The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler.
Peter is an engineer, physician, and entrepreneur. He founded The X Prize Foundation, and executive chairman of Singularity University. Steven is an American author and entrepreneur. He has been published in The New York Times Magazine, Los Angles Times, Wired, Time magazine, GQ, Discover, and Popular Science.
Together they have published a series of books Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think and BOLD: How to Go Big, Create Wealth, and Impact the World. The Future Is Faster Than You Think is the third and last of this series.
As usual, whenever predictions of the future are written, they are never accurate. It is somewhat difficult to believe it has been thirteen years since reading The Next 100 Years by George Friedman.We all know, somehow the future gets in the way of….their future. Peter and Steven’s book is not an exception.
So, reading this during the hopefully fading months of the COVID pandemic reveals so much of their hype (including dates) never materialized. It is a shame the published date of their book was less than 60 days before our country went on lockdown.
The hype cycle
That is not to say this book is not interesting. Actually instead of predicting the future, consider this a general update to the advancements across several markets.
Peter and Steven break this book into three parts: The Power of Convergence, The Rebirth of Everything, and The Faster Future. Reading this in 2022, Parts 1 and 2 are basically irrelevant in a post COVID world. Very similar to the Friedman book, it is too lofty to believe their hype around so many technologies.
The Future is cybersecurity driven
In addition, from a cybersecurity perspective, the glaring gap in protecting companies and citizens from the damaging exploits is just as damning to ignore. Yet, I do not believe that was taken into full accountability.
This book is the final chapter in their series to promote their entrepreneurial efforts. Why let reality get in the way of selling? While Peter and Steven are not developing the technologies, their writing seems to push the boundaries a bit too far:
Glasses that were once thick and bulky have become thin and light. They’re also about to become a whole lot smaller. Companies like the well-funded startup Mojo Vision are developing AR contact lenses that will give you heads-up display capabilities and more, no glasses required. And for those who have no interest in AR contact lenses, Urbach projects that the first versions of his holodeck will start to show up in Disney-style theme parks and possibly in rec rooms for the extraordinarily wealthy by decade’s end.
pg. 339
A huge miss at Education’s future
However, the same can be viewed by their AI and VR driving “School 2030” section of Chapter 8: The Future of Education. Seemingly it would need America’s K12 school districts to collectively hold the budgets via market capitalization of Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Tesla, Berkshire Hathaway, Facebook, UnitedHealth, and Johnson & Johnson. Perhaps, to actually make this a reality Visa, JPMorgan Chase, and Walmart will also need to be included to ensure a full deployment to every child across America, not just by the wealthiest zip codes.
The Nvidia crisis of March 2022
As of the first week of March, I am not sure (stock market included) about the future of Nvidia. Their $500 billion market capitalization may completely fail due to criminal hacking of their company network resulting in the publishing of their source code. This is truly a shattering development for any company. But maybe “the future” should have addressed cyber crime.
Exciting insights of current developments
The best and certainly most promising sections of their book begin with Chapters 9: The Future of Healthcare, and Chapter 10: The Future of Longevity. For the untrained ear, Peter and Steven provide wonderfully wide insights to the latest (c. 2019) technology developments that prove we are truly on the cusp of a radical change to global health and life expectancy.
But you’ll often be overconfident about how the future will unfold.
Decisive by Dan and Chip Heath
Actually, I would be interested to see Peter and Steven revisit this last book in their series post-COVID. Perhaps beginning in mid-2023. Perhaps the largest focus should evolve around the impact to businesses by the economic shifts during the pandemic. I am reminded of Jim Collins’ Good to Great. His book hi lighted breakthrough companies. Yet following the 2008 global recession, many went out of business.
In conclusion, just about every book predicting the future always goes off the rails. So, this book is no exception. I have certainly learned to take these with a significant grain of salt.
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