Augmented: Life in the Smart Lane

este libro es una auténtica ventana para el futuro. De cómo van a ser nuestras vidas de aquí por 5, 10, 30 o más años. Para quienes gustan de saber sobre las revoluciones y avances tecnológicos en varios sectores como salud, automóvil, financiero, transportes, etc. Ya compré 3 libros de estos para ofrecer a amigos y familiares. Brett King consigue resumir y comunicar muy bien todo lo que se está pasando en el mundo y cómo vamos a vivir en el futuro.

After reading Brett King's latest book I feel the need to go and grab a pizza out of the freezer and cook and eat it quickly. Why you might ask ? Quite simply Brett paints a picture of the future where our homes and the world around us will truly be smart and guide us to sensible choices and alert us to all those things that are odd, dangerous or broken. I for one might actually look forward to a London without cab drivers as I hop into a robot cab in a few years time, but I will miss pizza ! One of the most illuminating phrases in the book is a quote from William Gibson; "the future is already here - it's just not evenly distributed". How true that is, I thought I was doing well with a smart watch, a fitness tracker and a learning thermostat, its just the beginning though... Anyway, off to grab that pizza before the freezer locks itself !

I really liked this book because it is obvious that the author made a real and deep work of research [with data graphs etc...] and comparisons through history about the different types of disruptions that occur and had an impact on humanity. I liked it because it covers many areas from social media to nanoscience / renewable energies. I would recommend this book because despite the fact that we agree or don't on some ideas it really helps imagine and take into account many parameters to realize the potential impact of AI in the future of humankind. excellent book!

By @SimonCocking. We recently interviewed Brett King about his thoughts on FinTech, the future of banking and his views on a range of topics (see interview parts I and II). Meanwhile Brett has been keeping himself busy writing, and launching, on May 6th his fifth book “Augmented: Life in the Smart Lane“, which we now review below. Firstly the book is a good read and easily readable. It manages to straddle that tricky challenge of being informative for the tech audience at the same time as being interesting and appealing to a wider general audience too. In the time we had it to review it, the book was picked up and read by a range of other interested people. From 13 year old tech geeks, to managers of major cultural institutions, looking to future proof their own organisations. Which indicates this is a topic that interests a wide range of people. The book begins by taking you through a quick review of the last 250 years of technological innovation, with increasingly shorter cycles of relevance and then obsolescence for different inventions. Moore’s Law, Ray Kuzweil’s predictions of a coming Singularity, and other key trends are all referenced. If you are not familiar with these points of reference they are all explained in a way that again treads carefully between keeping the general reader on board and yet also informing the more tech savvy among the audience. His analysis of the imminent arrival of ubiquitous renewable energies is refreshing and positive. Coming at it from the perspective that cost will drive it’s mass adoption rather than needing to appeal to ecological considerations. King approaches the growth of AI (artificial intelligence) technologies from a similar perspective, namely that adoption will be driven by the fact that machine to machine transactions will simply be more effective and less error prone than human based interactions. Naturally this will have significant implications in terms of what sectors still need to employ humans and which won’t. These parts of the book are well worth reading to future proof your own potential career decisions! Drawing on current trends and their likely implications for the future King also analyses the impacts on transportation. Driverless cars are already with us, but in the future it could also free up large amounts of our time, in our ‘third place’, after home and work. Similarly with AI related quality of life improvements there are some very positive future scenarios for humanity in terms of increased time to pursue what interests us and what we care about, rather than merely living to work. Naturally Skynet and other robot distopias are always a possibility and Brett doesn’t shy away from looking at these possibilities too. Roadmap_AugmentedAge Road map to an Augmented Future, page 434 Without wanting to give too much away this is a good book as it presents an interesting and thought provoking look at our near and further off future. Much of is it plausible, and as he says, he’s not looking to get it all 100% right, but rather to make us aware of the general direction in which our global societies are heading. Well worth a read, and one that you may find other family members reading too. If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at [email protected] or on Twitter: @SimonCocking

This book surveys possible future technologies. Since the author is a technologist there is wild optimism often times, though the future may not be as rosy for everyone!