It's been a while, but recently I started noticing a few signals amongst the noise and so I felt the need to put some observations and reflections down.
Over the last couple of years I've spent a lot of time directly experimenting and learning about some of the macro trends of our future (platforms / protocols, open /closed source, ai, climate, food production, workforce, demographics, D2C health et al).
There's been a lot to learn, unlearn, re-learn and evaluate especially if you have an optimism and shiny new thing bias like me! At times, especially in Australia, it's felt isolated too..... not the least when met by closed minds who argue all this 'stuff' is irrelevant or so far off future that we can ignore it....
A line from today's Bankless Opinion piece neatly summarised why I think we need more people, especially in health care, getting curious and taking a long term, strategic and risk focused view of where technology might be sending us:
"Centralized, Web2 AI has massive monopolies over data and compute. They will put all their resources behind the development of their AI models, in order to produce the most generalized & powerful model possible. They will smother competition and constrain innovation. They will go for regulatory capture and try to entrench themselves as best they can..."
There's lots of hype and claims about how AI will be great, especially when paired with a human (AI + human Dr's = progress from the stethoscope, right?!) - and I agree wholeheartedly.... and I also think humans are going to need tools and alternatives to counter the potential for big tech and AI's influence and power.
A wise part of managing future strategic risks will be to place some investment into the alternatives and protections around AI.
So what are these alternatives? Well they're in the development factories & garages getting built....in part they all have features of: decentralisation, open source, encoded governance, user-control (especially of identity and consents), personalisation, gamification, immutable records...and increasingly UX and onboarding that appeals.
The next iteration of projects are emerging in finance, retail, gaming, social networks and science. Health care, as usual, will be a laggard, but there is an increasing awareness in Australia of some aspects like data ownership and communities are starting to take shape. Greatest interoperability technology?? The informed, empowered, engaged patient!!
Now lets agree that we'll see this through a classic bell curve of adoption, and note the population adoption levels of: innovators (5%) to adopters (15%) to early majority (30%).
Here's a few signs these alternatives are shaping up:
Statistica show cryptocurrency users at somewhere between 500m (7%) and 830m 10% of the population...
ASX research: 15% investors hold cryptocurrency, 31% of next gen (under 25yrs)
Immutable's IMVU has over 700k daily users
Farcaster growing 10x over 2 weeks in January, and attracting an early set of adopters
Desci breaking out with influential thinkers, more vision activity and clear narratives
Add to this a few other factors like: today's AI innovations are essentially V1 with the industry too ahead for meaningful regulatory control; major demographic shifts influencing existing and generationally transferred wealth; an upward looking economic outlook (especially in crypto) and there's enough incentive to get curious.
In an era of rapid technological evolution, it's critical that it provides us with tools to retain control and personal agency. The advent of AI and the dominance of big tech companies don't necessarily equate to an oppressive future, but I think we need the decentralization and open source developments to rapidly offer a counterbalance.
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