Watson - The future : 50 ideas you really need to know

you really need to know

the future

Richard Watson

POLITICS & POWER

ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT

THE URBAN LANDSCAPE

TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE

HEALTH & WELL-BEING

SOCIAL & ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS

TOWARD A POSTHUMAN SOCIETY

SPACE: THE FINAL FRONTIER

DOOMSDAY SCENARIOS

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

The future is unwritten, but how we imagine it to be can influence present attitudes and behaviors, much in the same way that our individual and collective histories can define who we are and how we act, as most psychoanalysts will tell you. In other words, both past and future are always present.

But the future is not distributed equally. Science laboratories, research establishments and academic institutions create and explore new ideas long before they become widely available or fashionable elsewhere. Much the same might be said of younger people, who are often more open to experimenting with new ideas and less invested in, or constrained by, the frameworks of existing thinking.

What you will find inside this book is a selection of 50 ideas from the frontiers of futures thinking, along with some quotes and illustrative timelines. Some of these, and some of the people behind them, might seem a little crazy. But then who, without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, can tell? Maybe thats the whole point about thinking of the future. Its not a matter of people being right or wrong, but is, rather, a way of inspecting our beliefs. Its a way of disrupting the present and unearthing our assumptions about what can and cannot happenassumptions that are always embedded in our thinking about the future. Also, its a way of reminding people of the oft-forgotten fact that the future is shaped by our present choices and actions.

Most importantly, engaging with the future gives us all the permission to dream. Two other aspects are apparent about the future. The first is that technology tends to act as an accelerant. Second, we often overestimate the impact of technological and social change in the shorter term, while underestimating it over much longer periods.

You may doubt this, but thats possibly because the future tricks us by wearing a disguise and showing up unannounced. The future trickles into our daily lives, usually without warning or fanfare. If, instead, the future arrived all at once, to the sound of distant drums, we would no doubt be either rather alarmed or pleasantly impressed.

My hope is that the pages that follow will do a bit of both.

George Orwell was right. He just got the date wrong. Its reported that there are now 32 CCTV cameras within 180m (200 yards) of the authors former home at 27B Canonbury Square in North London. In total, there are more than 4 million CCTV cameras in the UKone for every 14 citizens. The average Brit appears on screen 300 times every day and this trend is becoming observable elsewhere.

The UK is at the forefront of a global shift in surveillance, and CCTV (closed-circuit television) is only the beginning. In the UK, anyone arrested in connection with a suspected crime has his or her DNA added to a database, where it stays, indefinitely, whether or not the person is found guilty of any wrongdoing. In 2009, the UK government attempted to gain approval for another database that would record in real time the electronic communications of every individual and make the data available to 653 British organizations. Thats every single email, phone call, Google search and credit card transaction. The plan was shelved, but it resurfaced in 2012 under new antiterror laws, the only real difference being that the information would be held, in the first instance, by landline, cell phone and broadband providers.

In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth.
Neil Postman, author and media critic

The rest of Europe isnt far behind. A paper emanating from the Advisory Group on the Future of European Home Affairs, for instance, suggests monitoring: Every object the individual uses, every transaction they make and almost everywhere they go. This could include tax details, employment records, banking details, credit card use, health records, travel history and even membership of social networks. Meanwhile, in India, the government has just embarked on a ten-year plan to create the worlds largest identity database. In theory, this is a good idea, because it will help the government to provide essential services, but history would suggest that uses for this information will multiply, along with the growth of data analyticsand that the government will get considerably more out of the relationship than the citizens.

Then there are seemingly innocent items such as store loyalty cardsprivate surveillance under the banner of loyalty points essentially. One major company proudly admits to owning 40 terabytes of information about the habits of 24 million individual customers.

Looking forward So what might surveillance look like in the future? RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags might allow local councils and authorities to monitor domestic dustbin usage, alerting them when incorrect items are placed in recycling bins. As for CCTV cameras, there is very little evidence that they reduce crime. What they do instead is catch criminals in the act and reassure people looking for certainty and control in an age that is becoming more uncertain and complex.

Privacy is dead, get over it
Scott McNealy, CEO, Sun Microsystems

But even these measures are being overtaken by ideas borrowed more from science fiction than from your local hardware store. Biometric products are already being introduced for use with cell phones and we may one day see voice, fingerprint, palm print and iris recognition entry systems in our own homes due to a perceived need for added security plus the falling cost of such technologies. Kwikset, Americas leading lock company, for example, has created a domestic fingerprint entry system. And dont think youre safe at work either: 75 percent of US companies monitor employees email and 30 percent track keystrokes and the amount of time employees spend on their computer. Monitoring employee activity isnt new, but it is becoming more pervasive thanks to digital technologies that make activities easier to capture, store and search.

Other by-products of the computer age that go unnoticed include cell phones, most of which now contain cameras, which may one day be linked to face recognition technology. On top of that, people are increasingly choosing to communicate with each other through digital interfaces, which leave a digital trace.