Brett King, author, futurist and global fintech influencer addressed a house fully packed at Techsauce Global Summit 2017, in a session powered by Digital Ventures. As seats filled up and even more people crowded into the back of the room to hear, Mr. King shared how digital transformation is undoubtedly the new wave that is changing the world - technology is completely transforming the way we live and the way we work. He posed the question which may sound intimidating and scary to many, but which we can no longer evade: With all the changes, where do we (humans) fit in?

Technology Disruption

We can certainly learn from the past and see how lives have been impacted by the rise of new technology. In the United States, we have seen the number of farmers decreased from 70% in 1850s down to just 1.5% today. In the 1800s we saw textile workers lose their jobs in place of steam machines. Today we see waves of protests from taxi drivers protesting Uber and other ride-sharing services to people protesting against immigrants due to the decreasing number of jobs which are being replaced by robots. So with all these changes, where do we fit into the future world of tomorrow?

AI and Robotics

AI and robots haven’t just become a buzz words; they're actually becoming the fuel that will drive the world of the future. It is the next wave of evolution that is going to change how we live and work. We can see the evolution of AI in three stages:

• Machine intelligence which is task-specific AI
• Artificial intelligence where machines can start mimicking humans
• "Strong AI" is when AI becomes smarter than humans themselves

AI comes in many different forms and touches our lives in places we may not even expect. AI will soon be everywhere. It will become our personal AI which gives us "embedded experiences."

The Technology of the Future

Mr. King predicts that the next wave of technologies will touch upon various fields and industries:

• In health tech, we will be able to detect diseases like chronic heart disease, Parkinson and Alzheimer. We will be able to edit genes to get rid of diseases and design custom medicines per each patient. Organ replacement will be disrupted by 3D printing of organs.
• In metamaterials, technology will be able to integrated into everything. For instance, in renewable energy where solar cells can be incorporated into everything, energy independent technologies will create new, smart infrastructures of the future. Solar is going to be a key factor in the future world.

AI will become the veins of our future economy. Our jobs will be disrupted by it. Our jobs will be replaced by it. As machines can process more information at a faster rate, AI has already disrupted our work in many ways. In healthcare, IBM Watson can already diagnose cancer with 90% accuracy, almost twice of that of average doctors in the United States who have only 50% accuracy. In linguistics and communications, Google Neural Machine Translation (GNMT) has already invented a new language which increase efficiency of communication and language translation. As human are being outperformed by these machines and technologies become inseparable from our lives, we need to embrace the coming changes.

Humanity 2.0

In the next decade, every industry in the world will be led by technology-first companies. Every job which requires human process with cognition that can be documented or taught to another person such as finance, law or accounting can and will be replaced by machines which are better and faster. To move forward into the world of the future, we are required to shift our thinking and accept that AI will be a part of our lives. In order to survive, humans need to adapt and change: Adaptability is the skill most useful and required to succeed in the coming world.

People wait in line in front of Apple store, no one waits in line in front of a bank. AI is going to change our lives. Adaptability is the skill you need for future. - Brett King