Tech-trends 2022

SXSW is all about the Metaverse, Web3, Blockchain, Crypto, AR, Tokenomics, and NFTs. But are all these really long-term trends or just temporary buzz words? American futurist, Amy Web, urges re–perception to see past the noise and pay attention to what she identifies as long-term trends. Some of the trends to take seriously are:

1. Artificial Intelligence

The future of AI is nearer than we think. Face recognition is old news - now it is all about identifying an individual’s heartbeats or machines learning to understand what you mean, not just what you say. Sounds scary? Perhaps. But there are great opportunities here for us to push for optimistic scenarios and leave the catastrophic ones to the side.

2. The Metaverse

The Metaverse is on everyone’s lips, but what is it? And most importantly – what is it for? The Facebook creation raises a lot of questions. Will we be able to handle all the different versions of ourselves? How do we make it easier to access it, and who makes regulations and enforces them?

3. Synthetic Biology

The rapid growth of tech that allows us to manipulate biology in different ways is here to stay. Labs, DNA research, and gene design are all over the place. However, this raises a lot of ethical questions. What to do when death becomes increasingly optional? Are we able to create guardrails and rules for global collaboration? Or will we see auctions of people's DNA, hacking, and viruses engineered for specific people?

These are just a few of the trends we see, but what they all have in common is the increasing escape from what we know as reality. They also force us to rewrite our ethical maps and reprogram our moral compasses. What is right and wrong when technology allows us to do so much more that was previously impossible, even unthinkable?

I believe the most complicated discussions won't be so much about what we can do but more about what we will be willing to do. What's your take on this? Please share your thought with me!