Read Nikolas' 2017 Trends Report: The Psychedelic Cultural Reality

Thank you for coming here and taking a look at my view on where we are headed as a society in 2017 with exponential technologies, and the companies that build them, drawing society down a new path.
It’s the culmination of hundreds of hours of reading articles and research, watching talks, documentaries, and movie, and discussing how the world is changing with the people building the future.
In this report I cover a number of areas including a brief history of 1994 through to 2017, VR & Mixed Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Intelligence Amplification, Commerce Revolution, Automation, and Cyberwar.
But, what is ‘The Psychedelic Cultural Reality?’ With the advancing of these aforementioned technology areas, the world will feel artificial, visually-overloaded, and uncomfortable. Designers will experiment with new experiences in the world with the privileged acting as willing guinea pigs. The alt-view of the world will seem like an artificial vision – and many will welcome it with open arms.

VR & Mixed Reality Predictions

• • • Facebook VR will create 3x the amount of engagement with it’s platforms and users within those users ‘plugged-in’ to the experience.
    • Virtual personas will have to be bigger than life to communicate emotions and reactions, and that behaviour will bleed into real life. It will be more irritating than people taking selfies.
    • Tech companies will use mixed reality to deliver entertainment (and/or distraction), and turn every transparent surface into an information layer.
    • Mobile device-based mixed reality will be the tipping point as it will make it cost-effective to get access into the experiences on offer.
    • Apple’s mixed reality product will be released with the iPhone 8
    • Point and click interfaces will start to disappear with prominence given to autonomous, visual and voice-driven experiences in the real-world.

Artificial Intelligence & Intelligence Amplification Predictions

• • • AI will become more powerful in smaller (mobile) devices, and will start to become ubiquitous in all systems.
    • Researchers will start to work out how best we, as humans, can coexist and benefit with this integrated in our lives.
    • Algorithmic ethics definitions, data sanitization, and transformation development will be fast-rising disciplines.
    • Chief Information Officers transform to have ethical responsibility around how AI learns, and is applied to, their organizations.

Commerce Revolution Predictions

• • • Traditional retailers will scramble to integrate technology (and do a bad job), and Amazon will purchase a major chain of stores and re-fit with complete autonomous systems.
    • Apple will revolutionize conversational commerce with a new iteration of Siri with advanced AI linked to their wallet, and home devices to connect consumers to retailers.

Automation Predictions

• • • Open-source AI will drive progression in automation at an exponential rate with start-ups performing R&D and large companies buying their IP.
    • Automation will accelerate in the next 3 to 5 years with mass unemployment in China, and large factory worker declines in the western world as well.
    • Government-sponsored online education hubs boom in this time due to cross-training people to work better in the information economy.

Cyberwar Predictions

• • • Increased open-source malware, interference, hacks, security awareness, and politicization of ‘hacking’.
    • Increased spending in penetration testing, security software, and in-house security experts for all kinds of information and entertainment-based businesses.
    • Increased enrolment in cyber-security career courses at college, and micro-courses at all levels of business.

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Nikolas Badminton is a world-respected futurist speaker that researches, speaks, and writes about the future of work, how technology is affecting the workplace, how workers are adapting, the sharing economy, and how the world is evolving. He appears at conferences in Canada, USA, UK, and Europe. Email him to book him for your radio, TV show, or conference.