Thought Leadership: One hundred years ago, if you were an elevator operator, you likely feared the creation of “humanless” elevators. Seventy-five years ago, telephone operators feared for their jobs. Today, grocery clerks have the same fear. In the near future, an increasing number of jobs will be automated, including those of Uber and taxi drivers. [...]
Heineken has begun to roll out its new ad campaign “Social Off Socials” which encourages people to put down their phones and socialize with people ‘IRL’ (“in real life). The campaign was produced after the company studied the screen time habits of 17,000 adults worldwide and found that the average person spends 5 hours and [...]
Thought Leadership: What if most people have the political situation wrong? What if the true threat to American jobs is not human immigrants pouring across borders but rather the accelerating advances in artificial intelligence? To better understand this possibility, think of AI bots as “digital immigrants” and then think of these bots as “amassing” along [...]
My Fellow Futurists: I am writing to all of you in the spirit of open, honest inquiry. I am deeply concerned about our collective future and feel that we, as professional futurists, thinkers, imagineers, and creators of the future, have a moral obligation and responsibility to use our respective voices and platforms on behalf of [...]
In the fall of 1987, I almost washed out of the Navy’s Officer Candidate School. This is a polite way of saying I nearly flunked out. The crux of the matter was that I had a difficult time comprehending what I considered to be the dark art of celestial navigation. Passing the course required a [...]
The greatest change today is the rate of change itself. The world is accelerating and the implications of technological change will be profound. Nowhere is this more clear than in the field of farming. Below are twelve trends I expect to continue to transform the agricultural industry in the year ahead. Satellite Technology: On [...]
Editor's Note: As both a practical and a "thought" experiment, I used ClaudeAI to generate this week's newsletter. I did this not because I am lazy (although I can be lazy) but because I was genuinely curious about how well AI could curate a newsletter. The short answer is that it did a good although [...]
If we are to think about the future and do it well, I have one piece of unconventional advice as a long-time professional futurist–Don’t. That is, don't try to think about the future. First, become grounded in the present and learn to meditate. The practice of meditation takes a lifetime to master and I certainly [...]
Futurist Jack Uldrich discuss how a change of heart is leading to a change in the nature of his work.
(Every year, I offer this caveat: As a futurist, I don’t actually claim to make predictions about the future. Still, I know people enjoy predictions so I offer up these 10 “predictions” not because I believe they will happen exactly as I describe but rather to encourage you to think about how you, your business [...]
Jack Uldrich explains how a single, tiny can--and will-change the world.
After some reflection, I have decided to share this short, personal story. For too long, as a professional futurist, I have not acknowledged the essential role the human heart will play in transforming the future. I don't know what this means for my own future as a "futurist," but I am no longer going to [...]
Futurist Jack Uldrich provides his annual list of ten predictions for the coming year.
Futurist Jack Uldrich offers his annual set of predictions for the coming year.
Thought Leadership: “The Coming Sonic Boom:” Last week, I gave a presentation on artificial intelligence. At the time, I didn’t use this analogy, but this is how you may want to think about the technological era we are currently living: When I was in the Navy, I served aboard an aircraft carrier, The USS John [...]
Thought Leadership: A few centuries ago, producing light was a difficult, costly, and time-consuming endeavor. For instance, to produce long-lasting candles, humans had to harvest spermatici oil from whales. Today, of course, producing light is incredibly inexpensive, and it has produced a great many benefits for society. It has also created the undesirable situation where [...]
Urgent: This is the most important TED talk you can watch. If you are concerned about AI--and you SHOULD be--Tristan Harris' brilliant and heartfelt 15-minute presentation offers the most clear and concise definition of the problem humanity faces regarding AI I have yet to hear. It also offers a detailed description of what we, as [...]
Thought Leadership: Generally speaking, I am an optimistic person with regard to the future. However, three trends are now converging that are seriously challenging my outlook on the future. The first and nearest term trend is the rise of authoritarian political regimes around the world, including the U.S. The second trend is the rise of [...]
Thought Leadership: One definition of leadership is the following: “Leadership means making happen what otherwise would not.” This, however, begs the question: How do leaders “make happen what otherwise would not happen”? One answer is that effective leaders use new, different, and better questions to probe the future. To this end, I like this quote [...]
Thought Leadership: To the right is a partial list of the books I’ve used to put together my course on “Foresight: Why Thinking About the World of Tomorrow is Today’s Most Important Skill”--which I am teaching this Spring semester at the College of St. Benedict’s and St. John’s University. I do not show it to [...]
Thought Leadership: In the coming age of AI, what might be one of humanity’s last remaining superpowers? In light of the news I shared last week suggesting that AI is about to become 1000-fold more powerful within 6 years, now is a good time to begin thinking about this question. One of my answers to [...]
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