Recently, I was invited on Bonnie D. Graham’s show, “YOU on Technology Revolution: The Future of Now” Radio. It was tremendous fun. Bonnie’s a great hostess and played the panel well. I was a bit hesitant about the show. The other three guests were all high-power players at the tops of their respective fields. Bonnie is an excellent conversationalist and kept things moving and subtly got us to engage with the other panel members as much as we talked to her.
You can check it out here.
Bonnie asked each of the panelists for two things that were unusual. We had to provide them a couple of weeks in advance. The first was a quote. It could be from a book, movie, song, poem, TV show, etc., and we had to provide the source. The second request was for 4 predictions. They couldn’t be political, and they had to be specific, including time frames. Depending on how the show was going, Bonnie would ask us to unpack at least one of our predictions, maybe all four. We ended up having time for two.
The first person was Virginia Vargas, founder of Shaboo Prints. She has melded Augmented Reality with physical art. She quoted James T. Kirk, from The Original Series episode, The Corbomite Maneuver. She got my attention immediately. Trek and AR? What’s not to love? (BTW, I’m going to count this as a vote on the Feral poll, Trek now leads 4-1.)
Here’s the quote:
“There’s no such thing as the unknown – only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood.”
I got to go second. My quote was from The Sounds of Silence. Originally a Simon & Garfunkel song, I actually prefer Disturbed’s remake. A bit more gritty, I think, and more appropriate for this time.
We went around the panel talking about the quotes then moved on to predictions. With the time limits, we only talked about two each. Here are all four of mine:
Prediction 1:
Within 10 years, we will see a resurgence in nuclear power with new plants planned, or under construction, in the United States because green technologies won’t be able to keep up with demand.
Prediction 2:
AIs – Artificial Intelligences – will become pervasive and capable to the point that most call center jobs will be done by AIs within the next 7 years, and customers won’t know that they’re talking to a machine.
Prediction 3:
Augmented Reality, or semi-transparent Virtual Reality, will surpass console gaming and will have large-scale facilities, such as Houston’s Astrodome, dedicated to it within 5 years. The tech is already very close. The biggest holdback is going to be liability.
Prediction 4:
Genetic editing of embryos will become commonplace within 10 years, at least for major diseases. Editing for traits, such as eye color, or height, will come later.
I won’t cover the other quotes and predictions – they’re in the show. I will add another prediction:
Prediction 5:
Within one month, I will finish Carol Novello’s book, Mutual Rescue, and review it here. Maybe she’ll even consent to an interview.
Carol, along with Tammie Sykes, were the other two members of the panel. Tammie started a skincare company for men and Carol ran a company for Intuit before taking her current position as President of the Humane Society of Silicon Valley.