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Hello, and welcome to the HORIZON weekly newsletter. Particularly warm greetings to our many new subscribers - please do forward this on to colleagues and connections in your network who would also enjoy the insights.
Below you will find some hand-picked fresh thought-leadership content, giving you an overview of recent developments, topical innovations, and what we're seeing and hearing out there towards the digital frontier.
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Recent articles
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Danger! Irrational exuberance detected.
Irrational exuberance: unfounded market optimism that lacks a real foundation of fundamental valuation, but instead rests on psychological factors.
The term was popularised by the then-Federal Reserve Board chairman, Alan Greenspan, in a 1996 speech addressing the burgeoning Internet bubble in the stock market.
The so-called "Dot-com bubble" ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000.
It then burst; many dot-com startups went out of business after burning through their venture capital and failing to become profitable.
Sound familiar?
Despite the reining zeitgeist, irrational exuberance is equally applicable to Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) today, both in terms of functionality and also valuations.
When you read two former Execs from fabled firm OpenAI are individually raising for their respective new AI startups, pre-product, at valuations rumoured to be in excess of USD$1 billion - something is amiss.
According to a recent report from McKinsey: "...while nearly all companies are investing in AI, only 1% of leaders call their companies “mature” on the deployment spectrum".
Even Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who is renowned for bullishly backing the sector with billions, has offered a reality check.
On a recent podcast he admitted that, right now, AI is generating basically no value (Future Horizon has long posited that Gen AI is economically unproductive).
"Us self-claiming some [artificial general intelligence] milestone, that's just nonsensical benchmark hacking to me" he said.
Furthermore, he stated that so-called AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is not the real benchmark: Nadella argues AI's success should be measured by its benefit to the global economy - specifically 10% economic growth.
With any and all things being labelled as "AI", the market is in danger of becoming a real casino: many tools and services out there already provide an experience akin to a slot machine.
The graphic accompanying this piece was created using Generative AI, and is an illustrative example.
Using the simple prompt "Slot machine for AI prompts" and Bing Image Generator, it took ten iterations - each of which produced four images - to produce this which was deemed good enough.
How apt that it took 40 attempts to get something relatively simple and straightforward correct.
Just like any good casino bristling with surveillance to ensure nothing untoward occurs, AI systems right now require constant supervision.
Senior leaders and Boards are terrified that they will miss the boat and be left behind on AI.
The key message to takeaway is not to abandon AI investments, but to implement mechanisms - ideally with independent, outside-in additional perspectives - to ensure Irrational exuberance is not at play.
Get in touch to explore how we can help your entity to identify a course for future growth and long-term prosperity.
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"I'm pickin' up good vibrations, She's giving me the excitations (oom bop bop)" - song by The Beach Boys, 1967.
As all manner of gadgets permeate increasing aspects of our lives and become more infused with "smart" connected automation, the real risk of nefarious manipulation also increases.
Not just self-driving cars or Artificial Intelligence bots that display agency to book flights for us, but also in distinctly more intimate environments...
Last month the UK government warned that sex toys that use Bluetooth could be vulnerable to being cyber attack by malicious third parties.
Such devices typically pair with a secondary device such as a mobile phone with a companion app, allowing for remote control between partners.
Functions can include vibration settings such as speed and intensity, integration with music, or the in-app exchange of chats, multimedia messages and video calls - all appealing if partners are not in proximity.
Often these connections are insecure (as they are not encrypted), thereby rendering them more vulnerable to interceptions or attack.
Subsequent psychological harm could come from accessing data contained in the app app, disclosing deeply personal information about the user(s).
Such hacking may result in social engineering attacks such as sextortion, or being reported to the authorities in more restrictive regions.
Physical harm is also potentially possible, as the device could possibly be manipulated to cause it to overheat.
If you'll excuse the innuendo, such sex-tech (also sometimes referred to, lamentably, as "sexnology") is...on the rise.
Looking to the future, as more of our apps and devices collect sensitive data in order to become tailored to our preferences, so the risk rises.
Not merely the likes of AI partners for romantic comfort, immersive mixed-reality sex-tech user experiences, or autonomous robots festooned with sensors for more *ahem* physical pleasure.
In case you may be wondering, China is presently the largest market worldwide for sex dolls, followed by the USA, Japan, and Germany.
It is important to note that exploiting sex toys to gain users’ data is not just something that has occurred in contemporary times.
In 2016 the company behind the popular "We-Vibe" adult toy faced legal action after it materialised the business was collecting data without the consent of its users.
Needless to say, if a manufacturer finds value via insight into the usage statistics and patterns of its unknowing customers...then criminals surely will do too.
More broadly, we also need to consider use cases such as toys for children, or devices designed to address the needs for women's health.
Ultimately, any connected but under-secured Internet of Things (IoT) device can be exploited if not adequately managed for authentication and authorisation to ensure adequate privacy.
If you got this far, hopefully it wasn't a turn-off!
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In our near future designer food will become as ubiquitous as designer handbags are today.
Agri-tech firm Tropic may soon be making advanced biotechnology research available on a shelf near you, with the world's first non-browning gene-edited bananas.
This revolutionary new variety that not only stays fresh after peeling but apparently maintains the classic taste, aroma, and sweetness.
Note these do not fall under the title of GMO (Genetically Modified Organism); they edit non-coding genes with small changes via traditional gene editing tools like CRISPR.
Bananas are the world’s favourite fruit, with over 100 billion bananas consumed globally every year - making up approximately 75% of the annual tropical fruit trade.
For decades, the banana industry has relied on a single clone of the Cavendish subgroup of the AAA banana cultivar group.
Why? Disease resistance.
The previous dominant banana variety, the Gros Michel, was devastated by the Panama fungal disease in the mid-20th century.
Cavendish bananas were initially resistant to this disease, making them a safer choice for commercial cultivation.
However, over time the Cavendish has also become vulnerable - due to a lack of genetic diversity.
As bananas have been bred to be farmed (containing no seeds), they can no longer reproduce on their own; they can thus only be reproduced by planting off-shoots of the parent plant.
Cavendish has been under threat for many years from a disease known as TR4 which decimates crops; Tropic is active in field trials on fruit that is resistant to this fungus.
As well as increasing resistance to browning once cut and resisting TR4, Tropic is also experimenting with nuanced gene knock-out to improve the shelf-life of bananas; keeping them fresher for longer.
If bananas stay greener for longer, you can harvest them later, ship them for longer, and reduce packaging and chilled transportation costs.
Tropic is also actively working on edited coffee and rice variations.
Being able to harness biotechnology to edit the genes of food may also be a path to increased yields, plus robustly respond to a changing climate in order to sustain the supply of food.
In the future, thanks to frontier technology you thus might find green bananas more...appealing.
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Thank-you for reading and being part of our community - we trust you find these original pieces on emerging technology and digital innovation useful, valuable, and thought-provoking as we bridge the gap between today and what future tech might bring tomorrow in Plain English.
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