Tag: technology

THE FURORE-ING TWENTIES: My Thoughts On The New Decade Ahead

Posted on by Nicholas Peart

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As we leave the 2010s and head into a new decade, I naturally like to meditate on what the next ten years will have in store for the world. Approximately ten years ago to this day I was in Peru in the Andean town of Huaraz. Back then my eyes were not so open and I couldn’t see beyond my own little self-created bubble of rock n roll, existential literature and nomadic travelling. I had little to no understanding about global politics, technology and the financial system.

Predicting the future is hard enough. Very often, the predictions that turn out to come true are ridiculed from the start. If I were to say to a group of fellow travellers at some bar in Huaraz on New Years Eve 2009 that during the following decade Donald Trump would become president of the USA and that there would be a referendum in the UK where the UK would vote to leave the EU, they would have looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

What do I think will happen in the 2020s? I think it will be a very interesting decade where lots of changes will occur.

I will begin with the financial markets. As of now, many stock markets are at all time high levels. The 2010s has been an absolutely stellar decade for US stock markets, especially the NASDAQ. Back in 2009, towards the end of the financial crisis, the NASDAQ was trading below 1500 points. Today, it’s close to hitting 9000 points. That’s a six-fold increase within the space of a decade. The question now of course is, will this rally continue or are markets in danger of crashing? When I try to make my own predictions, I like to also gauge what the general consensus is. On social and traditional media sites, there seems to be no shortage of videos and articles predicting that 2020 will be the year when markets are going to crash. With such an overwhelming consensus, I, naturally, have to re-evaluate my own thoughts and vision.

The important point is that for all of the 2010s since the 2007-9 financial crisis, interest rates have been at very low levels. In some countries they are now at negative levels. The consequence of this has been that since the 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse, total global debt levels have increased by almost 50% from $173 trillion to $255 trillion. This era of cheap money has played a large role in this decade long stock market boom. Instead of trying to predict when the next crash will occur, it may be better to predict when interest rates will finally return to more normal levels. My feeling is that this is not going to happen anytime soon and that interest rates will, at least in the short run, continue to fall even if they breach negative territory (as they already have in some countries). This will be bad news for trying to reduce the already gigantic levels of global debt. Debt will only just continue to increase and stock markets will continue to rise, until the moment when inflation will kick in, which will immediately trigger central banks to raise interest rates.

Throughout the 2010s, gold has never dipped below $1000 per troy ounce. It has always remained above that level. At the start of the millennium, 1 troy ounce of gold was trading between just $250-300. It was almost as if it were considered obsolete, a relic from another age. With hindsight one can shoot down in flames the UK’s former chancellor Gordon Brown for selling off half of the UKs gold reserves back in 2001 at such low prices. Yet at the time, gold just wasn’t on many people’s radars save for a small selection of far-sighted individuals. As the 2000s chugged on, the price of gold went on a phenomenal ascent breaching $1000. By the end of 2011, just 2-3 years after the financial crisis, the price of gold nearly hit $1900 an ounce . As of today, the price of gold is hovering around the $1500 an ounce mark.

Why does all this matter? It matters, because I believe in the 2020s precious metals will do very well due to the extraordinary circumstances we are facing with record levels of global debt, perpetually low/falling interest rates and stock markets showing no signs of slowing down. The ‘kicking the can down the road’ mantra can only go on for so long until eventually the music will have to be faced.

But it’s not just fragile economic circumstances that will contribute towards precious metals doing well. Political circumstances will also play their role. In continental Europe, populist governments will continue to rise as will government spending. The economic situation in several Eurozone countries remains very precarious and this could lead to the Eurozone facing a genuine existential crisis. There are vast financial imbalances between the major Eurozone countries. During the last Eurozone crisis at the start of the 2010s, the European Central Bank (ECB) was able to utilize monetary tools such as Quantitative Easing to stimulate flagging Eurozone economies thus saving the Eurozone. The question now is if the Eurozone were to face another such crisis, would the ECB this time be able to successfully avoid a disastrous situation? It is trickier now for two reasons. Firstly, the Eurozone is carrying much more debt than before. Many Eurozone banks also continue to remain in dire shape. Secondly, the discontent of citizens in Eurozone member counties and the rise of populist parties in these countries could only exacerbate and make worse any already fragile/vulnerable situations.

Another thing that will be interesting to see is how the whole Brexit saga is going to play out in the coming months. What kind of a trade deal will be negotiated between the UK and the European Union? Will there even be a deal? If the UK were to leave the EU completely with no deal, it’s likely that the burden of keeping the EU together (and contributing more money towards it to keep it going) would fall increasingly more on Germany and to a lesser degree on France. This would put the entire future of the EU project in a very difficult position, especially if the German economy were to fall into a recession due to factors such as additional tariffs on the bulk of its exports as well as the very real prospect of a substantial government bailout to save two of the country’s largest banks; Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank.

It pains me to say that the 2020s could very well see the first stages of the Eurozone being dismantled followed by the EU itself. I am praying that such a situation doesn’t happen, but I feel this may unfortunately become a reality. A breakup of the EU could lead to Russia gaining much more dominance in the region with some former EU countries forging stronger ties with Russia. At the same time, I can also foresee some of the southern European Eurozone countries, especially Italy and Spain (which, like Germany, also have large manufacturing industries), experiencing multi-year long economic booms once they have their own currency (which they will be able to devalue and thus re-gain their economic competitive advantage). Whilst the German economy benefited greatly from adopting the Euro currency, the Euro hurt the economic competitiveness of other major Eurozone countries such as Italy, Spain and to a lesser degree even France.

One of my boldest and most off-the-wall predictions would be to say that the USA will experience a taste of some kind of socialism at some point in the 2020s. I feel there’s a high probability that, as unlikely as it may currently seem with the impeachment inquiry hanging over him, Trump will manage to secure a second term in power in 2020. However, his second term will be more challenging than his first. It is also highly likely that the long-awaited stock market crash that everyone is predicting will happen at some point during his second term. And when it does occur it will be very painful and cause another economic recession. In the wake of this, it is possible that many of Trump’s most loyal supporters begin to turn against him. By the time of the 2024 elections in the USA, I think the Democrat party will have moved more to the left just as has happened with the Labour Party in the UK over the last few years. By the time of the 2024 US elections, I envisage the Democrats winning the election with a barely tested transformational socialist agenda. By 2024, many of Trump’s traditional Midwest supporter base, who will have felt let down and failed by him, will opt for any kind of new change regardless of the consequences.

Any kind of future socialism though will likely not be like the socialism of the past, but more a kind of technological socialism. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the internet didn’t even exist, and it was possible to easily control information. The world was a much larger place. A future kind of socialism could be one where technology is so advanced that everyone’s most basic needs are all provided for and there is no need to perform any repetitive jobs or tasks. Technological socialism within the paradigm of a post-work or post-scarcity society. However, this kind of a vision is still some way off.

The truth is, in the coming years ahead, one is likely to witness an increasing number of savvy and hyper aware Millennial and younger Gen Z politicians come to the fore, who will want to change the rules. In the United States, the politician Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is a prelude and prime example of those next generation politicians who will eventually rise to prominent positions of power.

The 2020s will be a decade of exponential technological progress. The implementation of 5G networks will be crucial and integral towards the development of the so-called Internet Of Things, where every electronic device – be it your electronic household devices, street lights, transportation vehicles etc – is connected to the internet. Once this has been further developed, the transition from Smartphones to Smartglasses with enhanced Augmented Reality capabilities will become more of a reality and I predict this transition will begin to bear fruit from around the mid to end part of the 2020s.

In one of my very first blog posts back in 2016, I made a moonshot prediction that by the beginning of the 2020s, every household would have a 3D printer. It seems that I got that prediction horribly wrong. Back in 2013/14 there was quite a bit of hype around 3D printing and how it would revolutionise manufacturing. I am still a big believer in 3D/4D printing or however one wishes to call it. Such a technology makes it possible for anyone to print any physical thing no matter where in the world they may be.

The 2020s will also be a decade to watch regarding the development of Space Exploration and Sustainable/Renewable Energy. Elon Musk is at the fore of those developments with his companies Tesla and SpaceX. Most people who are aware of Tesla view it as a company that sells high priced electric vehicles. Yet the mission of Tesla is to transition the world away from fossil fuels. The building of its giga-factories in various locations around the world will enable Tesla to develop a level of scale to successfully achieve its mission. In many financial circles, lots of investors and analysts have been predicting that Tesla will go to zero. Lots of people have been betting against Elon Musk. However, I feel that such a move is unwise. I believe that Tesla will ultimately succeed in its mission and will become a very valuable and important company.

The 2020s will also see quite a lot of activity from Musk’s other company SpaceX. I think that SpaceX will lead the way in the nascent space industry and be responsible for dramatically reducing the costs of space exploration. The last part is very important as its currently prohibitively expensive to launch even just a satellite into space. Hence that’s why there are not many players operating in this industry due to high costs and high barriers to entry. In the 2020s, we are likely to see via SpaceX, the greatest accomplishments in the space industry since 1969 when the first person landed on the moon. The mission of SpaceX’s Starship rocket is to transport people to Mars and create a permanent human colony there. Using ground-breaking bioengineering innovations, the goal is to turn Mars into a planet similar to Earth (via the process of ‘terraforming’), with a climate and atmosphere containing vegetation and oceans and the right temperature and levels of oxygen for living organisms to flourish. Although all this is highly unlikely to occur as early as the 2020s, the next decade may well see the beginnings of the initial stages of such a mission coming into fruition.

However, one SpaceX project to keep an eye on in the near future is Starlink. This project involves sending lots of satellites into low orbit to beam down high-speed internet on all corners of the world, event the most remote corners. The last point is very important. Even though billions of people are already connected to the internet, there are billions of people living in remote and undeveloped parts of the world with no access to it. Currently, almost all of our wi-fi and telecommunications networks come from land-based cell towers. A mass adoption of super strong satellite beaming internet would be a real game-changer in the next level of network/internet connectivity, as it has the potential to enable everyone in all corners of the world to have access to a high-speed internet connection.

It will be interesting to also see how cryptocurrencies/blockchain technology will evolve in the 2020s. Lots of people invest in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin hoping that the price will go higher, yet what does the future hold for cryptocurrencies? My greatest fear is that increasing government regulation will affect the development and performance of the main cryptocurrencies. In an article from earlier this year, I wrote about certain cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin and Zcash acting as a store of value. Many people also tout Bitcoin as a form of digital gold and some even say that it will disrupt physical gold as a store of value. I fear that such a situation is unlikely to occur and that Bitcoin will likely never again see the highs it witnessed at the end of 2017.

Privacy coins, especially Monero, have long been a thorn in the side of governments around the world. Of all the privacy coins, the one I am keen to watch is Zcash (where privacy is just an option – transactions can be shielded or unshielded), especially since I think it is currently fundamentally undervalued compared to other privacy coins. Furthermore, the other advantage it has is that, unlike many other cryptocurrencies, it was created by professional academic cryptographers.

The underlying blockchain technology itself will continue to evolve, and I can see further development of so called ‘stablecoins’ (which are not prone to fluctuate madly in value) becoming more widely adopted. One project I am interested to see manifest is Facebook’s own digital Libra currency. Facebook has the unique advantage of unbelievable network effects with over 2.4 billion users from around the world. So, Facebook simply introducing its own digital currency, means at least a third of the world’s total population potentially using it. This could be a huge benefit for Facebook users in countries with unstable currencies. However, I fear that the implementation of Facebook’s Libra currency will be met with lots of opposition from governments around the world who may fear that it will pose a threat to the stability and performance of their very own national currencies.

In fact, there is a big chance that at some point during the next decade both Facebook and Google/Alphabet will face even higher amounts of regulation by governments around the world with the very real possibility of both these companies eventually being broken up. This kind of regulation as well as the more extreme break-up threats will likely begin to kick off in a big way in Europe and could further manifest in the USA itself if a left-wing Democrat party politician (with an anti-billionaire, anti-Big Tech agenda) where to come to power in the 2024 elections in the USA. However, taking an axe to both Facebook and Google could also have the effect of further empowering their Chinese rivals, Tencent and Baidu. It could well be that Facebook and Google’s loss become Tencent’s and Baidu’s gain.

So, these are my thoughts for the coming new decade. Reading them over again, they can seem to oscillate wildly from overly pessimistic to naively optimistic with scant middle ground. When writing these predictions, I tried very hard to overcome any well ingrained cognitive biases by envisaging potential events that could likely occur even if I don’t want them to happen and/or they are against my beliefs and values. In a sense, this is also a kind of experiment and I expect to get several of my predictions completely wrong. Yet I feel that the unexpected black swan events we all witnessed throughout the 2010s will continue into the 2020s taking many by surprise.

 

By Nicholas Peart

27th December 2019

©All Rights Reserved

 

 

 

 

SOURCES/FURTHER READING

https://mises.org/wire/150-years-bank-credit-expansion-nearing-its-end

https://www.ccn.com/edward-snowden-zcash-interesting-bitcoin-alternative/

 

Image: aitorvz

 

 

THE TRUE SINGULARITY: A Universe Of Unlimited Abundance And Eternal Harmony

Posted on by Nicholas Peart

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The Singularity is a term referring to the point when Artificial Intelligence (or more specifically Artificial General Intelligence) will be at the same level as human intelligence. I feel that the term is often misunderstood and many people find the prospect of this dystopian and dehumanising. Technology has already changed our lives in unprecedented ways. When I think of technology, I don’t just think of hardware or software. For me, technology means problem solving or finding a much needed solution to a glaring limitation. When seen through this lens, it is clear that technology enhances and assists our lives. The world is much more connected then ever before and we have many applications (most of which are free) at our disposal to help us save time and money.

The beginnings of the first industrial revolution in the 18th century, via the inventions of the steam engine, spinning jenny and power loom, dramatically reduced the number of hours traditional labourers worked. This period was an unprecedented gamechanger in the evolution of humanity. Then the invention of the railroad, the development of an advanced network of roads, the move from the horse and cart to the automobile, the invention of electricity and the lightbulb negating the need for candles and oil lamps, the invention of the aeroplane, the invention of the radio and the telephone, and then the television and later the internet; the invention of all these things created solutions, made our lives easier, saved everyone time and money and enhanced the connectivity of the world.

For some, the Singularity is solely based around this concept of AI matching human levels of intelligence and the potential end of the human race. What many forget to understand are all the benefits of AI. Instead of this doom and gloom future, I see the continued development and enhancement of AI contributing to a more prosperous and peaceful world. I believe that technology via AI will make all jobs obsolete. A Post-Work society is unavoidable. Many people worry about such a situation and its perfectly understandable. Yet they are worrying about it from the limited paradigm of our current economic model of global capitalism. Lets try to view the bigger picture. What if technology became so advanced that it were to, by default, make economics and money obsolete? In a world where nothing is exclusive and all physical goods and services are unlimited and at zero cost, since technologies such as 3D/4D Printing, AI and data creation and mining, Nanotechnology, Genetic Engineering and Robotics would have contributed towards making such a world like this a reality.

In today’s world, most people’s primary worries are economic. Followed by their physical and emotional wellbeing. Followed by their hopes, dreams, desires and ambitions. A world of an unlimited abundance of everything at no cost would take care of our economic worries. A common worry of such a post-work Singularity future is how a lot of people who always had jobs would begin to develop serious psychological problems since much of their identity was always traditionally defined by their job. Yet when I envisage the Singularity and super advanced AI, I also believe that by that time every single cell in the body of each one of us will be completely understood at the most minute level. Each one of our bodies will be like smart data machines with highly advanced algorithms continually keeping track of the entire physical and emotional health of our body, and enabling us to maintain perfect optimum health via the nano-signalling and detection of decaying cells and any irregular and abnormal behaviour in our nervous system. Nobody would ever become ill or develop serious illnesses such as cancer. Our bodies will be merged and upgraded with technology. The latest AI developments will be merged in our own bodies. Everyone will be a SMART hyperconnected entity. And I would even go as far as saying that this would negate the need to eat, drink, sleep, experience temperature fluctuations or fatigue. Our consciousness and memory would be preserved, stored and enhanced. Yet all the limitations and shortcomings of our physical sensations would be transcended by technology. This technology won’t numb us or kill our empathy (I would even argue that it will augment our empathy and consciousness in unprecedented ways), but it will protect us from many mental health issues, which currently affect so many people around the world. Mental health will cease to be invisible as it is today and will be just as clear as our physical health. There will be no chasm between the two. 

Furthermore technology extends to providing solutions to bigger issues, beyond paving the way for transhumanism and a post-work and post-capitalist society. Climate change and global environmental pollution (such as air, land and sea pollution) can all be reversed by technology. Technology has the power to eradicate all the plastic and polluting debris in our oceans. Technology has the power to purify the air in large cities. Dare I say technology even has the power to replenish and restore the environmental balance of the world.  One day technology will enable humanity to be an interplanetary and intergalactic species.

In short, technology has the power to create solutions to all our current problems we experience today. It is easy to be cynical and look at how technology can also be destructive but if we are looking at technology in all its totality in providing solutions to all the most pressing struggles and limitations faced by many, then a post-work, post-scarcity, limitless, prosperous, and a perfectly level and peaceful world is more than achievable.

 

By Nicholas Peart

(c)All Rights Reserved 

 

Image: acekreations

Solutions Solutions Solutions

Posted on by Nicholas Peart

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There are many problems and challenges facing the world and no shortage of writers and journalists in the media who are only too willing to heighten our awareness of all these issues. What there is a shortage of though, are individuals finding solutions to all these issues.

Talk is cheap. Withering, junk-food grade criticism is even cheaper. I am forever bored of writing that amplifies the problems of the world without shedding at least a mere pinhole of light and solutions to these problems. This is one of the reasons why I am turned on by hearing and learning about new and emerging technologies, because more often than not they provide solutions to most of these problems. They also enable me to foresee a future that is not as dire as what is often projected in much of the media.

For example, a very real and pressing social issue in the UK is the underfunding of the National Health Service and the uncertain future it currently faces. This is a huge concern as private healthcare can be very expensive and not everyone can afford it. This is especially true across the pond in the USA, where healthcare is notoriously costly. The biggest solution I see to making healthcare cheaper, more abundant and available is the further development of new and emerging technologies. Many fear the rise of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. But the development of both these two technologies will bring unprecedented benefits in the race to making healthcare not only more affordable (or even almost free) but more advanced too. Imagine robotic surgeons much more advanced than human surgeons – they don’t get nervous or stressed, they can analyze the entire human body at the molecular level and perform surgeries with nano precision. Already robotic surgery devices exist yet the scope for further development is limitless. Nanotechnology will play a very important role in understanding the entire body at the celular level and will be revolutionary in enabling everyone to maintain optimum health at all times without any viruses and damaged cells occurring. And all this can be managed via a digital application or chip without intervention from a finite supply of human doctors. I could go on but it is solutions like these to a current and real crisis that give hope and enable one to re-evaluate their hard wired negative perceptions of a situation.

Worried about the rising costs of education? Virtual Reality will be a huge game changer. This will be an enormous boon in parts of the world where there is a limited supply of teachers. With VR you won’t even need to physically step into a bricks and mortar learning institution.

There are many parts of the world, which lack enough of the right type of land to grow crops. Vertical farming is one of the potential solutions especially at the aeroponic level where crops can be grown simply via the nutrients in the air. It is still a technology that is very much in its infancy yet would reduce global hunger levels dramatically once it gets to a stage where it is much more advanced.

These are just a few solutions. I am no engineer, scientist or inventor, but knowing that these are very real solutions with the capacity to eradicate many of the most pressing global problems fills me with hope and optimism for the future. It sure beats being constantly fed the broken-record narrative in much of the news about how awful things are and that they are only going to get worse.

 

By Nicholas Peart

(c)All Rights Reserved

 

 

 

 

A World Where Everybody Is An Entrepreneur Doing Something They Love

Posted on by Nicholas Peart

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This is an article I originally posted on Elixtacy on July 10th 2017

 

We are currently living in a time of great technological transformations. The internet has created enormous opportunities for individuals, entrepreneurs and businesses. The most clear game changer with the internet is the direct peer to peer contact it offers with all kinds of people from all around the world. It creates a fabulous opportunity to develop an online business or project in something you truly love and enjoy. In the process, you get to directly connect with many different people finding potential fans and clients who appreciate, love and value what you are doing.

 

Moving away from old Industrial Age model jobs

Currently many people are still stuck in Industrial Age jobs. These jobs are often of a repetitive nature even if, for now, they may provide a stable income and job security. And it could be argued that many people who do these kind of jobs don’t enjoy them (even if they may pretend that they do) and do them purely for the money. Yet these are the jobs most at risk from automation. These are not just jobs in the retail, manufacturing, construction, transport and basic service industries but also high skilled jobs in the legal, financial and, ironically, even tech industries (there will come a time when AI will be able to do most of the programming/data analysing jobs and create better software than humans can).

 

Tapping into your creativity 100%

When the above scenario occurs, instead of the dystopian reality that many predict, people will have a great opportunity to develop a business or project doing something they truly love. They will be using their creativity 100%. They will have to. They will have no other choice. It will be the most important “commodity” we have to offer. The alternative option is to be part of a society of “useless people” (a most disempowering term) who constantly lament about how they used to have a solid job and no longer have it due to automation. These are people who sadly haven’t tapped into their creative resources and the immense power within themselves. Instead they fail to change/adapt and are constantly stuck in the past. A very sad state of affairs but it doesn’t have to be like this!

 

The importance of using your initiative

In our current society only a small segment of the population use their initiative. Most people are crippled by fear, anxiety and low levels of self esteem to take the initiative to start their own business or project. They are more comfortable applying for a limited and dwindling supply of jobs. But one day in the future everyone may be forced to use their initiative. Yet it will be by utilising their creative gifts to their fullest capacity. After automation has made obsolete many jobs in existence our creativity will be king and the entire global economy will be full of individual entrepreneurs and startups all utilising their creativity and operating in something they love, which even benefits and contributes to society in a meaningful way. It will be a truly pure and direct sharing economy of people interacting and transacting with their unique services.

 

By Nicholas Peart

(c)All Rights Reserved

How Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality technologies will transform education

Posted on by Nicholas Peart

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This is a piece I wrote back in May 2017 on how new technologies could enhance, change and revolutionise the education system

 

One of the true benefits of virtual reality technology is how it is going to impact education. Already there are online courses offered by educational websites such as Coursera. This is a godsend for those who not only can’t afford physical onsite education, but also for those who don’t have enough time and flexibility to always commute to a physical institution. For some, time is actually more valuable than money.

 

Digitising the class room

The real game changer will be when all classes and lectures are recorded and then stored online. Some university lectures are already filmed and made available online but I can see this increasing not just with university lectures but also with typical school classes. This is helpful not just for students who are unable to turn up to some classes/lectures but also for students who did attend the classes/lectures yet want to recap on what was already discussed.

If one can’t physically attend classes because they are unwell, they can catch up via the growing archives of recorded classes. Also if they are not too unwell, they can attend a class virtually in live real time via their VR headsets while resting in bed. They can even participate.

 

 

On site teachers augmented by AR, VR and virtual assistants

Also whilst being present in a classroom one could use Augmented Reality glasses (the original 2012 Google Glass was the earliest example of this technology), which are poised to be brought to the mass consumer market soon, to enhance the learning experience as the teacher is talking. The AR glasses could have intelligent speech recognition sensors which pick up on everything the teacher is saying and pick up crucial words and sentences and create visual examples in the students field of vision as an extension of what the teacher is conveying. In addition the sensors could contain algorithms which translates everything the teacher is saying into key bitesize points with several links to relevant related websites for further research and reading.

Intelligent virtual teacher assistants, especially one which one could have an intelligent and deep two way conversation with (given time) is the holy grail of VR and AI in truly transforming the education system. This is not to say that teachers are replaceable. On the contrary, truly inspirational teachers will always be needed regardless of the quantum leaps made in the field of AI. It’s just that teachers are human and one can only consort with their teachers for so much time. Whereas with virtual teacher assistants, one has 24/7 access to them. Struggling with some research at 2am and want to talk to talk to someone? Even your favourite teacher will not want to be disturbed at such an ungodly hour yet your virtual teacher assistant will always be available.

The hybrid situation of having both on site human teachers and virtual teacher assistants is more likely to seriously enhance the educational system and one’s own learning development than turn it upside down. As I’ve already mentioned, good inspirational teachers will always be needed but teachers who periodically don’t make the grade and don’t have their heart in educating and empowering their students will struggle against virtual teachers systematically becoming more intelligent as time marches on.

 

Virtual teachers designed for primary schools

What’s more, I think virtual teacher assistants will be crucial for primary school education. In my view, it is not very wise to expose children under the age of five to too much (if not any) technology. Yet after that age, virtual immersive teacher assistants may truly assist that stage of the education system. Teaching young children can be very challenging and it takes a unique teacher with vast reserves of energy and a special knack to truly connect to them and get their attention. Most of the time teaching children of that age group can be an incredibly gruelling and trying experience. As a result there is sometimes a severe shortage of good teachers. An intelligent and highly interactive virtual teaching assistant which children love to connect with could revolutionise and be a godsend to the primary school sector.

 

Understanding something better by being totally immersed in it

Children with a short attention span invariably struggle to absorb what a teacher may be trying to get across. Especially if the teacher is explaining things in a boring and uninspired manner. The best way for a child to understand and grasp something is to be fully thrust in that environment. This is where virtual reality can seriously revolutionise the whole education/learning experience. During a history lesson, a film depicting the horrors of the Second World War will likely move most people, but to actually live and feel it vicariously via VR technology could very effectively help people better understand that period of history far more effectively than through books, traditional storytelling and 2D visuals via film and TV.

I think there is a huge market for VR technology to recreate virtually certain periods in history to give people the opportunity to better understand them. In addition to this, there are countless more opportunities for VR (especially when it is more advanced at replicating our sense of touch, taste and smell) to recreate any environments for people to immerse themselves in.

 

By Nicholas Peart

©All Rights Reserved

Image Source: www.nbnco.com.au

 

How 3D Printing Could Be The Biggest Thing To Affect Our Lives Since The Internet

Posted on by Nicholas Peart

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I’ve been very interested in 3D Printing for a few years now. What fascinates me the most about this technology is the awesome and unlimited potential it has. Currently it is still at a very embryonic stage in terms of its development but, like the internet before it, its potential is enormous. 3D Printing has the power to transform and effect many different industries. I am listing a few of these industries below.

 

The Manufacturing Industry

This is the industry which I think will be most affected by 3D Printing. Already large segments of the global mass manufacturing industry are automated via Robotics and AI. As 3D Printing develops and evolves more and more, it will be able to greatly increase the productivity of this industry and even contribute towards automating it to even greater levels than robotics. In fact, 3D Printing may even have the power to completely disrupt the entire mass manufacturing industry. This is especially true after this technology has become truly mainstream and every home not just has a basic 3D printer, but one that is capable of printing almost any kind of 3D object imaginable using just the basic raw materials. Once 3D Printing has got to this stage of development and has matured as an important consumer technology, then one could say that every household is a factory. People would be able to create and customise any physical good they want through simply taking the designs of the products and applying them to the 3D printer. This could severely disrupt businesses whose business model is based mostly on manufacturing goods, especially at the mass level.

 

The Construction Industry

The construction industry is the next obvious industry to be affected by 3D Printing after the manufacturing industry. As with the manufacturing industry, it has the potential to increase efficiency and productivity as well as save costs and time. The construction industry is also a potentially dangerous industry for human labour and any building physically constructed by humans will always be vulnerable to flaws and errors. Yet 3D Printing with a double dose of robotics and strong AI has the potential to create buildings more robust and in less time than humans can and without the labour costs involved. And as these technologies develop further, it will be possible to 3D print entire cities. And why stop at building on dry land? Perhaps one day in the distant future when these technologies are at a level far greater than our comprehension, it may even be possible to 3D print domed cities under water. A crazy notion but with out of this world technology anything is possible.

 

The Medical Industry

The medical industry and our lives and health have the power to be greatly augmented by 3D printing. Already the technology has the ability to print prosthetic arms and legs. Yet 3D printed bones and organs are a real possibility. 3D printed organs will already reduce the enormous waiting list of patients waiting for organ transplants, especially for kidneys and livers. And what if the 3D printed organs were more developed and healthy than the healthiest of donated organs? 3D Printing combined with other groundbreaking emerging technologies in the biotech sector like stem cell technology, genetic engineering and nanotechnology have the power to achieve this.

 

I am looking forward to experiencing how 3D Printing will further develop and more importantly how it will greatly assist and make our lives easier as well as being an amazing resource to make our lives more efficient and aid us in reaching greater heights. Already there are a number of growing 3D Printing start ups and businesses all trying to further develop this amazing technology.

What is becoming increasingly clear with the way emerging technologies are developing, and will develop, is that our ideas and creativity will be our greatest assets. These technologies will help us expand our ideas and creativity and realise them to the greatest levels possible.

 

By Nicholas Peart

©All Rights Reserved

Art And Living In The Digital World

Posted on by Nicholas Peart

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This is an essay I wrote towards the end of 2014 about being an artist and living in the context of our digital world. I have made a few changes since then but the general gist of the essay remains the same.

 

Today art can be split into two categories; “Pre-Internet” and “Post-Internet” art.

All the important and influential art movements are all of the Pre-Internet age. It seems to me that in this current Post-Internet age, there are no real lasting and meaningful art movements. There are of course many interesting artists today creating challenging and original works of art via digital media and who are very much in tune with the zeitgeist and more power to them. Yet there is something I long for which I feel is missing. And this is not strictly limited to artists and art. This applies to (and perhaps to a much greater degree) general living.

Before the internet the main media sources were television/video, the telephone, the radio and the printing press. The internet is all this and much much more. It enables us access to diverse and limitless quantities of information. In order to source information before the internet, most people went to libraries and even these institutions were no guarantee that you would find the specific information you were looking for. But with the internet almost all kinds of information can be accessed without having to travel to libraries or even spend valuable time and money employing people to find certain bits of information. Access to information has been truly democratised (assuming everyone has an internet connection) since the development and growth of the World Wide Web.

Today we have a whole plethora of internet related social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube etc. to communicate/express ourselves through. Before the internet, the only possible ways to communicate with one another apart from face to face, were via the telephone, fax, telegram or via mail (in the form of letter writing which save for a few dedicated souls is well and truly six feet underground as an art). The channels of far flung communication were limited. People were more in the woods with regards to what was happening globally.
People did not lose themselves or devote much of their time to living in “electronic virtual reality”. People actually spent much time reading books, spending their free time outside, having real relationships (we still have real relationships but these are decreasing and I believe in the wake of “hyper-immersive 3D virtual reality” more and more people will be cutting themselves off and almost be living at least half of their entire existence in this new type of virtual world. More and more people will even cease having sexual relationships since the stimulated virtual way will feel even better than the real thing).

Via the array of social media sites there are many different groups that artists join. Too many groups. A humongous vertigo-inducing fragmentation of different groups. In the context of today’s world, everything changes faster than before. This is a faster world. News travels faster. There is less mystery. Life is documented more than ever before. Through the internet, everyone can now express themselves. There are more artists today than before. Art or being an artist is not something that is taboo or contentious anymore. Things that may have been considered ‘renegade’ or less accepted in the past such as being an artist, a musician or traveling around the world are now accepted and quite conventional. To travel around the world for a year as part of a ‘gap year’ is now the done thing.

I think that to be a true artist (a most overused weird) in this current digital age is to leave no traces; no evidence of art or living. To disappear and be an eternal apparition.

Often I don’t have the guts or the humility to leave no traces. There is something intricately hardwired in me about having to ‘be somebody’. Yet as the great Indian sage Juddi Krishnamurti once said, ‘the moment we want to be someone we are no longer free’

 

By Nicholas Peart

Originally written on 27th December 2014

(All rights reserved)

 

Image source: http://www.blouinartinfo.com