New Study Highlights Impacts Emerging Technologies Will Have on Society in 2030

“Organizations need to prepare now to embrace the future …. This is not a conversation you can have six months or a year down the line.”

–

The future of technology is something both consumers and businesses need to focus on if they want to stay ahead of the curve.

In partnership with Dell and the Institute for the Future, a study titled “The Next Era of Human Machine Partnerships” was released Wednesday designed to investigate what kind of impact emerging technologies will have on society and work in 2030. In this case, emerging technologies involve everything from robotics to machine learning and AI.  

“To brace yourself for something as fundamental as the digital disruption, we had to look at what was happening in 2030, rather than three or four years from now,” Dell Senior VP of Marketing Gaurav Chand told Techvibes.

The report states that “over the next decade, emerging technologies will underpin the formation of new human-machine partnerships that make the most of their respective complementary strengths.”

The study totes some very exciting or scary numbers, depending on your current grasp of the ever-evolving technology landscape. Almost half of all senior decision makers polled did not know what their industry would look like in a mere three years. This report is designed for consumers and business leaders like them.

“We can give [businesses] this blueprint and help them traverse this journey and be successful at the end,” explains Chand. “In a sense, be the disruptors and not the disrupted.”

The term “disrupt” is used often throughout the study, and rightfully so. Technology will overturn entire industries and revolutionize how we access resources. For example, the disrupted may be the medical industry, with disruptors such as Honor, “an app that matches patients with caregivers, and coordinates meals, transportation, housekeeping, and companionship, so older people can be cared for and carers can be present—without physically being in the same room.”

The study also touts the idea of everyday consumers becoming “digital conductors”—savvy digital orchestra leaders that rely on their suite of personal technologies to gather information from their daily patterns and activate/deactivate resources accordingly.

This can lead to moral and ethical discussions that many companies are just beginning to think about. Should machines make decisions with imperfect information? How long should they wait to gather a sample size?

“We can give [businesses] this blueprint and help them traverse this journey and be successful at the end,” explains Chand. “In a sense, be the disruptors and not the disrupted.”

“In terms of decision making, when you look at certain companies introducing a lot of change, we are evolving as we learn,” explains Chand. “It’s something we need to very seriously start thinking about.”

The study touches on a fact most technology aficionados already know – the industry grows exponentially. This leads to concerns of haves and have-nots when it comes to accessing technology resources and infrastructure. Chand is not concerned.

“I am hopeful because developing countries are not tied to legacy,” he says. For example, India completely bypassed analog phones and went straight to cellphones. Yes, developed countries have advantages, but developing countries are not underpinned by legacy infrastructure.”

As 2030 approaches, consumers will become less awe-struck by the wonderment of technology and more capable of utilizing these once jaw-dropping machines to better their daily life. If businesses and customers try to approach the next decade or so with the goal of fostering partnerships between humans and machines that transcend our limitations, this study tells us that a more favorable future for everyone will be the result.

Either way, discussions surrounding human and machine relationships must occur.

“Organizations need to prepare now to embrace the future,” Chand warns. “This is not a conversation you can have six months or a year down the line.”