My favourite futurist…Kevin Kelly.
Opening Quotes
Our ability to invent new things outpaces the rate we can civilise them.
Often people push back against new technology, as it brings something that’s outside of our control.
Technology is at the centre of every single significant change in our society.
The greatest invention is not a thing but a process – the scientific method, as it shows us to improve.
These are Kelly’s 12 Inevitables.
1. Becoming
This chapter is about what we can become. We could not predict what the internet could become, and look at what it is today.
He highlights the need to never stop upgrading devices and software. This constant upgrading results in you being a noob every time you open a program (hyperbolizing).
He says that we need problems to solve in order for our lives to be fulfilled.
He says that we are in protopia; the pro is for progress. Every day is a little bit better than the day before. The problems that we face today are caused by the technology solutions of yesterday. One of the problems in becoming is that we see things from an old perspective.
Kelly talks at length about how we, the ordinary people, have been the main drivers of the internet, not Amazon, Google etc, to grow the internet to what it is today. I agree. The growth has come through user-generated content.
He concludes that any time (specifically now) is the best time to try to enact technological change. You just need to turn up and try and predict which direction tech is going…
2. Cognifying
This is the process of making objects smarter – ergo, AI.
Cognified is an adverb when used to describe something else.
It’s useful to picture how machines will be more intelligent than us. This will enable us to manage them, as we know which direction they are headed in. The best AI will not be the one that does what we do faster, but the one that does what we cannot. Currently, there are a ton of these jobs, mostly in automation e g. Semiconductors
Now that we have AI, we need to reevaluate our roles, identities, beliefs and goals. Every major technological shift creates new expectations of what humans can do.
Success will go to those who meld and augment their daily tasks with robots/AI.
A fascinating 7 stages of denial are identified:
1. Tech cannot possibly do the tasks I do.
2. OK, it can do a bunch of the tasks, but not all of them.
3. Fair enough, it can do them, but it malfunctions a lot.
4. Actually they can do everything, but I need to retrain them for new tasks.
5. I guess it can do My job after all, but that job was never meant to be carried out by humans.
6. Tech is doing my old job entirely, but now I have a much better job.
7. Where would I be without tech!?
3. Flowing
The internet operates on the free following of information being copied and shared. Kelly says that the internet is like one large copying machine – and I don’t disagree. He defines vitality as when the copies are shared constantly.
Interestingly, he makes the argument for information flow. It flows past us in the form of Tweets and TikToks, not the traditional way of accessing information from links organised in a flat hierarchy. There are some questions I have about this. Primarily, who created these flows and why? A cynic might say big tech does this in order to get our clicks. The flow serves everything in real-time, not once a day, but every second of every day. However, we live in a world where we expect everything now, not later, regardless of the impact on the environment and dopamine levels. Again, I would question whether is this a good thing. To give into our every want, replacing our needs.
Kelly states that whatever cannot be copied is made valuable i.e. trust, or to assign it a capitalist name branding. Ask yourself, why would someone pay for something, that they can get for free? If you can answer this, exploit it. He identifies these as generatives, and people are prepared to pay for them:
- Immediacy – getting whatever it is, today. I wonder does this stems from FOMO.
- Personalization – a product you have input on designing; Apple devices where you can adjust memory, colour etc
- Interpreter – someone’s translating for you.
- Authenticity – aligned to quality.
- Accessibility – the cloud
- Embodiment – experiencing in real life not virtual. Just look at in-class learning vs Virtual during the pandemic, or live concerts vs streamed
- Patronage – fans want to pay creators, under these 4 conditions 1: easy to pay. 2. Reasonable amount. 3. Benefit to paying 4. It’s clear the $ will benefit the creator. Radiohead tried this and earned more than all of their previous albums, combined!
- Discoverability – your work has no value unless it’s seen. Social media? Also, think about Amazon reviews.
Think about tasks that were not possible even 1 year ago, such as AI art using Stable Diffusion.
This flow state will replace fixed states in all industries. I think of education, and how slow this can be to become a flow state.
4. Screening
He categorizes two sets of people. People on the screen, like their information flowing to them, and in small chunks. They are flexible and favour tech. People of the book favour solutions by law. Notably, rather than people reading fewer books today, reading has tripled since 1980.
Kelly defines screening as reading anything on a screen from subtitles to reading images. A new way to ingest information. It’s just an improvement on plain old text.
The chapter finishes with an outlandish take on screens being everywhere, similar to the scenes of the mall Tom Cruise walks through, with personalized ads just for him.
5. Accessing
It’s no longer about possession, it’s about the ability to access content.
There are 5 tech trends driving this.
- Dematerialization – things being made more efficiently, less material. Kelly implies that is also embodied by streaming and subscription services. Kelly states that most industries or institutes have become.
- Decentralised, except for money. The recent downturn in crypto would suggest FIAT currencies are here to stay for a little while longer.
- Everything will run simultaneously.
- Platforms are up next. Essentially there are places such as Facebook, YouTube, App Store, where third parties sell their products and services.
- Clouds This is where a lot of the data lives. They are mostly free, efficient, and accessible anywhere. He predicts that all the commercial clouds will merge into one and that we will create our own user clouds as well
6. Screening
Much of this is about sharing your work. Kelly defines it as digital socialism. He goes on to explain that this sharing economy results in free labour, as more often than not people are not paid. He refers to Clay Shirky’s hierarchy for social media arrangements.
7. Filtering
There is an insane amount of content to consume, therefore we need some way to filter this. We create our own filters. E.g. what excites us, what can we learn, and what can we veg to. This already exists through algorithms developed by social media platforms. One criticism that I have is this can often lead to the creation of echo chambers, where we are fed content that reinforces our opinions and solidifies them. Kelly identifies this as filter bubbling. Therefore an additional piece is needed to suggest content that is contrary to what we believe in. This will foster an open mind and develop our sense of empathy.
He moves on to say that technology has provided things in abundance. This abundance of material items drives the price towards zero. However, Kelly points out that human experiences are valuable – because they are inimitable; recently highlighted by Scott Galloway.
8. Remixing
Take something that already exists and make it more valuable. Even new technologies are remixed forms of old tech. Kelly argues that legalities around copyright and digital material are outdated and based on principles of physical items. It will be interesting to see how the current lawsuits against AI companies are settled.
9. Interacting
Using VR to interact with the world. Kelly goes on to tell us that the current state of technology means that we mostly interact with it, but in the future, it will, using sensors, including cameras, interact with us as well. Think Apple’s Vision Pro. He offers other predictions of how we will interact with technology. Say goodbye to the keyboard and hello to a device that will not just record what we say but how we say it – no more misinterpreted emails. In other words, a bunch of sensors and motors will be around us, allowing us to interact with pretty much everything. He progresses to suggesting that sensors get attached to our bodies, aka the matrix and the plug in the back of Nero’s head…
10. Tracking
We will track everything that we can generate data for. The tech that tracks us is already here. Just think about an Apple watch or Aura ring, that currently tracks EPG and steps walked in a day. This way you can get a diagnosis for problems you didn’t even know existed.
He argues that we will live in a world where we constantly record everything. I would postulate that we are seeing it today with Oculus 3 from Meta, its AR headset.
The point of all of this is to achieve total recall.
He addresses the Orwellian-induced fear of everyone being tracked – something that we became aware of during the pandemic. It is very critical those charged with tracing, tech or government, do so ethically… They need to move to a system that is transparent, not one that operates in the shadows. He argues that the individual will share more openly than the organization, driven by vanity and dopamine addiction.
There is a problem with anonymity with it comes to tracking i.f. commenting online. It increases the likelihood of harassment. Kelly argues that it should not be eliminated but be kept as close to zero as possible. For me, I think this is the most complex of issues he addresses. I say complex because we clearly have a problem with the online behaviour of many netizens. Currently, I do not have any solutions.
11. Questioning
The best way I can sum this chapter up is that questions are better than answers.
12. Beginning
We are just at the beginning of the age of being globally connected. All the inevitables identified by Kelly leading up to this will become the decentralized norm. Rest in peace FIAT currency and centralization.