BACK TO THE FUTURE

It’s just seven years since the first iPad was launched. What technology will we take for granted within another seven years? Professor Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, says we’re on the verge of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, charact

Who’s gonna drive you home tonight?

Your next car might drive itself. Don’t believe it? Every second car manufacturer has promised a driverless car by, for some reason, the year 2021. Last year, Ford said it would release one without a steering wheel. Soon after, Volvo and Uber announced their collaboration. Then in June this year, Audi announced it would be launching a series of cars with varying levels of autonomous driving technology. BMW is taking it right up to level five autonomy, which means no human intervention is needed.

In the meantime, in Lyon, France, two electric driverless buses tootle around at a sedate 10km per hour. They run near a tramway, as the tech isn’t quite there to allow them to weave in and out of traffic.

Over in the US, all eyes are on Tesla. CEO Elon Musk is ahead of the 2021

pack: ‘We’ll be able to do a demonstration guide of full autonomy all the way from home in LA to Times Square in New York, then have the car park itself by the end of next year,’ he said.

The year in question is this year. That’s right, 2017.

Progress, unfortunately, isn’t without hitches. In May last year, Joshua Brown, who had previously proudly posted a video of his Tesla driverless car avoiding a collision, became the first person to die in a self-driving vehicle. He was on autopilot on a Florida highway when the sensors failed to pick up a huge truck and trailer in the path: the white paintwork didn’t show up against the bright sky. Tesla said it was the only known fatality in just over 209 million km on autopilot. ‘Autopilot is getting better all the time, but it isn’t perfect and still requires the driver to remain alert.’

Still there’s no disputing that autopilot supports safety. Globally, road accidents claim 1,25 million lives year, says the World Health Organisation. It’s estimated that driverless cars could reduce the number of accidents by 90%. Bring on the day.

Just say the word

Meet Amazon’s Echo, a device that’s always listening out for you, waiting to do your bidding. This UK user’s (shortened) review provides a glimpse into ‘her’ capabilities:

‘Plug Alexa into my kitchen. Download Alexa App on iPhone. By the time the app has downloaded, Alexa’s sci-fi circular top light is glowing orange and I connect her to my Wi-Fi. This has taken less than a minute. Alexa announces she’s now connected.

“Alexa, hello,” I whisper in stunned awe and expectation.

“Hello,” Alexa responds, perhaps rather nonchalantly. “What is the weather like today?” “The weather today will be 8 degrees and overcast, with a chance of sunshine later on.”

I glance at my wife and kids. This is a new dawn in the technical age.

Two hours later: I’ve linked Alexa to my Spotify account, to Audible, and have updated her skills to include my preferred news bulletins. I can now ask Alexa to play music, artists, songs or to read my latest Audible book.

Four hours later: downside. My eldest daughter (5) has cottoned on to the “new miracle” in the kitchen and has developed an imperious style of talking to her. She demands jokes. They’re not too bad, thankfully. Little Mix’s “Black Magic” has been played 335 times so far, followed by Abba’s “Honey Honey” and “Mamma Mia”. Unfortunately I have no way of getting Alexa to sanction particular songs. Yet.’

The same reviewer gives an update after the novelty has worn off. ‘There are certainly improvements to be made. But it’s fully updatable/futureproof and I’m positive we won’t find Alexa gathering dust in a corner somewhere. In 12 months? You’ll be able to walk into a room and have Alexa turn lights on, turn your TV and Netflix on, set the temperature, then order food to be delivered in nanoseconds.’

In the US, the Echo can order a pizza and arrange an Uber pickup. Google has released their cheaper version, Google Home, which is also a source of entertainment, a personal assistant and a smart home controller. It can search Google, obv, while Echo has to rely on another search engine because Google won’t allow them to use it. As with Echo, Home checks traffic, your calendar, makes a shopping list and tracks a delivery.

This is all part of the so-called ‘connected home’ movement, which operates lights, fans, switches, thermostats, garage doors, sprinklers and locks through compatible connected devices. On Takealot (at you-must-be-joking prices), you can buy the Philips Hue wireless lighting system that allows you to control the lights whether you’re home or not, change their colour, dim and wake you gently.

Next example: a smart kitchen scale. Ever started baking, only to realise you don’t have enough eggs/butter/ whatever? There’s a scale that connects to a recipe book and adjusts the quantities to what you do have. Had to chuck another wilted pot plant? Stick a plant monitor into the pot to check sunlight, temperature, fertiliser and moisture – and it will send a notification to your smartphone when it’s time to do the watering. Now all we need is someone or something to do the actual legwork…

Rise of the machines

‘Researchers are beginning to see that artificial intelligence [AI], robotics, and new disruptive technologies are challenging white-collar professions that previously seemed invulnerable,’ writes Erik Sherman of Fortune magazine. At the beginning of this year, Japanese insurance company Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance reportedly replaced 34 insurance claim brokers with a programme called IBM Watson Explorer. It’s an efficiency measure: the remaining employees improve productivity by about 30% and the move saves the company about $1.1 million (R14 million) a year on salaries.

Robotics has made also inroads into investing, financial advice, health insights and more. There are even AI journalists, covering simple subjects such as sports and weather.

We won’t all be out of jobs any time soon, but the workforce is in for a major shift in the long term. ‘Almost all jobs have major elements that, for the foreseeable future, won’t be possible for computers to handle,’ says Harvard Business Review. ‘And yet, we have to admit that there are some knowledge-work jobs that will simply succumb to the rise of the robots.’

Skin deep

Embeddable or implantable technology refers to objects inserted directly into the human body to enhance or modify the way it works. Some, such as pacemakers, bone prostheses and silicone implants, have become so

‘There are some knowledge-work jobs that will simply succumb to the rise of the robots.’

commonplace we barely give them a second thought. Pets are routinely micro-chipped, and contraceptives such as IUDs and the contraceptive implant come recommended because they eliminate the risk of human error interfering with efficacy.

Now, scientists are developing implantable objects with groundbreaking medical applications, such as cochlear and retinal implants that improve hearing and sight respectively. The Wellcome Trust in the UK has even started a medical trial with Alzheimer’s patients that involves a chip being implanted on the brain to stimulate weakened neurons and anticipate episodes. Researchers at the University of Michigan, meanwhile, are working on a ‘small, sponge-like implant’ that will help detect cancer.

But in other labs unrelated to medical science is a small but enthusiastic group of so-called ‘biohackers’ – developers working on embeddable techology to ‘augment or upgrade’ the human experience. Electronic engineer Brian McEvoy, for instance, has designed the first internal compass: Southpaw comes with an ultra-thin whisker that lightly brushes the underside of the skin when the user is facing north. A company called Dangerous Things has developed a chip that allows you to start your car or motorcycle, pay for items and even unlock smartphones and computers with just a wave of your finger. Grindhouse Wetware CEO Tim Cannon had the Circadia micro-computer embedded in his arm last year, enabling him to collect and transmit biometric data to a smartphone via Bluetooth.

Rich Lee, another biohacker, had a microchip embedded in each ear so he could listen to music just by wearing a wire coil around his neck, essentially creating ‘internal headphones’. But, says Lee, they do much more than that. ‘It’s a sixth sense. The implants allow me to detect different sensors, so I can “hear” heat from a distance. I can detect magnetic fields and Wi-Fi signals, so much of the world that I had no awareness of.’ Lee’s failing eyesight drove him to seek out methods of improving his sensory awareness, but for him, it’s about more than just the practical aspects. ‘It’s almost erotic when you feel something totally unexpected when there was no sensation before. You want to enquire and learn more. This is an adventure for me.’

Bill Gates, through the Gates Foundation, is supplying funding for the development of a remote-controlled contraceptive chip that will produce small quantities of levonorgestrel (the manufactured hormone used in birth control methods) from inside a woman’s body for nearly 16 years. And, the US Defence Department’s research unit, DARPA, is working on a microchip for the brain that will boost soldiers’ performance and heal trauma. A cyborg super soldier, if you will.

Back in 2014, think tank PSFK predicted that implantables would be part of daily life by 2017. They

weren’t wrong. Earlier this year, Belgian firm NewFusion made headlines after it offered to replace employees’ ID cards with an ID chip implanted into their hands.

But the mainstream uptake is taking a bit longer than anticipated. ‘Public perception has been the main barrier,’ says Dr Anthony Guiseppi-Elie, professor of bioengineering at the University of South Carolina and editor of

Bioengineering journal. Besides the threat to privacy, this kind of technology is also vulnerable to exploitation of data and even hacking – but that doesn’t seem to be the reason behind most people’s aversion. ‘Implants just make people uncomfortable,’ he says.

Fair share

The ‘sharing economy’, ‘gig economy’ and ‘collaborative consumption’ – we’re talking Airbnb, Lyft, Uber, Etsy, TaskRabbit, France’s BlaBlaCar, China’s Didi Chuxing and India’s Ola, among others – have revolutionised our world. According to author Rachel Botsman, the peer-to-peer rental market alone is worth $26 billion (R338 billion). Airbnb was launched only in 2008, but based on stats from 2016, more than 100 million people have made use of it.

The model works best when it involves something that is expensive to buy and widely owned by people who don’t make full use of it – cars and spare rooms being obvious examples. But you can also rent camping spots in Sweden, fields Down Under and washing machines in France. And you can share dog ownership in the US – yup, part-time pooches are a thing now. As advocates of the sharing economy like to say, ‘access trumps ownership’.

On many levels, it’s a win-win: owners make money from underused assets, users get a better deal and the world has a never-before-seen level of flexibility and autonomy in terms of employment and income.

But, of course, there are downsides. Regulations are still being ironed out. Uber was banned from Spain and New Delhi in 2014, and may soon be pushed off the streets of New York. Formal taxis in NYC loathe Uber. Cabs must have a taxi medallion, which goes for about half a million dollars. An Uber driver, on the other hand, doesn’t need much more than a valid licence and a relatively reliable car.

Airbnb is also facing opposition in several cities. New York, for instance, has outlawed short-term rentals (less than 30 days) to stop the rental pool haemorrhaging, leaving New Yorkers themselves with no options.

According to Arun Sundararajan, an expert on the sharing economy, the future is still unclear. ‘Will we live in a world of empowered entrepreneurs who enjoy professional flexibility and independence? Or will we become disenfranchised digital labourers scurrying between platforms in search of the next wedge of piecework?’

Only time will tell.