Deep Shift in Datapao
The nanobots digest the marrow to create SmartBlood™, with better oxygen-carrying capacity than true blood, more efficient clotting and near-immunity to dis- ease. The rest migrate to the fast-expanding brain for the BrainPal™ computer nestled deep in the brain, is surrounded by a dense network of antennae that sample the electric field of the brain, interpreting its wishes and responding through outputs integrated into the soldiers’ eyes and ears.
John Scalzi — The Ghost Brigades
If you are a science fiction geek like me and didn’t hear about John Scalzi, well then it means you are not a science fiction geek at all. The Ghost Brigades is a space opera where human race continues its fight against intelligent races in the Milkyway Galaxy.
Everything happens in a distant future of our world where humanity has already advanced through 23 socio-technological shifts. The chapter you are reading above is giving you examples from the last 2 shifts, namely the Designer Beings and Neurotechnologies. Here the human genome of the Colonial Defense Forces are directly and deliberately edited and the soldiers have fully artificial memory implanted in their brain (which is called the BrainPal).
OK it is our future, but how do we get there? In this article I will guide you through the first fundamental advances of our planet (the first 21 shifts) which will help us to rule the Galaxy. Or, let’s say the outer rim of the Galaxy if we wanna do it fully compliant with GDPR! And I will call this journey the Deep Shift, hopefully with the “f” letter until to the end.
First things first, we have some basics already in place which I call the core elements:
1) physical components
2) smart components
3) connectivity components
These core elements are amazingly accessible. For instance, a Raspberry Pi computer costs not more than 35 Euros.
What we do in Datapao is a part of the Deep Shift
These 21 levels have been published by The World Economic Forum in 2015 after surveying 800 global executives which I found in the book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution by Kalus Schwab. I am writing this in 2018. So I will be updating a few of them already.
Industry 4.0 focuses on Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), intelligent production, humancomputer interaction, 3D printing, remote operations, Internet of Things, cloud computing, big data and other modern technologies. You will see that these are somehow related to all these “shifts” mentioned below.
Shift 1: Implantable Technologies:
The tipping point: The first implantable mobile phone available commercially
By 2025: 82% of respondents expected this tipping point will have occurred
The people are becoming more and more connected to the devices. Smart tattoos, smart dust, unique chips, and implanted devices will likely also to communicate thoughts normally expressed verbally through a built-in smartphone. With smart dust, doctors will be able to act inside your body without opening you up, and information could be stored inside you, deeply encrypted, until you unlock it from your very personal nano-network
Positive impacts
– Reduction in missing children
– Increased positive health outcomes
– Increased self-sufficiency
– Better decision-making
– Image recognition and availability of personal data (an anonymous network that will “yelp”77 people)
Negative impacts
– Privacy/potential surveillance
– Decreased data security
– Escapism and addiction
– Increased distractions (i.e. attention deficit disorder)
Unknown, or cuts both ways
– Longer lives
– Changing nature of human relationships
– Changes in human interactions and relationships
– Real-time identification
– Cultural shift (eternal memory)
Shift 2: Our Digital Presence:
The tipping point: 80% of people with a digital presence on the internet
By 2025: 84% of respondents expected this tipping point will have occurred
Many people have more than one digital presence, such as a Facebook page, Twitter account, LinkedIn profile, Tumblr blog, Instagram account and often many more.
People will be able to seek and share information, freely express ideas, find and be found, and develop and maintain relationships virtually anywhere in the world.
Positive impacts
– Increased transparency
– Increased and faster interconnection between individuals and groups
– Increase in free speech
– Faster information dissemination/exchange
– More efficient use of government services
Negative impacts
– Privacy/potential surveillance
– More identity theft
– Online bullying/stalking
– Groupthink within interest groups and increased polarization
– Disseminating inaccurate information (the need for reputation management); echo chambers78
– Lack of transparency where individuals are not privy to information algorithms (for
news/information)
Unknown, or cuts both ways
– Digital legacies/footprints
– More targeted advertising
– More targeted information and news
– Individual profiling
– Permanent identity (no anonymity)
– Ease of developing online social movement (political groups, interest groups, hobbies, terrorist
groups)
Shift 3: Vision as the New Interface
The tipping point: 10% of reading glasses connected to the internet
By 2025: 86% of respondents expected this tipping point will have occurred
With direct access to internet applications and data through vision, an individual’s experiences can be enhanced, mediated or completely augmented to provide different, immersive reality. Also, with emerging eye-tracking technologies, devices can feed information through visual interfaces, and eyes can be the source for interacting with and responding to the information.
Positive impacts
– Immediate information to the individual to make informed decisions for navigation and work/personal
activities
– Improved capacity to perform tasks or produce goods and services with visual aids for
manufacturing, healthcare/surgery and service delivery
– Ability for those with disabilities to manage their interactions and movement, and to experience the
world — through speaking, typing and moving, and via immersive experiences
Negative impacts
– Mental distraction causing accidents
– Trauma from negative immersive experiences
– Increased addiction and escapism
Unknown, or cuts both ways
– A new segment created in the entertainment industry
– Increased immediate information
Shift 4: Wearable Internet
The tipping point: 10% of people wearing clothes connected to the internet
By 2025: 91% of respondents expected this tipping point will have occurred
Increasingly, clothing and other equipment worn by people will have embedded chips that connect the article and person wearing it to the internet. Ralph Lauren has a sports shirt that is designed to provide real-time workout data by 116 measuring sweat output, heart rate, breathing intensity, etc.
Positive impacts
– More positive health outcomes leading to longer lives
– More self-sufficiency
– Self-managed healthcare
– Better decision-making
– A decrease in missing children
– Personalized clothes (tailoring, design)
Negative impacts
– Privacy/potential surveillance
– Escapism/addiction
– Data security
Unknown, or cuts both ways
– Real-time identification
– Change in personal interactions and relationships
– Image recognition and availability of personal data (an anonymous network that will “yelp” you)
Shift 5: Ubiquitous Computing
The tipping point: 90% of the population with regular access to the internet
By 2025: 79% of respondents expected this tipping point will have occurred
In the future, regular access to the internet and information will no longer be a benefit of developed economies, but a basic right just like clean water. Content creation and dissemination will become easier than ever before.
Positive impacts
– More economic participation of disadvantaged populations located in remote or underdeveloped regions (“last mile”)
– Access to education, healthcare and government services
– Presence
– Access to skills, greater employment, shift in types of jobs
– Expanded market size/e-commerce
– More information
– More civic participation
– Democratization/political shifts
– “Last mile”: increased transparency and participation versus an increase in manipulation and echo chambers
Negative impacts
– Increased manipulation and echo chambers
– Political fragmentation
– Walled gardens (i.e. limited environments, for authenticated users only) do not allow full access in some regions/countries
Shift 6: A Supercomputer in Your Pocket
The tipping point: 90% of the population using smartphones
By 2025: 81% of respondents expected this tipping point will have occurred
By 2019 we are reaching to 60% already and GSMA forecasts that Africa will have over half a billion smartphone users by 2020.
Shift 7: Storage for All
The tipping point: 90% of people having unlimited and free (advertising-supported) storage
By 2025: 91% of respondents expected this tipping point to have occurred
A clear trend of commoditizing storage capacity exists. One reason for it is that the storage price has dropped exponentially (by a factor of approximately ten, every five years). An estimated 90% of the world’s data has been created in the past two years, and the amount of information created by businesses is doubling every 1.2 years
Positive impacts
– Legal systems
– History scholarship/academia
– Efficiency in business operations
– Extension of personal memory limitations
Negative impact
– Privacy surveillance
Unknown, or cuts both ways
– Eternal memory (nothing deleted)
– Increased content creation, sharing and consumption
Shift 8: The Internet of and for Things
The tipping point: 1 trillion sensors connected to the internet
By 2025: 89% of respondents expected this tipping point to have occurred
With continuously increasing computing power and falling hardware prices, it is economically feasible to connect literally anything to the internet. Intelligent sensors are already available at very competitive prices. All things will be smart and connected to the internet, enabling greater communication and new data-driven services based on increased analytics capabilities.
Experts suggest that, in the future, every (physical) product could be connected to ubiquitous communication infrastructure, and sensors everywhere will allow people to fully perceive their environment. For example, The Ford GT has sensors and 10 million lines of computer code in it.
More than 50 billion devices are expected to be connected to the internet by 2020. Even the Milky Way, the earth’s galaxy, contains only around 200 billion suns!
Positive impacts
– Increased efficiency in using resources
– Rise in productivity
– Improved quality of life
– Effect on the environment
– Lower cost of delivering services
– More transparency around the use and state of resources
– Safety (e.g. planes, food)
– Efficiency (logistics)
– More demand for storage and bandwidth
– Shift in labour markets and skills
– Creation of new businesses
– Even hard, real-time applications feasible in standard communication networks
– Design of products to be “digitally connectable”
– Addition of digital services on top of products
– Digital twin provides precise data for monitoring, controlling and predicting
– Digital twin becomes active participant in business, information and social processes
– Things will be enabled to perceive their environment comprehensively, and react and act
autonomously
– Generation of additional knowledge, and value based on connected “smart” things
Negative impacts
– Privacy
– Job losses for unskilled labour
– Hacking, security threat (e.g. utility grid)
– More complexity and loss of control
Unknown, or cuts both ways
– Shift in business model: asset rental/usage, not ownership (appliances as a service)
– Business model impacted by the value of the data
– Every company potentially a software company
– New businesses: selling data
– Change in frameworks to think about privacy
– Massively distributed infrastructure for information technologies
– Automation of knowledge work (e.g. analyses, assessments, diagnoses)
– Consequences of a potential “digital Pearl Harbor” (i.e. digital hackers or terrorists paralysing
infrastructure, leading to no food, fuel and power for weeks)
– Higher utilization rates (e.g. cars, machines, tools, equipment, infrastructure)
Shift 9: The Connected Home
Tipping point: Over 50% of internet traffic delivered to homes for appliances and devices (not for entertainment or communication)
By 2025: 70% of respondents expected this tipping point to have occurred
Positive impacts
– Resource efficiency (lower energy use and cost)
– Comfort
– Safety/security, and detection of intrusions
– Access control
– Home sharing
– Ability to live independently (young/old, those disabled)
– Increased targeted advertising and overall impact on business
– Reduced costs of healthcare systems (fewer hospital stays and physician visits for patients,
monitoring the drug-taking process)
– Monitoring (in real-time) and video recording
– Warning, alarming and emergency requests
– Remote home control (e.g. close the gas valve)
Negative impacts
– Privacy
– Surveillance
– Cyber attacks, crime, vulnerability
Unknown, or cuts both ways
– Impact on workforce
– Change in work’s location (more from and outside the home)
– Privacy, data ownership
Shift 10: Smart Cities
Tipping point: The first city with more than 50,000 inhabitants and no traffic lights
By 2025: 64% of respondents expected this tipping point to have occurred
Many cities will connect services, utilities, and roads to the internet. These smart cities will manage their energy, material flows, logistics, and traffic. Progressive cities, such as Singapore and Barcelona, are already implementing many new data-driven services, including intelligent parking solutions, smart trash collection and intelligent lighting. Smart cities are continuously extending their network of sensor technology and working on their data platforms, which will be the core for connecting the different technology projects and adding future services based on data analytics and predictive modeling.
Positive impacts
– Increased efficiency in using resources
– Rise in productivity
– Increased density
– Improved quality of life
– Effect on the environment
– Increased access to resources for the general population
– Lower cost of delivering services
– More transparency around the use and state of resources
– Decreased crime
– Increased mobility
– Decentralized, climate friendly energy production and consumption
– Decentralized production of goods
– Increased resilience (to impacts of climate change)
– Reduced pollution (air, noise)
– Increased access to education
– Quicker/speed up accessibility to markets
– More employment
– Smarter e-government
Negative impacts
– Surveillance, privacy
– Risk of collapse (total black out) if the energy system fails
– Increased vulnerability to cyber attacks
Unknown, or cuts both ways
– Impact on city culture and feel
– Change of individual habitus of cities
The tipping point: The first government to replace its census with big-data sources
By 2025: 83% of respondents expected this tipping point to have occurred
Leveraging big data will enable better and faster decision-making in a wide range of industries and applications. Automated decision-making can reduce complexities for citizens and enable businesses and governments to provide real-time services and support for everything from customer interactions to automated tax filings and payments.
Positive impacts
– Better and faster decisions
– More real-time decision-making
– Open data for innovation
– Jobs for lawyers
– Reduced complexity and more efficiency for citizens
– Cost savings
– New job categories
Negative impacts
– Job losses
– Privacy concerns
– Accountability (who owns the algorithm?)
– Trust (how to trust data?)
– Battles over algorithms
Unknown, or cuts both ways
– Profiling
– Change in regulatory, business and legal structures
Shift 12: Driverless Cars
The tipping point: Driverless cars equalling 10% of all cars on US roads
By 2025: 79% of respondents expected this tipping point to have occurred
Positive impacts
– Improved safety
– More time for focusing on work and/or consuming media content
– Effect on the environment
– Less stress and road rage
– Improved mobility for those older and disabled, among others
– Adoption of electric vehicles
Negative impacts
– Job losses (taxi and truck drivers, car industry)
– Upending of insurance and roadside assistance (“pay more to drive yourself”)
– Decreased revenue from traffic infringements
– Less car ownership
– Legal structures for driving
– Lobbying against automation (people not allowed to drive on freeways)
– Hacking/cyber attacks
Shift 13: Artificial Intelligence and Decision-Making
The tipping point: The first Artificial Intelligence (AI) machine on a corporate board of directors
By 2025: 45% of respondents expected this tipping point to have occurred
Here the survey respondents are giving a score 45% which can be a bit more biased than the others. Because they are the members of those boards.
Beyond driving cars, AI can learn from previous situations to provide input and automate complex future decision processes, making it easier and faster to arrive at concrete conclusions based on data and past experiences.
Positive impacts
– Rational, data-driven decisions; less bias
– Removal of “irrational exuberance”
– Reorganization of outdated bureaucracies
– Job gains and innovation
– Energy independence
– Advances in medical science, disease eradication
Negative impacts
– Accountability (who is responsible, fiduciary rights, legal)
– Job losses
– Hacking/cybercrime
– Liability and accountability, governance
– Becoming incomprehensible
– Increased inequality
– “Falling foul of the algorithm”
– An existential threat to humanity
Shift 14: AI and White-Collar Jobs
The tipping point: 30% of corporate audits performed by AI
By 2025: 75% of respondents expected this tipping point to have occurred
AI is good at matching patterns and automating processes, which makes the technology amenable to
many functions in large organizations. An environment can be envisioned in the future where AI
replaces a range of functions performed today by people.
Positive impacts
– Cost reductions
– Efficiency gains
– Unlocking innovation, opportunities for small business, start-ups (smaller barriers to entry, “software
as a service” for everything)
Negative impacts
– Job losses
– Accountability and liability
– Change to legal, financial disclosure, risk
– Job automation (refer to the Oxford Martin study)
Shift 15: Robotics and Services
The tipping point: The first robotic pharmacist in the US
By 2025: 86% of respondents expected this tipping point to have occurred
Robotics is beginning to influence many jobs, from manufacturing to agriculture, and retail to services.
According to the International Federation of Robotics, the world now includes 1.1 million working
robots, and machines account for 80% of the work in manufacturing a car. Robots are streamlining
supply chains to deliver more efficient and predictable business results.
Positive impacts
– Supply chain and logistics, eliminations
– More leisure time
– Improved health outcomes (big data for pharmaceutical gains in research and development)
– Banking ATM as early adopter
– More access to materials
– Production “re-shoring” (i.e. replacing overseas workers with robots)
Negative impacts
– Job losses
– Liability, accountability
– Day-to-day social norms, end of 9-to-5 and 24-hour services
– Hacking and cyber-risk
Rethink Robotics released Baxter and received an overwhelming response from the manufacturing industry.
Later, Rethink launched a software platform that allows Baxter to do a more complex sequencing of tasks — for example, picking up a part, holding it in front of an inspection station and receiving a signal to place it in a ‘good’ or ‘not good’ pile. The company also released a software development kit … that will allow third parties — like university robotics researchers — to create applications for Baxter.”
Shift 16: Bitcoin and the Blockchain
The tipping point: 10% of global gross domestic product (GDP) stored on blockchain technology
By 2025: 58% of respondents expected this tipping point to have occurred
Bitcoin and digital currencies are based on the idea of a distributed trust mechanism called the
“blockchain”, a way of keeping track of trusted transactions in a distributed fashion. It has many use cases also in global supply chains, manufacturing and data monetization (IoTA).
Positive impacts
– Increased financial inclusion in emerging markets, as financial services on the blockchain gain critical
mass
– Disintermediation of financial institutions, as new services and value exchanges are created directly
on the blockchain
– An explosion in tradable assets, as all kinds of value exchange can be hosted on the blockchain
– Better property records in emerging markets, and the ability to make everything a tradable asset
– Contacts and legal services increasingly tied to code linked to the blockchain, to be used as
unbreakable escrow or programmatically designed smart contracts
– Increased transparency, as the blockchain is essentially a global ledger storing all transactions
Shift 17: The Sharing Economy
The tipping point: Globally more trips/journeys via car sharing than in private cars
By 2025: 67% of respondents expected this tipping point to have occurred
Well-known examples of the sharing economy exist in the transportation sector with companies like Zipcar, Uber, Lyft. The sharing economy has any number of ingredients, characteristics or descriptors: technology
enabled, preference for access over ownership, peer to peer, sharing of personal assets (versus
corporate assets), ease of access, increased social interaction, collaborative consumption and openly
shared user feedback (resulting in increased trust). Not all are present in every “sharing economy”
transaction.
Positive impacts
– Increased access to tools and other useful physical resources
– Better environmental outcomes (less production and fewer assets required)
– More personal services available
– Increased ability to live off cash flow (with less need for savings to be able to afford use of assets)
– Better asset utilization
– Less opportunity for long-term abuse of trust because of direct and public feedback loops
– Creation of secondary economies (Uber drivers delivering goods or food)
Negative impacts
– Less resilience after a job loss (because of less savings)
– More contract / task-based labour (versus typically more stable long-term employment)
– Decreased ability to measure this potentially grey economy
– More opportunity for short-term abuse of trust
– Less investment capital available in the system
Unknown, or cuts both ways
– Changed property and asset ownership
– More subscription models
– Fewer savings
– Lack of clarity on what “wealth” and “well off” mean
– Less clarity on what constitutes a “job”
– Difficulty in measuring this potentially “grey” economy
– Taxation and regulation adjusting from ownership/sales-based models to use-based models
Shift 18: Governments and the Blockchain
The tipping point: Tax collected for the first time by a government via a blockchain
By 2025: 73% of respondents expected this tipping point to have occurred
On the one hand, it is unregulated and not overseen by any central bank, meaning less control over monetary policy. On the other hand, it creates the ability for new taxing mechanisms to be built into the blockchain itself (e.g. a small transaction tax).
Unknown impacts, or cut both ways
– Central banks and monetary policy
– Corruption
– Real-time taxation
– Role of government
Shift 19: 3D Printing and Manufacturing
The tipping point: The first 3D-printed car in production
By 2025: 84% of respondents expected this tipping point to have occurred
3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is the process of creating a physical object by printing it layer
upon layer from a digital 3D drawing or model. Imagine creating a loaf of bread, slice by slice. 3D
printing has the potential to create very complex products without complex equipment. Eventually,
many different kinds of materials will be used in the 3D printer, such as plastic, aluminium, stainless
steel, ceramic or even advanced alloys, and the printer will be able to do what a whole factory was
once required to accomplish. It is already being used in a range of applications, from making wind
turbines to toys.
Over time, 3D printers will overcome the obstacles of speed, cost and size, and become more
pervasive.
Positive impacts
– Accelerated product development
– Reduction in the design-to-manufacturing cycle
– Easily manufactured intricate parts (not possible or difficult to do earlier)
– Rising demand for product designers
– Educational institutions using 3D printing to accelerate learning and understanding
– Democratized power of creation/manufacturing (both limited only by the design)
– Traditional mass manufacturing responding to the challenge by finding ways to reduce costs and the
size of minimum runs
– Growth in open-source “plans” to print a range of objects
– Birth of a new industry supplying printing materials
– The rise in entrepreneurial opportunities in the space96
– Environmental benefits from reduced transportation requirements
Negative impacts
– Growth in waste for disposal, and further burden on the environment
– Production of parts in the layer process that are anisotropic, i.e. their strength is not the same in all
directions, which could limit the functionality of parts
– Job losses in a disrupted industry
– Primacy of intellectual property as a source of value in productivity
– Piracy
– Brand and product quality
Unknown, or cuts both ways
– Potential that any innovation can be instantly copied
Shift 20: 3D Printing and Human Health
The tipping point: The first transplant of a 3D-printed liver
By 2025: 76% of respondents expected this tipping point to have occurred
One day, 3D printers may create not only things, but also human organs — a process called bioprinting.
In much the same process as for printed objects, an organ is printed layer by layer from a digital 3D
model. 3D printing has great potential to service custom design needs; and, there is nothing more custom than a human body.
Positive impacts
– Addressing the shortage of donated organs (an average of 21 people die each day waiting for
transplants that can’t take place because of the lack of an organ)98
– Prosthetic printing: limb/body part replacements
– Hospitals printing for each patient requiring surgery (e.g. splints, casts, implants, screws)
– Personalized medicine: 3D printing growing fastest where each customer needs a slightly different
version of a body part (e.g. a crown for a tooth)
– Printing components of medical equipment that are difficult or expensive to source, such as
transducers99
– Printing, for example, dental implants, pacemakers and pens for bone fracture at local hospitals
instead of importing them, to reduce the cost of operations
– Fundamental changes in drug testing, which can be done on real human objects given the availability
of fully printed organs
– Printing of food, thus improving food security
Negative impacts
– Uncontrolled or unregulated production of body parts, medical equipment or food
– Growth in waste for disposal, and further burden on the environment
– Major ethical debates stemming from the printing of body parts and bodies: Who will control the
ability to produce them? Who will ensure the quality of the resulting organs?
– Perverted disincentives for health: If everything can be replaced, why live in a healthy way?
– Impact on agriculture from printing food
In March 2015, leading scientists published a Nature article calling for a moratorium on editing human
embryos, highlighting “grave concerns regarding the ethical and safety implications of this research”.
Only one month later, in April 2015, “Researchers led by Junjiu Huang of Yat-sen University in
Guangzhou published the world’s first scientific paper on altering the DNA of human embryos.
Shift 21: 3D Printing and Consumer Products
The tipping point: 5% of consumer products printed in 3D
By 2025: 81% of respondents expected this tipping point to have occurred
Because 3D printing can be done by anyone with a 3D printer, it creates opportunities for typical
consumer products to be printed locally and on demand, instead of having to be bought at shops. A 3D
printer will eventually be an office or even a home appliance. This further reduces the cost of
accessing consumer goods and increases the availability of 3D printed objects. Current usage areas for
3D printing indicate several sectors related to developing and producing consumer
products (proof of concept, prototype and production).
Positive impacts
– Higher agricultural yields thanks to crops and crop treatments which are more robust, effective and
productive
– More effective medical therapies via personalised medicine
– Faster, more accurate, less invasive medical diagnostics
– Higher levels of understanding of human impact on nature
– Reduced incidence of genetic disease and related suffering
Negative impacts
– Risk of interaction between edited plants/animals human/environmental health
– Exacerbated inequality due to high cost of access to therapies
– Social backlash or rejection of gene editing technologies
– Misuse of genetic data by governments or companies
– International disagreements about ethical use of genome editing technologies
Unknown or cuts both ways
– Increased longevity
– Ethical dilemmas regarding nature of humanity
– Cultural shifts
We have counted 23 advances including the Designer Beings and Neurotechnologies we mentioned at the beginning. I wanted to list down the positive, negative and the grayish impacts to emphasize all the ethical aspects. Human — Machine interaction has always been a grift puzzle for sophisticated minds. Probably John Scalzi felt the same way when he was writing his famous novel, The Ghost Brigades:
Thank you, the BrainPal wrote. Your BrainPal™ will now be able to take direction from the sound of your voice. Would you like to personalize your BrainPal™ now?
“Yes,” I said.
Would you like to name your BrainPal™ at this time?
“Yes,” I said.
Please speak the name you would like to give your BrainPal™.
“ ‘Asshole,’ ” I said.
You have selected “Asshole,” the BrainPal wrote, and to its credit it spelled the word correctly.
Be aware that many recruits have selected this name for their BrainPal™. Would you like to choose a different name?
“No,” I said, and was proud that so many of my fellow recruits also felt this way about their BrainPal.
