mega-forces- global warming, globalization and knowledge acceleration, each catalyzing the others in a frenzy of complex feedback systems, now threatens to destabilize the foundations of human civilization.
Non-adaptive evolutionary thrashing is likely to reach a critical threshold within the next decade, mirroring the likely point of no return for global warming.
This effectively means that coordination and synchronization of the major practices and protocols for managing the planet will be essential. It will involve the intermeshing of not just trade, but decision-making on all critical social issues.
It will require the rapid creation and strengthening of common frameworks for managing commerce, finance, economics, education, science and technology- including the management of energy, food, water and air quality on a world-wide scale. This has already begun on a regional basis with the strengthening of the European Union and on a global basis since the recent financial melt-down with the creation of the G20.
In other words, it will demand achieving an excruciatingly fine balance between continuing to encourage the creativity, innovation and development that drives our civilization and the risk of social overreach, with the potential to implode it. Only global commitment and good will by all populations on the planet can achieve this resolution.
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