One big question for the Vision Pro, a doping free-for-all, and why I'm not panicking about deepfakes.
⏩ Future Normal: Fast Forward #97
Happy Friday.
The big idea at the heart of this newsletter is that while most entrepreneurs and professionals spend their lives trying to anticipate what’s next, too often this is framed very narrowly – trying to answer the technical question, ‘what will happen?’, rather than asking the more expansive question, ‘what can we make happen?’
This week we’re looking at Apple’s Vision Pro (of course!), a viral deepfake story, and the less obvious Enhanced Games.
But we’re asking human questions, not technical ones. These human questions are more useful; everyone reading will be affected by the social and cultural implications of these stories. The most interesting parts of the future are those that become normal.
Is spatial computing the next tech paradigm? What could that look like? What’s the future of sports, wellbeing and entertainment in an era of exponential science? What’s the future of digital trust?
Ready? Good, let’s go…
What will make the Vision Pro normal?
There’s been an avalanche of posts about Apple’s Vision Pro. And a whole lot of probably-staged clips of people using it in public. The Vision Pro is undoubtedly part of ‘the future’. But will it become part of our future normal?
I believe that the answer to this depends on whether the Vision Pro becomes a device of progression, or one of immersion.
What I mean by this is – will people pick up the device to get sh*t done better and faster? Work, health and fitness, education, even dating. Or will it be more about sinking deeper than ever into movies, virtual worlds, your memories, and gaming?
It seems inevitable that, as the cost falls, in a few years the vast majority of airplane passengers will be wearing some kind of spatial computing device, just as they do noise cancelling headphones today. Most technologies have these obvious use cases.
But that's not the same as becoming part of the future normal – changing people's daily behaviour, and ultimately transforming the wider society and culture. Cars, planes, smartphones, social media – these are transformative technologies. Crypto, smart watches, virtual reality – aren't (yet?).
Immersion will be the ‘easy’ win. Arguably, it’s already nearly there.
However, my opinion is that to fall into the first category – to become a technology that truly transforms our society – the Vision Pro will have to be more than this. Spatial computing will have to be about advancing human progress.
To truly transform the world, it will have to transform us.
What’s Your Future Normal?
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Would you watch sports where doping was actively encouraged?
⚡️ Today’s Future
The Enhanced Games – an Olympics-style competition where athletes are allowed to take performance-enhancing drugs – recently announced its seed round featuring high-profile celebrity tech investors, Peter Thiel, Christian Angermayer and Balaji Srinivasan. Founder Aron D’Souza calls the games a “real, honest and open celebration of scientific innovation.”
🔮 Tomorrow’s Normal
Sometimes you see a story and simply know you have to write about it. Now, I’m not going to make any attempt here to dive into the practical, legal and ethical questions around this – I’ll leave that to people far better qualified to do so.
Instead, I want use this story to share a couple of broader observations that are relevant to anyone thinking about the future normal in their industry:
Will you be augmented, or authentic?
The polarised reaction to The Enhanced Games is just the start. My friend and coauthor David Mattin has written that the next big divide will be about the division between those who wish to embrace the fusion of humans and technology, and those who reject it. Look at the clashes online between the E/acc vs degrowth and slow (food / fashion) communities. Which side are you on?
Which established orthodoxies could you smash?
One of my favourite trends we ever spotted at TrendWatching (back in 2014!) was ‘Heritage Heresy’. Back then, it was about younger generations rewriting the rules of luxury, but it applies everywhere. D’Souza might talk of dethroning the Olympics, but I suspect his real aims are smaller – in interviews he talks of creating a competition 'for the TikTok generation".
Put aside your distaste at the thought of a made-for-TikTok-freak-show and focus on the bigger insight – which is that the online market is now so big and so global that even the smallest, most bizarre niches can create interesting opportunities. Where can you zig, while the rest of the market zags?
How will we get confident about truth and reality in an AI world?
⚡️ Today’s Future
A finance worker in Hong Kong was duped into making payments of over $25 million to fraudsters, after they used deepfake technology to pose as the company’s chief financial officer and multiple other staff members in a video conference call 🤯
🔮 Tomorrow’s Normal
If the number of WhatsApp groups I’ve seen this shared in is any indicator, this story has touched a real nerve. It speaks to our fears about AI – "deepfakes will destroy society!" Undoubtedly deepfakes will be a huge story this year, especially around elections.
But humans are nothing if not adaptable, and I suspect within a year or two we’ll realise that deepfakes won’t be the societal-level risk1 that many fear.
Why? Take text.
We don’t think it’s terrifying that as a reader you don't ‘know’ who wrote printed text. Instead we have certain codes – both formal (laws) and informal (trusted brands), that people use to judge the reliability of text they read.
We will have a similar patchwork of techniques to ensure truth and reality in an AI world:
1️⃣ Behaviourally, people will use quick hacks to confirm they are talking to a real person. Think questions only the recipient would know the answer to, secret codewords, or actions and facial movements which are hard for synthetic humans to mimic. This isn't the future – it should already be normal in both your business and personal life.
2️⃣ Technically, digital providers will rush to plug these holes. I wrote in The Future Normal about TruePic, a startup which can add unalterable metadata to images at the point of their creation; it's not hard to imagine video conferencing platforms offering a secure mode which uses Face ID to constantly scan people's faces and display a verified ‘live human’ badge to the person on the other end of a call.
3️⃣ But the biggest implication is a very positive one for everyone who believes humans will thrive in the Age of Algorithms. As more and more synthetic content is produced, we’ll pay less and less attention to it (no matter how good digital detection tools are). Instead, we’ll turn to offline, low/no-tech interactions and experiences that we know we can trust. Not a moment too soon \o/
What’s Your Future Normal?
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Thanks for reading,
Henry
I’m talking here about the societal risk posed by deepfakes. The other main – and very valid – concern with deepfakes is how easy they make it to harass people (whether that's Taylor Swift or an ex-partner). These cases are horrific, but are crimes and should be prosecuted as such.