Insights November 18th, 2016

Each week Nikolas Badminton, Futurist Speaker, summarizes the top-5 future looking developments and news items that I find to be inspiring, interesting, concerning, or downright strange. Each day he reads through dozens of blogs and news websites to find those things that we should be aware of.
In Future Trends – The Future of Work in Canada we look at the trends that we should be aware of today, November 18th, 2016. We see Nikolas Badminton talking to Millennials about the future of work in Canada, Stephen Hawking being prophetic (again), tech billionaires wanting to destroy the universe, how apps are causing road deaths, and a zero-emissions drivable workspace.

The Future of Work in Canada, and the Future for Millennials

As part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, Startup Revelstoke brought Nikolas Badminton, Futurist, in to talk to a group of 13 to 19 year olds and simulcast it across Canada as well.
Nikolas talks about the state of the nation in terms of employment, how to consider operating in school, what is important to learn, and 5 considerations for now and the future.

Follow your heart, and realize that there is no such thing as failure.
Travel and get international experience.
Realize that change takes time and that every overnight success takes years.
Keep friends, family, and community close.
Be brave, trust serendipity, and reinvent yourself every 3 to 5 years.

Humanity only has around 1,000 years left on Earth, Stephen Hawking predicts

Physicist Stephen Hawking has warned humanity that we probably only have about 1,000 years left on Earth, and the only thing that could save us from certain extinction is setting up colonies elsewhere in the Solar System.
“[W]e must … continue to go into space for the future of humanity,” Hawking said in a lecture at the University of Cambridge this week. “I don’t think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet.”
The fate of humanity appears to have been weighing heavily on Hawking of late – he’s also recently cautioned that artificial intelligence (AI) will be “either the best, or the worst, thing ever to happen to humanity”.
Given that humans are prone to making the same mistakes over and over again – even though we’re obsessed with our own history and should know better – Hawking suspects that “powerful autonomous weapons” could have serious consequences for humanity.
Read more at Science Alert

Tech Billionaires Want to Destroy the Universe

First they changed the way we bore ourselves online, revolutionized hotels and taxis and minor financial transactions, and gave us lightbulbs that won’t switch on if you haven’t installed the right software driver. Now—it was always inevitable—they want to destroy the universe.

This line has been dutifully repeated by all the usual news sites, usually as a minor, amusing little anecdote—nerds versus the Matrix, tech shamans and their wacky ontological theories—without much thought going into what this would actually mean. Ignore for a moment any objections you might have to the simulation hypothesis, and everything impractical about the idea that we could somehow break out of reality, and think about what these people are trying to do.

The two billionaires (Elon Musk is a prime suspect) are convinced that they’ll emerge out of this drab illusion into a more shining reality, lit by a brighter and more beautiful star. But for the rest of us the experience would be very different—you lose your home, you lose your family, you lose your life and your body and everything around you. Simulation or not, everything would disappear. It would be the end of the world. Comic-book movies, in their own sprawling simulated narrative universes, have been raising the stakes to this level for years: Every summer we watch dozens of villains plotting to blow up the entire universe, but the motivations are always hazy. Why, exactly, does the baddie want to destroy everything again? Now we know.

Biggest Spike in Traffic Deaths in 50 Years? Blame Apps

The messaging app Snapchat allows motorists to post photos that record the speed of the vehicle. The navigation app Waze rewards drivers with points when they report traffic jams and accidents. Even the game Pokémon Go has drivers searching for virtual creatures on the nation’s highways.

When distracted driving entered the national consciousness a decade ago, the problem was mainly people who made calls or sent texts from their cellphones. The solution then was to introduce new technologies to keep drivers’ hands on the wheel. Innovations since then — car Wi-Fi and a host of new apps — have led to a boom in internet use in vehicles that safety experts say is contributing to a surge in highway deaths.

After steady declines over the last four decades, highway fatalities last year recorded the largest annual percentage increase in 50 years. And the numbers so far this year are even worse. In the first six months of 2016, highway deaths jumped 10.4 percent, to 17,775, from the comparable period of 2015, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“This is a crisis that needs to be addressed now,” Mark R. Rosekind, the head of the agency, said in an interview.

A New, Zero Emissions, Electric Mobile Workspace

n the current world of work, freelancers and entrepreneurs are growing. Traditional modes of working are being abandoned as people seek out options that allow more flexibility. At Springwise, we’ve seen a number of workspace innovations that respond to this search for adaptability: In New York, restaurants have begun renting themselves out as office space outside of opening hours. And more recently, an app allows open plan office workers to find their ideal conditions for work. Now Nissan have developed their own response to the trend, enter the e-NV200.

Future Trends – The Future of Work in Canada