Technologies Moving Faster Than We Can Adapt
For a while, humans, well, our earlier ancestors, say, version 1.0, enjoyed swinging around in trees. It was a lot of fun and it was harder for certain other animals to eat us. After a while, we decided we didn’t like being on their menu and figured maybe those animals could be on our menu. We came down from the trees. We started inventing tools. Technologies. Ever since, we’ve been adapting technologies so that we can adapt and survive.
Over the past century we have been developing technologies at an an ever faster rate. In large part because we figured out the exponential value generated when we combine novel technologies in new and innovative ways. A prime example would be the smartphone. Blackberry tied in GPS and email. Apple then gave us the first iteration of bringing not just the phone and email, but a web browser and productivity tools through apps.
Some technologies are fairly simple, obvious and easy to adapt into our cultures and societies. But as we move into what I call the Cognitive Age, where we’re augmenting our cognitive world, not just our physical world, we’re struggling as societies and cultures to adapt to these technologies and thus them, to adapt to us. Here are some of what I believe, are those technologies.
Artificial Intelligence: That would seem to be obvious. And you’re right. AI has been evolving for nearly fifty years. Today, it is used in more ways than we often realize. Bit we’re struggling to really see how it fits into our societies and cultures in ways that we feel comfortable. The debate over ethics in AI has been around for years, it’s getting louder. We’re also trying to figure out some kind of global framework for AI as a weapon. It has already been weaponized. Then there’s how AI is used to manipulate buying behaviours and our sense of privacy.
But as larger parts of societies around the world don’t really understand AI, and some of it’s creators don’t either, it’s hard to get the publics attention until some sort of crisis comes along. When technologies are harder to see and operate in the background of society, our brains struggle to deal with it since it seen as more abstract. Our brains are wired to react to threats we see with our eyes. This is largely why we’re struggling to adapt to AI and truly adapt it to our survival going forward.
Smart Clothing: The pitch has been seemingly obvious. Put sensors in clothing, feed the data into a smartphone app and learn about our bodies. So far, adoption of smart clothes has largely remained the market of the worried well and more serious athletes. Pretty much all smart clothing today is in the fitness and military markets.
Mainstream society finds little of value to adding significant cost to a shirt or dress that gives us heart rate info when we’re out for a night of dancing. Let alone going grocery shopping. So far, beyond fitness, cultures have found little value. Our brains simply don’t see smart clothes as a priority mechanism of survival. As climate change grows and air quality reduces, perhaps clothing in our sensors can help detect pollution. But our smartphones can also do that.
Genetic Engineering: The invention of CRISPR was a game changer. Now we can manipulate our genes faster, easier and at lower costs than ever before. We can edit for genes that carry diseases so our babies can be born knowing they’ll never get a cold or HIV. This opens up a whole kettle of ethics. We are debating them deeply and so far, medicine has placed strict rules on this. But will they hold up?
I think genetic manipulation is a technology that our collective human culture will see as valuable to the survival of humanity. If climate change makes it harder to survive and diseases follow, genetic manipulation may be critical to our species survival. But the technology right now, is more advanced than our sociocultural systems have been able to adapt to.
Internet-Of-Things (IoT): you know, smart speakers, doorbells with cameras, funky light bulbs that change colours, all connected in our home. It’s a big market. But it’s not grown as fast or as big, as the companies in this space had hoped. From my research, it seems to be that many consumers don’t feel they add enough value. Speakers remain the most popular. In one study I did for an IoT manufacturer, 84.7% said they use their smart speaker to listen to radio stations. That followed with podcasts. We’re still trying to sort out where these devices fit in our lives. Adoption in the industrial sector for smart manufacturing is the fastest growing area.
We’re getting there, but for some technologies, their broader adoption in our sociocultural systems will take longer. It’s something industry analysts tend not to factor in in their research. They should.
