What Happens after the Future Arrives?
Read on to discover how the imminent future shapes our present actions.
Dear Friend,
Before we delve into this week’s Briefing, we want to take a moment to thank you for being here, doing what you are doing, and generally being awesome. And since this will be the last Briefing for 2023, we want to wish you, your family, friends, and colleagues a relaxing holiday season and a superb start to the New Year. May it be a radical one for you!
See you all on the other side! 🚀
radical Insights
It’s that time of year, friends. Looking forward, looking back, all of that. But I don’t have a trend report for you (although if you’re looking for, well, all of them… they’re collected here by the dozen – and explorable here via a custom GPT), and this isn’t exactly a year-in-review essay looking back with scorecard in hand on all our forecasts of yore either.
Instead, I’m interested in revisiting one particular meta-forecast that we made here for 2023 way back in January. In a piece posted on Jan 17, we argued that 2023 “held the prospect of being the year when we finally recognize that the future—or at least significant elements of the futures we envisioned throughout the 2010s—has arrived.”
With the year now almost fully in the books, this argument feels correct to me. Personally, this was the year when I meaningfully integrated a conversational AI assistant into many of my workflows and the year when I (and a number of friends also residing in Austin, TX) strategically left town for a stretch to avoid an increasingly common pattern of truly extreme summer heat. Zooming out from my own experience to survey the larger landscape, we can see that tech analysts of 2023 were able to point to strong evidence in one domain after another that the futures many of us had long anticipated were no longer hypothetical tomorrows or abstractions-on-the-way: they had become the world of our present.
Covering the first ever approval of a CRISPR medicine last month (following a wildly successful trial targeting sickle-cell disease), The Atlantic proclaimed that “the CRISPR era is here.” Just a month before that, AI researchers Blaise Agüera y Arcas and Peter Norvig argued in Noema that “the most important parts of [AGI] have already been achieved.” And way back in June, MIT Tech Review pointedly announced that “robotaxis are here. It’s time to decide what to do about them.”
Having spent a good chunk of the 2010s at an organization that was in the business of researching and forecasting precisely these technological futures, I’ve had the sense that this year marked enough milestones to indicate some significant shift from envisioning to experiencing, anticipating to adapting. The difficult truth, of course, is that to thrive in the future as it unfolds, we’ll have to learn to do both well at the same time – to continue anticipating what might be while we’re adapting to what already is.
I was thinking of this dual challenge/opportunity a few weeks ago when Pascal & I were in Las Vegas for Digital CPA 2023. Remarking on AI during his speaker session, Pascal pointed out to the hundreds of assembled leaders that the tools and systems their profession had been anticipating (or fearing) for years were no longer on the way. They had largely arrived. The question, then, for the leaders and their firms was what would happen next. How would they at once use those tools to update practices, capabilities, and value propositions (adapting) while also pushing themselves to think beyond a near-term future vision that was rapidly becoming the present to see new future possibilities and opportunities for relevance in the long term (anticipating)?
For any of us who might be feeling like this year has marked an inflection point of sorts, I’ll suggest that we’re facing a version of that same question. And in this last essay of the year, I’ll return to another point we made in the first: The word inflection comes to us from the Latin inflectere which can also mean “to bend inward.” Perhaps in this season of looking forward and looking back, we can also take some time to look inward and ask ourselves just what, if the future has indeed arrived, we want to do about it in 2024 – as individuals, as organizations, and as a society. @Jeffrey
The Thin Wisps of Tomorrow
The Dawn of Specialized AI: Smaller, Smarter, Everywhere 🚀
The landscape of artificial intelligence is undergoing a transformative shift, moving from colossal, server-bound giants to nimble, accessible, and equally capable models. This change heralds a new era where AI’s potential becomes ubiquitous, not just in sprawling data centers but in the devices we use daily. The recent announcement by European OpenAI competitor, Mistral AI, about their new model, ‘Mixtral,’ is a testament to this seismic shift. This model rivals the performance of GPT 3.5, yet it’s compact enough to run locally on a laptop. This is not just an advancement; it’s a revolution in how we access and interact with AI.
Following closely on Mistral AI’s heels, Microsoft unveiled Phi–2, another testament to the power of compact AI models. These advancements are made possible by innovative techniques like Mixture of Experts (MoE), which enables the creation of smaller, less resource-intensive models. The implications are profound and far-reaching. We are entering an age where AI’s benefits can be harnessed in more diverse contexts and at significantly lower costs. This democratization of AI means that its integration into everyday life and various industries will accelerate, opening doors to unimagined possibilities and applications.
In the realm of AI development, to borrow an overused baseball analogy, we are not even in the first inning. The game has just begun, and it promises to be one of exponential possibilities and breakthroughs. As these specialized models become the norm, we are on the cusp of witnessing AI integrate seamlessly into the fabric of our daily lives, making it more efficient, intelligent, and accessible. Buckle up, indeed, for this is just the start of an exhilarating journey into an AI-powered future. @Pascal
The Future of Advertising in an AI-Driven World 🤖
In the fast-evolving digital realm, AI isn’t just changing the game; it’s rewriting the rulebook for online advertising. Picture this: a world where search engine marketing, the bedrock of digital ad strategies, starts to crumble under the weight of AI-driven platforms like ChatGPT. The shift is more than just a change in tools; it’s a fundamental transformation in how brands reach consumers. The hypothesis? As AI continues to permeate our online experiences, traditional ad formats like search engine marketing will see a rapid decline. We’re not just moving towards different marketing tools; we’re shifting towards a whole new marketing landscape.
This seismic shift is nudging us towards a rise in non-traditional marketing methods, with influencer marketing poised to take center stage. The proof is already in the pudding. We’re witnessing a segment of the market where consumers, tired of ad bombardment, are willingly paying for traditionally ad-supported services to avoid ads. This trend isn’t just a quirky blip; it’s a loud signal of changing consumer preferences. It brings to the fore a crucial challenge: how do you advertise to an audience that’s actively avoiding traditional ads? The answer lies in understanding and adapting to this new paradigm, where creativity, authenticity, and direct engagement through influencers become key. Welcome to the new era of marketing, where AI and consumer choice are the new power players. @Pascal
Celebrating “The Mother of all Demo’s” 50th Birthday 🎂
Fifty-five years ago this week, Douglas Engelbart, in what became known as “The Mother of All Demos,” showcased a vision of computing that would fundamentally alter our world. On December 9th, 1968, at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco, Engelbart didn’t just talk about his work at the Stanford Research Institute; he brought it to life in a way that left his audience utterly spellbound. Unlike typical presentations of the era, Engelbart was not confined to a podium but seated at a custom-designed console, manipulating his presentation from a computer 30 miles away. This wasn’t merely a demonstration of technical prowess; it was a glimpse into a future where human intellect could be augmented in unprecedented ways.
As we celebrate this remarkable anniversary, it’s fascinating to explore the wealth of stories, archival footage, and interactive experiences available at TheDemo.org. From remastered footage to retrospectives by Engelbart and his team, these resources offer an immersive dive into a milestone event in computing history. The Mother of All Demos wasn’t just a technological exhibition; it was the dawn of interactive computing as we know it today. It laid the groundwork for the personal computing revolution and fundamentally changed how we interact with technology, making Engelbart’s vision as relevant now as it was over half a century ago. @Pascal
What We Are Reading
🧟♂️ From Unicorns to Zombies: Tech Start-Ups Run Out of Time and Money This year alone, approximately 3,200 private venture-backed U.S. companies have gone out of business. Entrepreneurs are throwing in the towel now more than ever before and returning the little money they have left to investors while they become “zombie” companies. @Mafe
📉 The Rise and Fall of the ‘IBM Way’ Recent histories of IBM offer a rich picture of a company whose particular story illustrates many generally applicable lessons about innovation, disruption, organizational design, and leadership. @Jeffrey
⚖️ Think Different — Sometimes. Teams Succeed When They Balance Creativity and Focus Another great example of the importance of managing polarities is the divergence and convergence of opinions in a team. This study validated the logic that higher divergence in opinions early in the project, and lower divergence later in the project, increases the success rate significantly. @Julian
🛻 How Tesla’s Cybertruck Compares with Other Pickups Tesla’s Cybertruck aims to be a unique combination of a high-performance sports car and a rugged pickup truck. Would you consider purchasing one? @Pedro
🤖 The Industrial Content Revolution AI’s leap forward is transforming content creation, shaking up internet authenticity, and fueling a new era of digital innovation. @Pascal
Bits & Pixels
» The Chinese equivalent of Tesla, BYD, unveiled a revolutionary battery design that makes EV batteries more affordable and increases their capacity.
» A lesson in quality control: Just half a millimeter triggered the catastrophic engine failure on Qantas flight 32. Meanwhile, consider rethinking your flying plans due to the air traffic controller shortage impacting flight safety.
» AI pioneer (and realist) Rodney Brooks on three specific things LLMs have made us rethink: the Turing test, Searle’s Chinese room, and Chomsky’s Universal Grammar.
» New study reveals AI’s imitation prowess but highlights a stark gap in innovative thinking compared to human creativity, hinting that learning from children’s curiosity might be key to advancing AI’s real-world exploration.
» Netflix has, for the first time, released a detailed report on their audience’s viewing habits. Since they’ve provided the data in an Excel spreadsheet, it’s ideal material to input into ChatGPT and explore some intriguing questions.
» Affluent consumers are progressively choosing to pay to avoidadvertising, presenting a unique challenge for the industry: How do we engage these consumers? This situation could serve as a fascinating harbinger of the challenges we’ll face in an AI-dominated (online) world.
» Turns out, students are still cheating at their usual rates, even though they have ChatGPT right at their fingertips.
» Initially, it was crypto and blockchain tech; now, it’s AI. Generating a single image with generative AI consumes as much energy as charging your phone.
» An AI transforming your thoughts into text—what could possibly go awry?
» A visual treat: Retool’s “State of AI” report.
Some Fun Stuff
Looks like the great space tomato mystery has finally been solved! 🍅🚀 Astronaut Frank Rubio can breathe easy now that his interstellar snack has been found, not eaten. It’s amazing how a little tomato managed to keep NASA guessing for months. Just goes to show, even in space, you can’t escape the age-old question: ‘Where did I put that again?’ 🌌😄
Quote of the Week
Thanks, dear friend, for all,
’23 beckons with light,
Radically, take flight. 🚀
— ChatGPT