Strategically Communicating

Here’s a screen shot of the 2017 emerging technologies from https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/top-trends-in-the-gartner-hype-cycle-for-emerging-technologies-2017/

I fell in love with the sci-fi genre the first time I saw Star Wars in the 1980s. For hours after any futuristic flick, my imagination flies as I picture using technology in movies like Robocop, Terminator, The Matrix, Minority Report and so many more.

As I read Top Trends in the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2017, I felt a sense of that excitement return after reviewing (and Googling) all the emerging technologies listed in the hype-cycle graphic.

I’ve been giddy for years to see if autonomous vehicles will truly allow me to ride by myself in a car without paying attention to the road, like in Minority Report. Writer Casey Panetta says the technology is about 10 years away. By then, the technology will be in a “plateau of productivity” where mainstream adoption becomes a reality, according to definitions found in a separate reading.

The brain behind autonomous vehicles is artificial intelligence, one of the three top trends in Panetta’s piece. Her infographic also shows that “artificial general intelligence,” when a machine is able to do any task that a human can do, is about 10 years away.

Kate Baggaley of Popular Science offers a longer time table to achieve general artificial intelligence. She writes the technology could be 25 years away, and today computers can’t behave or compute a six-year-old level.

Thankfully, I won’t be seeing any Terminators any time soon.