Whether we have been in a tech bubble or not is frankly not that interesting. What is interesting is that the foundation for innovation is as strong as we’ve ever seen and entrepreneurs are bringing the future to reality at an amazing pace. Here are a few of my predictions for what we’ll see in 2016:
1. Self-driving vehicles hit the road for real, led by commercial trucks on interstate highways. So far most conversations around self-driving cars focus on personal vehicles. It’s unlikely we’ll take a fully autonomous car for our daily commute for quite a few years, but commercial trucking will see self-driving vehicles emerge far sooner. One company, Peloton, is already making this a reality. Long haul trucking is an easier technical challenge because interstates are generally straight lines, well-marked, digitally mapped in high definition, and generally free of pedestrians, bicycles, and other random obstacles; and the economic productivity of trucks can justify substantial investment in sophisticated cameras, sensors, and computers needed for autopilot systems. The economic need for autonomous trucks is huge due to the high cost and shortage of drivers, regulatory limits on driving time, and the fuel efficiency gained from convoys travelling close together in peloton formation.
2. Artificial intelligence will improve by leaps and bounds, and so will the way we interact with it. At first Siri frustrated us with its faults, and Google Now annoyed us with random cards on our screen, but I’ve noticed that recently both systems have gotten much broader and more accurate. Most of us barely scratch the surface in terms of their capabilities. In 2016 we will become more accustomed to interacting with AI systems of all kinds that are more natural, comfortable, and intelligent. Just as it took time for us to get used to self-checkout stations at the grocery store and the early days of voicemail were profoundly awkward, societal norms will need to adjust, and designers will need to create better user experiences for us to accept without pause that we’re interacting with an AI system and not a human. As we get better at these interactions, the AI technology gets smarter. Our digital assistant will ask nuanced questions (e.g. “did you mean the fruit or the company?”) to ensure it’s answering correctly. Smarter AI will enable automation of the rote components across a huge spectrum of jobs categories including dietary/fitness training, customer service, financial advice, education, and medicine, freeing up humans to focus on the most value added components of these occupations. As our expectations for human to computer interactions continue to grow, AI systems will rise to the challenge.
3. Wearable brain-monitoring devices for mindfulness training will become mainstream. It’s rare to see a person without a smartphone glued to his or her hand in almost any setting these days, though many people are becoming aware of the downsides of digital addiction and its effect on mental and physical health and our relationships. Couple this with growing public interest in meditation, yoga, and digital detox, and we’ll see mindfulness training become front and center in 2016 in wearable device form. Wearable fitness devices like the Fitbit or Apple Watch have become part of everyday life and early pioneers in this space have developed devices to monitor brainwaves, such as the Muse Brain Sensing Headband. The irony of a digital device helping with meditation and mindfulness may make you cringe, but brain training is hard and feedback essential and self-quantification of progress almost impossible until recently. Brain wave sensing devices will improve as our awareness and need for them grows, and they’ll soon become as mainstream as heart rate monitors.
Regardless of what the financial markets do in 2016, innovation will continue at fever pitch and cool new products and technologies will become newly indispensable parts of our work and lives.