boiMAG.com "Spring 2022"

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FITNESS

Stay In Shape, Get Fit and Stay Healthy Reciently, many people bought whatever strength-training equipment they could get their hands on. Kettlebells, especially, became an Instagram fitness craze, causing shortages around the country. Fast forward a year and a half later, kettlebells remain the ruler of the weight room, or your home gym, and for good reason.

Kettlebells are some of the most versatile fitness tools because they can be used for both building strength and conditioning. Kettlebell swings, for instance, strengthen your hips, glutes, and core, while challenging your cardiovascular endurance. Plus, kettlebells can be used to mimic everyday functional movements.

For example, doing a kettlebell deadlift simulates lifting groceries off the floor.

Fhitting Room, a HIIT-based kettlebell training studio in New York, also recently launched an advanced kettlebells class, where people hone in on their skills and technique while building strength.

“We have a community within our community who are ready to spend less time on basics and focus on perfecting their technique and mastering more advanced kettlebell skills,” says Kari Saitowitz, founder and CEO of Fhitting Room. “Due to their ballistic nature, unique shape, and versatility, kettlebells are perfect for progressive programming.”

Generally, more people are gravitating toward using strength-training equipment, Nakhlawi says. “I definitely see more strength equipment. Not just kettlebells but also adjustable dumbbells, barbells, and an entire squat rack, even in small apartments.”

Why? Besides building muscle and improving strength, lifting weights also boasts some major mental health benefits.

According to a 2018 meta-analysis in JAMA Psychiatry, resistance training is associated with reduced depressive symptoms.

We could all use workouts that promote a positive mind-set and put us in an uplifting mood. If swinging kettlebells or doing barbell deadlifts is going to help us get there, so be it.

On another topic: Pilates. According to ClassPass’ 2021 comeback fitness and beauty trends report, Pilates ranked fourth in the most-booked in-person classes. In fact, twothirds of ClassPass members said that access to Pilates equipment is one of the reasons they’re returning to studios.

Today, Pilates classes aren’t just taught with the traditional reformer. Studios, such as SLT, Lagree Fitness, solidcore, are offering classes with the megaformer, a machine inspired by the Pilates reformer that includes cables, bars, and handles. ClassPass users attended more than a million megaformer classes in 2019.

At The Fit In Bedford Stuyvesant, a Pilates, barre, and strength training studio aimed at making wellness accessible to underserved communities in Brooklyn, there is a Pilates Reformed fundamentals class, which offers an intro to using the Pilates reformer, tower, and chair. There’s also a Pilates chair fundamentals class, where people can learn how to use this challenging piece of equipment.

“We’ve had to go as far as adding fundamental classes for a number of our class types because we had many new people join us over the last year and wanting to really hone in on their form and technique,” says Ife Obi, founder of The Fit In Bedford Stuyvesant.

The progression of using different types of Pilates equipment has been a great way for members to track their success. “Pilates was originally designed as a way for people to be able to measure their progress. There are moves like the teaser that can be done using different pieces of Pilates equipment to either provide support or a challenge,” Obi explains. “We are really seeing people paying more attention to their growth and celebrating when they can finally do that move they couldn’t before. Months ago, they may have needed the push-through bar on the Pilates tower to help them up into the position, but now they are able to do it on top of the reformer.”

As more people become interested in lowimpact forms of training that incorporate breathing (read: less stress) and focus on improving posture from sitting all day and leading more sedentary lifestyles.

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national autonomous VEHICLE DAY

Timeline

130 B.C. The First Autonomous ‘Vehicle’ Supposedly, a magic carpet flies King Phraates II of Parthia into battle.

1860s Self-propelled Torpedoes Robert Whitehead develops technology that uses a self-propelled guidance system for torpedoes to maintain depth.

1925 A Phantom Car Army engineer Francis Houdina establishes the Houdina Radio Control firm, which develops a car that can be driven via remote control on the streets of New York — locals call this the ‘phantom car’ as no one is driving it.

1939 General Motors Sees the Future Car giant General Motors exhibits “Futurama: Highways & Horizons” at the New York World’s Fair, showcasing the future of automated highways and how electronics could be used to allow cars to steer themselves.

1960s and 1970s New Technology Enters the Scene The Stanford Cart shows robotic mobility with a remote control and a camera, it moves across a room for five hours without human intervention.

1977 First Autonomous Vehicle is Revealed Autonomous Vehicle is Revealed The first autonomous vehicle is unveiled at Japan’s Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering Lab by Sadayuki Tsugawa and his colleagues.

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1986

Test Drive of the 1st Autonomous Vehicle

German scientist Ernst Dickmanns’s experiments see his van become the first vehicle to drive autonomously on the skidpan at a research university of Germany’s armed forces.

October 1994 Autonomous Cars in Traffic Two limousines pick up guests from Charles de Gaulle airport in France and then switch to self-driving mode to demonstrate the autonomous capabilities of the Mercedes 500 SEL.

2004–2007 Autonomous Vehicle Competitions Start DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) initiates competitions to challenge companies to create autonomous cars.

2016 Autonomous Public Transport An electric bus with automotive systems and no driver hits the roads in Finland.

2017 10 Dedicated Testing Sites Come Up The U.S. Department of Transportation announces the creation of the first 10 testing sites dedicated to developing autonomous vehicles.

2017 Autonomous Vehicle Day is Born!

May 31 is celebrated as Autonomous Vehicle Day henceforth.

REASONS TO GET EXCITED ABOUT 2022 IN THE U.S.

What's the Trend and Where's it Trending

New ways to explore the city What’s the trend: From revitalized waterfronts to new green spaces, cities across the country are opening up to locals and visitors alike in new and interesting ways.

Where it’s trending: In 2022, a number of cities are adding new elements to their landscapes and making some previously hard-to-see sights more accessible. In Baltimore, the new neighborhood Harbor Point is already attracting a bevy of restaurants, shops and more to its revitalized waterfront while in Birmingham, historic warehouses in the Parkside neighborhood are getting a makeover and the City Walk BHAM will add green spaces, food trucks and markets to several city blocks by mid-2022. In spring, San Francisco’s Presidio Tunnel Tops, a 14-acre oasis with incredible views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, opens to the public and across the country in New York, Governor’s Island, the 172-acre park in the New York Harbor, is finally open yearround (the new Winter Village and its 5,000 square-foot ice skating rink opened in February)

global art and craft gallery, Mingei International Museum. Across the country in New York, the first museum dedicated to Broadway, the Museum of Broadway, opens in summer 2022 and, in April, 200 rare and never-before-seen works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, plus multimedia presentations, ephemera and artefacts from the artist’s life, debut at Starrett Lehigh. Massive retrospectives of the work of Paul Cezanne (at the Art Institute of Chicago, opening May 2022) and Jasper Johns (at both the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum, that ran in February 2022.

Immersive, boundary-pushing art What’s the trend: Immersive art exhibits and boundary-pushing interactive experiences that invite visitors to enter inside the worlds of their creators.

Must-visit museums and exhibits What’s the trend: After pandemic, related stalls, a crop of fascinating new museums and longanticipated exhibits dedicated to everything from art to entertainment to history were popping up around the country.

Where it’s trending: Museums are having a moment and there is a flood of new institutions and exhibitions dedicated to all that is interesting. On the West Coast, there's the film history-themed Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and San Diego’s newly reimagined

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Where it’s trending: The Immersive Van Gogh experience, which combined VR, music and 360degree digital projections of the master’s work, took the country by storm in 2021, appearing in more than a dozen cities. But the immersive art trend has been heating up since the opening of Santa Fe’s Meow Wolf: House of Eternal Return in 2016, where more than 70 rooms of weird and wonderful interactive art (and a mysterious puzzle to solve) have been going strong ever since. Over the last few months, two more Meow Wolf installations, Omega Mart in Las Vegas and Convergence Station in Denver, opened to great fanfare and in 2022, the works of other beloved masters are getting the Van Gogh-style immersive treatment. Keep an eye out for two different experiences featuring the indomitable Frida Khalo, Frida: Immersive Dream, which is set to tour five cities this year including Boston, Denver and Dallas, and Mexican Geniuses in Washington DC.

Reckoning with and reframing American history What’s the trend: As the long history of marginalization and racism experienced

by African American, Asian American and other minority groups in the U.S. draws more and more attention, new opportunities for reframing their stories and celebrating their contributions are emerging.

Where it’s trending: While a number of monuments to racist and otherwise controversial figures came down in 2020 and 2021, in 2022 members of marginalized racial and ethnic groups are rising up to tell their own stories. In fall, one of the biggest projects, the International African American Museum, which will delve into problematic histories, showcase contemporary Black artists and help visitors to trace their genealogy, opens in Charleston. Other exhibitions, including For Race and Country: Buffalo Soldiers in California at LA’s California African American Museum and the Oakland Museum of California’s Black Power and Hella Feminist, deal with similar themes. A new crop of walking tours in cities like Philadelphia and Charleston take the trend to the streets, digging into the historical and contemporary experiences of their Black, LGBTQ+ and Latinx communities.

Festivals like Miami’s Ultra Music Festival (March 25-27), southern California’s Coachella (April 15-24) and Boston’s Calling Music Festival (May 27-29) which will be headlined by artists like Adam Beyer, Rage Against the Machine and Foo Fighters. The year will also see the reemergence, in person, of artists that draw crowds the size of small cities including Billie Eilish, The Weeknd, Elton John, Dua Lipa and the Eagles. Outside the music scene, then there was the return of Houston’s Commune Food Festival in March 2022 and San Francisco’s most raucous (but only second most naked) party, Bay to Breakers, in May.

The return of Pride EVENTS What’s the trend: After two long years, Pride celebrations are finally back!

Where it’s trending: Pride parades and celebrations are slated to return across the country in June 2022. While many organizers aren’t yet sure exactly what the celebration will look like, marches, parades and festivals are already scheduled in New York, LA, Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, Tampa and elsewhere.

Expect some hybrid options to be available so that those who can’t join the party in person can still participate virtually.

Comeback tours and festivals

New eats, especially of the plant-based variety

What’s the trend: The American food scene continues to inspire both in culinary destinations like New York, LA and San Francisco and in smaller cities in places like North Carolina and Texas. As awareness of the climate impact of consuming animal products Where it’s trending: While live music played grows, many decorated chefs are embracing once again in 2021, many of the larger annual plant-based cuisine and opening new eateries events we’ve come to know and love were still on hold. In 2022, they’re back with a vengeance. dedicated to it.

What’s the trend: The pandemic brought live music, festivals and events to a halt. Their slow trickle back to life in 2021 will turn into a joyous deluge in 2022.

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What's the Trend and Where's it Trending Continued...

Where it’s trending: We’re salivating with anticipation for Mexico-city native and Top Chef alum Katsuji Tanabe’s upcoming modern-meets-traditional Mexican restaurant and tequila library, A’Verde, arriving in Cary, North Carolina in 2022, celebrity chef Chris Cosentino’s new Houston, Texas eatery Rosalie Italian Soul and Michelin-starred Japanese chef Tetsuya Wakuda’s first American restaurant, Wakuda in Las Vegas, not to mention the Chicago Italian spot Alla Vita and the upstairs addition to LA’s buzzy French bistro Bicyclette. Northern California Wine Country is abuzz with the news that the three Michelin-starred husband-and-wife team behind SingleThread opened a completely plant-based restaurant, Little Saint, in Healdsburg in early 2022, and some are still trying to get reservations for the three Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park in New York which went meatless in 2021.

After 30 years in development, the First Americans Museum, dedicated to the culture and heritage of Oklahoma’s 39 Native American nations, is now finally open in Oklahoma City, while in Phoenix, a brand new downtown gallery, market and workshop, the Cahokia SocialTech + ArtSpace, serves as a hub for Indigenous knowledge and creativity.

New ways to explore the outdoors What’s the trend: Since the start of the pandemic there has been a huge surge in hiking, camping and exploring the beauty of the outdoors. In 2022, we’re lacing up our hiking boots and headed out to a clutch of new parks, trails and campgrounds opening for visitors.

Indigenous-led experiences What’s the trend: The Black Lives Matter movement that caught fire in 2020 also brought increased awareness to and funding for Native people to share their own stories.

Where it’s trending: While the nation’s second tribal national park, Ioway Tribal National Park on the Missouri River in Nebraska and Kansas, won’t quite be open in 2022, Native-led restaurants, arts spaces and experiences are booming like never before.

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Where it’s trending: The biggest outdoor news of 2021 was the arrival of a new national park, New River Gorge, which protects the rugged whitewater-cut canyons of West Virginia and introduces them to a new generation of outdoor enthusiasts.

Georgia’s Ocmulgee Mounds, built by the ancestors of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, is expected to be the next on the list, bumping up from national historic park to full-blown national park status in 2022.

Hikers across the country will find miles and miles of new trail added to existing parklands, including on the iconic Appalachian Trail and the National Recreation Trails in eight states including Illinois, Kentucky and Wyoming. Meanwhile, out in California, the first new coastal campground to be built in 30 years, will open on Monterey Bay at Fort Ord Dunes State Park just in time for peak season.

HEALTH & WELLness Full Force Focus

by: Dr. Charla Waxman BS, MBA, EdD

Director of Business Development

Recently Chicago had a snow storm that brought up memories of the “school snow day” of my elementary and middle school years. As a child, if it snowed hard and deep, we would watch the news channel “crawl”: on the TV screen to see if our school was listed as a closed school because of the weather. Then we would jump for joy for a free day and head outside with friends to make snowmen or build a snow fort. We wouldn’t have to even think about school until we were back in the classroom when the roads were cleared and buses ran. Ahhh, the memories!

Things are different now. School snow days are a thing of the past, as e-learning means children can do their school work via zoom or other channels of remote teaching and learning. Just like with our kids, our jobs are no longer restricted to an office. We have moved our jobs into our homes and thanks to the transportable laptop, tablet or phone, our jobs can go anywhere. This means that lots of us are available for constant workrelated conversations and business meetings during business and nonbusiness hours. There is unlimited work in unlimited hours. Every day.

All day. We excessively multi-task 16 boiMAG.com

oriented; doing business with a child on our hip, from a parked (sometimes moving!) car, or in a grocery store; basically anywhere and anytime. Every moment is an opportunity to get work done.

More, more, more. More work and more of you: your time, your productivity and your personal selfcare.

We call it multitasking, but the truth is, we should call these efforts, multi-distractions. Are we doing anything with real focus? Are we really doing anything well? Without Full Force Focus, we never really get a chance to take a break from some tasks, and really see what we are capable of with others. In addition, our home and work spaces are often combined and we have such blending that we forget that home is supposed to be a haven where we separate ourselves from work in space that belongs to no one else.

In reality, this multi-distraction world is probably a trend that will not go away. There are some things we can do to drive out some of the distractions in a way that accentuate self-care and enhance personal space.

Live as clutter free as you can. This gives your eyes and mind a rest. You won’t be distracted by messes and paper piles.

Continued >>

Use your calendar wisely. Block off time for you, time for work and time for others. Make some of the “You” time, quiet time without phones or computers. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it; you may even like it!

Make work space look like comfort. Use colored pens, fun stationery, have a favorite coffee cup and a comfortable chair.

Grab a break. When blending work and home responsibilities in time and space, 10 minutes on the hour is the best recommendation.

Standing up, focusing away from the computer screen and your phone, and stepping outside will help re-focus your mind. Watch your productivity increase as your brain responds to your continuing work as if it were new stimuli.

Have a short “To-do List”. Lists that are too long can make you feel like the “day got away from you”

and nothing got done. You don’t need to feel like you were not valuable or productive. Create a list that is do-able and necessary.

You can keep a “back- burner” list; one that cannot be done in a session or even two, and may not even be necessary. This is a list you can move into your calendar fluidly. These back- burner tasks can create some nice focus opportunities.

Find your full force focus! Focus on you. Do everything you can to stay healthy and happy.

Distractions often take away positives in our lives; stealing our time and our energy for being our best. You got this!

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PRIDE JOURNEY Indianapolis, Indiana

By Joey Amato

The last time I wrote an article about Indianapolis was back before I was living here.

Sometimes you view a city differently as a tourist, so I decided to become a tourist again to explore my beautiful city. Indianapolis is in my opinion one of the most underrated cities in the country. Its people, culture, and opportunities are some of the greatest strengths of the city, not to mention, a thriving LGBTQ culture. Pride is celebrated here throughout the year.

You can walk through neighborhoods and see countless rainbow flags hanging proudly from homes and businesses all year round.

Indianapolis is a very gay city, especially when it comes to LGBTQ philanthropic organizations and community initiatives. There are numerous local charities here such as Indiana Youth Group, Trinity Haven, Gender Nexus, Damien Center, Trans Solutions and StepUp just to name a few. If you are looking to mingle with LGBTQ locals, you can definitely find a group that suits your interest.

We like things big in Indy. The city is home to the largest children’s museum in the world as well as the largest sports venue in the world, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where the annual Indy 500 is run.

The Circle City boasts some wonderful LGBTQ bars and restaurants including

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English Ivy’s, Greg’s Our Place, Downtown Olly’s, FortyFive Degrees, Metro, Tini, and the newest drag bar, Almost Famous.

Animal lovers should head to the Indianapolis Zoo, home to the Indianapolis Prize, the most prestigious preservation and conservation award in the world. This May, the new Kangaroo Crossing exhibit will open in the current MISTery Park area, which has been home to the Zoo’s sloths since 2019. Construction is now under way to completely transform the space with beautiful new planting, creating a backdrop for red kangaroos that will offer a feeling of Australia in Indianapolis. Kangaroo Crossing will offer visitors a chance to walk into a large open area to mingle with the roo’s without barriers.

One of the many gems of Indy is the Eiteljorg Museum which will present a thought-provoking exhibition of Andy Warhol’s late-career artwork

that explores his interest in Western icons and his merging of the mythic West with contemporary art and popular culture. The exhibition will be on display from March 12 to Aug. 7, 2022. The traveling exhibition, Warhol’s West, presents a range of his Western imagery, including prints of Geronimo, General Custer, Annie Oakley, and John Wayne. Also in 2022, the Eiteljorg Museum will celebrate its 30th annual Indian Market and Festival on June 25-26, where more than 100 Native American artists will display and sell their beautiful art.

Speaking of museums, the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is not just for children. In fact, they host numerous adult-only events throughout the year.

This March, they will be debuting Dinosphere, an immersive experience where guest will experience the sights, sounds, and smells of dinosaurs who roamed the Earth during the Cretaceous Period 65-75 million years ago. Visitors will be transported back in time under the cover of a former Cinedome that vibrantly changes from dawn to dusk and features thunderstorms to overnight meteor showers.

Significant dinosaur specimens will occupy the space, include Bucky the teenage T. rex which became the first dinosaur discovered to have a wish bone linking its relationship to birds.

Also located at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is a tribute to Ryan White, the young man who died of AIDS in 1990. Ryan garnered international fame for his heartwarming story and was befriended by everyone from Michael Jackson to Elton John. A replica of his room is located in the museum. boiMAG.com 21

by: Dr. Charla Waxman

BS, MBA, EdD, Director of Business Development

To get the most out of life, we all know that we have to take care of ourselves. What does that mean and how do you start? Below are a few ways to get the ball rolling and really start setting patterns for healthy behaviors. Changes can be simple, but the changes should be mindful; that is you should maintain your focus and stay on track. Anyone can do it. How about starting today?

Talk it out: When things go awry, bottling it up only causes resentment, anger, and other feelings that can create toxic outcomes in both personal and professional relationships. Find your “go-to” person; someone you can trust and let feelings fly! Just knowing someone has listened without judgment can help you feel supported. The more you reach out, the better you will get at sorting through your feelings.

Get to know the “E” word: Not everybody likes to exercise. Some of us find it taxing and just can’t seem to get a routine underway. Don’t let yourself off the hook, but you don’t have to be obsessive. Walking in place while watching TV instead of sitting (or laying down!) on the couch can make a bigger difference than you think. When someone calls you on the phone, use the time to move a bit, don’t sit at the table and nosh! Joining a health club at the first of the year has been known to signal failure in just a few weeks as people quit going and waste money. Failures don’t drive motivation. Overall, find opportunities to move. Journal what you have done. If you aren’t feeling a difference, amp it up a bit. Monitor your movement. It will pay off. “E” word #2 is EAT. You probably know what is best for you. If you are really not sure, start with your physician. If you do, pick one meal each day where you are willing to change the comfort-high calorie food choices. You will find, over time, that small changes lead to big changes. Always be willing to ask for help from supportive friends when you need it.

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Know the signs of unhealthy choices: This is a broad topic. People, places and situations all apply. What do healthy relationships look like? If a loved one is isolating you from others, controlling even small details of your life, verbally, emotionally, or physically harming you, find help. It should not be happening; there are no excuses and there is no blame for the victim for abuse. If you find that you are overeating, or using substances (drugs or alcohol) to feel complete or confident, you may end up trapped in a cycle of misuse, abuse or addiction. Health means feeling like YOU. Trying to please others or relying on something to make you feel better about yourself is not going to help you live healthy or happy.

Change things up: Get out of your routine.

‘Nuff said. Find something new to do. Look around your community. Where have you not shopped, eaten or enjoyed a movie, play or museum? Alone or with someone, changing things up, however you choose to do it, can really stimulate your senses and help you relax.

Be creative. Even going in your closet and finding an old treasure to wear can make things seem fresh and new.

Develop a hobby: Lots of times we put off trying new things and spend our time saying things like, “I always wanted to learn to paint.”

What are you waiting for? Give it a shot. Finding yourself in creative ways can be very uplifting.

Give yourself time to find the right activity if you are searching. There’s no rush with hobbies!

Be Self-Affirming: Start your day with affirmations. Get yourself a journal. Let yourself see in ink the best of who you are. Many professional athletes use self-affirmation and visualization to be their best. So can you. You have probably heard the saying: You are braver, stronger and smarter than you think. Now put those thoughts into action! Practice makes perfect. Eventually you will look forward to your affirmation times and your confidence and selfacceptance will soar.

Do something nice everyday: What a great goal! This can mean reaching out to an old friend, sending a greeting card, or volunteering. Helping others is differencemaking for all involved.

Make that call: Everyone needs help sometimes. Call a friend, call your local health department, dial an 800 support line like 800 273 TALK, just make that call!

by Jack Santo

In 2022, we will see artificial intelligence continue along the path to becoming the most transformative technology humanity has ever developed.

According to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, its impact will be even greater than that of fire or electricity on our development as a species. This may seem like a very ambitious claim, but considering it is already being used to help us tackle climate change, explore space, and develop treatments for cancer, the potential is clearly there.

The full scale of the impact that giving machines the ability to make decisions, and therefore enable decision-making to take place far more quickly and accurately than could ever be done by humans, is very difficult to conceive right now. But one thing we can be certain of is that in 2022 breakthroughs and new developments will continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible.

The Augmented Workforce There have always been fears that machines or robots will replace human workers and maybe even make some roles redundant. However, as companies navigate the process of creating data and AI-literate cultures within their teams, we will increasingly find ourselves working with or alongside machines that use smart and cognitive functionality to boost our own abilities and skills. In some functions, such as marketing, we’re already used to using tools that help us determine which leads are

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worth pursuing and what value we can expect from potential customers.

In engineering roles, AI tools help us by providing predictive maintenance, letting us know ahead of time when machines will need servicing or repairing. In knowledge industries, such as law, we will increasingly use tools that help us sort through the evergrowing amount of data that’s available to find the nuggets of information that we need for a particular task. In just about every occupation, smart tools and services are emerging that can help us do our jobs more efficiently, and in 2022 more of us will find that they are a part of our everyday working lives.

Bigger and Better Language Modeling Language modeling is a process that allows machines to understand and communicate with us in language we understand, or even take natural human languages and turn them into computer code that can run programs and applications. We have recently seen the release of GPT-3 by OpenAI, the most advanced (and largest) language model ever created, consisting of around 175 billion “parameters”- variables and datapoints that machines can use to process language. OpenAI is known to be working on a successor, GPT-4, that will be even more powerful. Although details haven’t been confirmed, some estimate that it may contain up to 100 trillion parameters, making it 500 times larger than GPT-3, and in theory taking a big step closer to being able to create Continued >>

TECH TRENDS CONTINUED Artificial Inelegance (AI) language and hold conversations that are indistinguishable from those of a human. It will also become much better at creating computer code.

AI in Cybersecurity This year the World Economic Forum identified cybercrime as potentially posing a more significant risk to society than terrorism. As machines take over more of our lives, hacking and cybercrime inevitably become more of a problem, as every connected device you add to a network is inevitably a potential point-of-failure that an attacker could use against you. As networks of connected devices become more complex, identifying those points of failure becomes more complex. This is where AI can play a role, though. By analyzing network traffic and learning to recognize patterns that suggest nefarious intentions, smart algorithms are increasingly playing a role in keeping us safe from 21st century crime. Some of the most significant applications of AI that we will see develop in 2022 are likely to be in this area.

AI and the Metaverse The metaverse is the name given for a unified persistent digital environment, where users can work and play together. It’s a virtual world, like the internet, but with the emphasis on enabling immersive experiences, often created by the users themselves. The concept has become a hot topic since Mark Zuckerberg spoke about creating it by combing virtual reality technology with the social foundations of his Facebook platform.

AI will undoubtedly be a lynchpin of the

metaverse. It will help to create online environments where humans will feel at home at having their creative impulses nurtured. We will also most likely become used to sharing our metaverse environments with AI beings that will help us with tasks we’re there to do, or just be our partner for a game of tennis or chess when we want to relax and unwind.

Low-Code and No-Code AI A big barrier to the adoption of AIdriven efficiency in many companies is the scarcity of skilled AI engineers who can create the necessary tools and algorithms. No-code and lowcode solutions aim to overcome this by offering simple interfaces that can be used, in theory, to construct increasingly complex AI systems.

Much like the way web design and no-code UI tools now let users create web pages and other interactive systems simply by dragging and dropping graphical elements together, no-code AI systems will let us create smart programs by plugging together different, pre-made modules and feeding them with our own domainspecific data. Technologies such as natural language processing and language modeling, like mentioned above, mean that soon it may be possible to use nothing more than Continued >>

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TECH TRENDS CONTINUED Artificial Inelegance (AI) our voice or written instructions. All of this will play a key role in the ongoing “democratization” of AI and data technology.

Autonomous vehicles AI is the “brains” that will guide the autonomous cars, boats, and aircraft that are set to revolutionize travel and society over the coming decade. 2022 should be a year to remember when we look back in the future and contemplate with horror the fact that we thought it was normal that 1.3 million people died of traffic accidents every year, 90% of which were caused by human error!

As well as increasingly effective autonomous cars, Tesla says its cars will demonstrate full self-driving capability by 2022, although it’s unlikely they will be ready for general use. Its competitors include Waymo (created by Google), Apple, GM, and Ford, and any of them can be expected to announce major leaps forward in the next year. The year will hopefully also see the first

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autonomous ship crossing the Atlantic, as the Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS), powered by IBM and designed in partnership with non-profit ProMare, will once again attempt the journey (having been forced to turn back during its initial attempt this year).

Creative AI We know that AI can be used to create art, music, poetry, plays, and even video games. In 2022, as new models such as GPT-4 and Google’s Brain redefine the boundaries of what’s possible, we can expect more elaborate and seemingly “natural” creative output from our increasingly imaginative and capable electronic friends. Rather than these creations generally being demonstrations or experiments to show off the potential of AI, as is the case now, in 2022, we will increasingly see them applied to routine creative tasks, such as writing headlines for articles and newsletters, designing logos and infographics. Creativity is often seen as a very human skill, and the fact we are now seeing these capabilities emerging in machines means “artificial” intelligence is undeniably coming closer in terms of scope and function to the somewhat nebulous concept we have of what constitutes “real” intelligence.