Think: I was in Montana yesterday speaking to the farm industry and, as I was preparing my talk, my reverse mentor flagged this article for me: Growing Plants and Silk-Coated Seeds: How MIT Is Developing the Future of Farming. It is honestly one of the better articles I’ve read on the future of the agricultural sector in the past few years. If you are a farmer or are employed in the agri-business industry, I strongly encourage you to read the article in its entirety.
Think Hard: Perplexity’s AI search engine can now buy products for you. In the next year, I believe the advertising industry will undergo a paradigm shift. Specifically, advertising will be focused less on targeting individuals with tailored messages and, instead, its messages will be targeted at AI-based “agents.” The reason is simple: As more people use AI to make purchasing decisions, it will no longer be the actual person making the buying decision but rather the AI-based agent. What might this mean for you and your business? The time to think about this shift is NOW.
Think Again: It is not wise to base one’s understanding of a topic based upon a single scientific study. Nevertheless, it is also not wise to dismiss a scientific study simply because it doesn’t parrot conventional wisdom. With this caveat in mind, I give you this article: Bio-based fibers could pose a greater threat to the environment than conventional plastics. The issue appears to be that earthworms–which are critical for soil health–are more likely to die after consuming bio-based plastics then they are after eating conventional plastics. (P.S. Please remember that this is just one study and it is too soon to jump to any conclusions. Nevertheless, it is a good reminder that sometimes well-intentioned actions can have unintended consequences.)
Human-Centered Thinking: The world is changing at a staggering pace. As a professional futurist even I am often bewildered at the rapidity of the transformation coursing through society. This recent article from AdWeek (AI-Powered Holiday Ad Earns Coca-Cola a Lump of Coal) has forced me to do a great deal of thinking–and soul-searching. Despite the backlash Coca-Cola is receiving, I fear other companies will still gravitate toward using AI-generated content for their advertisements. From a short-term perspective this may be good for their bottomline, but as actors, camera operators, set designers and other jobs are replaced, the long-term prospects for society are less-than-rosy. (FYI: This article, Tech Jobs are Mired in a Recession, is behind a paywall but I suspect many of these tech professionals have lost their jobs due to artificial intelligence.)
Think Visually: Given the startling advances in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, nuclear fusion, and gene editing this visual has been on my mind a lot. The question we all need to be asking ourselves is this: What does this mean for humanity?
Afterthought: “The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by obvious realities.” –John F. Kennedy
