Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Tech Futurist at SXSW Predicts Gloomy Future

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

This is a blog summary of a talk by tech futurist Amy Webb (and in this genre we forgive spelling and grammar because it's hard to capture a talk on the fly like that). Some scenarios:

  • "AI systems won't need our faces anymore to recognise us. It can recognise us by our unique heart beat, by our unique breathing patterns or our unique gait: silhouette, height, speed, and walking characteristics."
  • "The next Internet, Web 3, will become more embodied and sensory, and data will make it all work."
  • "Death is more optional, everything is genetically modified, we know how our food is made, we have regulation, and we are eating tons of healthy, synthetic meat."

Mostly this makes sense to me. The big question marks are the timing (the third prediction is set 15 years from now but my experience is that the future is a lot slower than we think) and whether we'll get the utopian or the dystopian versions of the tech. Or both.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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Last Updated: Apr 27, 2024 10:34 p.m.

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