microsoft powerapp image © microsoft | Her movie poster image courtesy Italia Film
It sounds like something out of an Isaac Asimov sci-fi story, but if we take a look at the emerging trends of today and the speed at which they are evolving, we would realize that the speed of that advancement towards a humanity merged with tech is increasing at an exponential rate. There’s lots of hype going around tech circles about robots taking human jobs and self-driving cars making driving the horseback riding of the future, but it doesn’t just end there. The beautiful (and perhaps even intimidating) spectrum of technology is still unfolding, and 2016 is a crucial turning point on many levels. Here’s a forecast on what we think will happen in the coming 12 months:
1. ALGORITHMIC PERSONALITY DIAGNOSIS Social feeds have already shifted the concept of personal branding into what people share online, and how people interact in a virtual space. This diagnosis will be taking it one step further by having a computer program use an automated algorithmic personality detection function to determine your character based on your curated online persona, subsequently fitting you into one of its predefined categories. If you’re a StumbleUpon user (like me), you’re already familiar with the StumbleDNA concept which determines your digital footprint based on the stuff you like and suggests related things. Facebook and YouTube
already use similar algorithms, but StumbleDNA has a beautiful visual interpretation that really puts things in perspective for the platform’s user base. According to the Harvard Business Review, 2016 will be the year that these algorithms will spread out to be used by insurance companies, banks and other financial institutions, and your potential employers to determine the type of person they’re investing valuable time and money in. We’re not as unique as one might think, and computers have already figured us out. 2. ARTIFICIALLY INTELLIGENT EVERYTHING Though controversial, the rule is pretty simple: if there’s a human that can do it, there’s an AI that can do it better. We’ve seen IBM’s Watson beat the best human contestant on trivia show Jeopardy, and on a more serious note, it’s aiding thousands of doctors today in research and diagnosis. At the time of writing, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, and the University of Toronto, reported a new type of visual machine learning in the journal Science in which “a computer vision program outperformed a group of humans” when trying to identify handwritten characters based on a single example. The achievements that are happening in neural network technologies in speech detection, image recognition, and even art creation, are bringing machines closer to rivaling and potentially surpassing human capabilities. In fact, almost every industry in the world is witnessing an exponential rise in artificial intelligence within its core processes: customer service, finance, transportation, toys, aviation, news, and more- not to mention Siri, Cortana,
Google Now, and the rise of the artificially intelligent personal assistant. Let’s hope they won’t run away and decide to form a singularity like in Spike Jonze’s blockbuster movie Her.
3. EVERYONE IS A PROGRAMMER Just last month, Microsoft launched PowerApp, a platform that allows users to create their own application for iOS, Android or Windows without any prior knowledge of coding. Although Microsoft did not introduce this concept, they sure did bring app building possibilities to the fingertips of many more individuals and SMEs just because of the giant that Microsoft is. The Microsoft blog shared that according to Gartner, “through 2017, the market demand for mobile app development services will grow at least five times faster than internal IT organization
capacity to deliver them.” Services similar to PowerApp are to programming what Instagram is to photography, giving the average person a user-friendly and accessible solution. 4. BACKDOORS AND SECURITY DEBATES Backdoors are sets of code that enable manufacturers upgrade our devices and services without our direct interference. However, these backdoors can also allow unwanted intruders into our personal data. Given the various situations of political and civil unrest around the globe, and that many of these movements are digitally-enabled, controversy is rising on the ethical ownership of people’s personal data. Should governments or corporations be allowed to access your data just because you belong to a group that may be viewed as a threat? Add that to our first point on this list and we’re onto something really intrusive, and potentially dangerous. 5. AUTONOMOUS ROBOTS Autonomous robots are intelligent machines that can perform tasks without human interference or assistance. Amsterdam has already set loose a robot in their airport that helps lost travelers find their gates. Self-driving cars and drones also fit into this category. Amazon will be >>> Microsoft’s PowerApp, a platform that allows users to create their own application without any prior knowledge of coding
january 2016 Entrepreneur
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