Fast Future Book

The first book in the Fast Future series explores critical emerging issues arising from the rapid pace of development in artificial intelligence (AI). The authors argue for a forward-looking and conscious approach to the development and deployment of AI to ensure that it genuinely serves humanity's best interest. Through a series of articles, they present a compelling case to get beyond the genuine stupidity of narrow, short-term, and alarmist thinking and look at AI from a long-term holistic perspective. The reality is that AI will impact, current sectors and jobs-and hopefully enable new ones. A smart approach requires us to think about and experiment with strategies for adopting and absorbing the impacts of AI-encompassing education systems, reskilling the workforce, unemployment and guaranteed basic incomes, robot taxes, job creation, encouraging new ventures, research and development to enable tomorrow's industries, and dealing with the mental health impacts. The book explores the potential impacts on sectors ranging from healthcare and automotive to legal and education. The implications for the business itself are also, examined from leadership and HR to sales and business ethics.

The second book in the Fast Future series, The Future Reinvented, explores how our notions of the future are themselves being reinvented. The authors challenge us to reimagine how life, society, key industries, and the conduct of business could be transformed by a combination of radical technological, scientific, social, and economic developments shaping the decade ahead. The Future Reinvented offers unique snapshots of different aspects of a future in which the very tenets of reality are undergoing deep and vital transformations. The book is organized into three sections covering transformations in life and society, industries, and business, and presents holistic future scenarios that encourage strategic thinking about what lies beyond the hype.Using a futurist perspective, The Future Reinvented offers glimpses of the future across a range of business sectors such as legal, automotive, and sales as well as in different areas of everyday life including retirement, education, and health. Readers are presented with vivid imagery which brings to life a number of different possible futures. These include workplace scenarios of people performing side by side with artificial intelligence or robotic colleagues; humans obtaining physical enhancements to become smarter, stronger, or more psychologically resilient; and strategies for how we might live in a "post-jobs world." The book provides a powerful foundation for futures thinking and scenario planning in both a personal and organizational context. The authors identify early warning signals and signposts of critical emerging changes and developments on the horizon that could shape the next future.The Fast Future Book SeriesThe Fast Future series is designed to provide clear and rapid insights into the trends, forces, developments, and ideas shaping the future and the possible scenarios that could arise. Each book contains a collection of short, hard-hitting articles that explore different aspects of the emerging future and how we can respond in a manner that best serves humanity. The books are deliberately intended to be a rapid read-providing the key information the reader needs to get up to speed on future relevant issues-explaining what they are and their possible implications for individuals, society, business, and government.

A VERY HUMAN FUTUREAs society enters the fourth industrial revolution, a major question arises-can we harness intense technological bursts of possibility to bring about a better world? A Very Human Future illustrates how the evolution of society, cities, people, businesses, industries, nations, and governments are being unexpectedly entangled by exponential technological disruption. This is not a book about technology but an exploration of how we make it serve humanity's highest needs and ambitions. Each chapter looks at how new ideas enabled by emerging technologies are straining the old social fabric, and proposes radical future scenarios, strategies, and actions to safeguard humanity from harm and enhance opportunity for all. This book is a manifesto for a future that is better than the past. A Very Human Future rejects an outlook where human beings live a mundane existence while technologies burst with possibility. Rather, we use this book to endorse a proactive approach to the future where technology is designed to benefit humanity purposefully and intentionally. To advocate for A Very Human Future we ask, for example, how do we use technology to overcome gender bias or to impart a meaningful education to new generations? Can artificial intelligence tools make government more trustworthy and help us deal with the impacts of automation replacing humans? What rights should people have when residing in smart cities? The scale of the new technologies requires a protective logic for moving forward, keeping humanity at the centre so that we avoid dehumanizing ourselves and future generations. A Very Human Future is not one, but many: positive stories and visions of the future can be powerful beacons for social adaptation. We argue that the time to control the narrative of the future and stake a claim for humanity is now. A Very Human Future uses knowledge as power, describing surprising ways new thinking and disruptive technology can impact society. This book explains that protecting what's human is the key to retaining our dominance over future technological progress.