Jane, Mafe, Amber, Jeffrey and Pascal
P.S. Interested in exploring how this applies to your organization and your products & services? Find out how be radical can help you. Simply hit reply to this email, tell us a bit about yourself and the opportunity/challenge you face, and we will be in touch.
The Network Effect:
Each Briefing, we’re tapping some of the experts in the be radical network to join the conversation. This round, we’re spotting weak signals with Samantha Snabes and Dr. David Bray.
Samantha Snabes, Co-founder and Catalyst at re:3D Inc
Samantha is the CEO for re:3D where she works with dirty fingernails facilitating global connections between others printing at the human-scale and/or using recycled materials. Here are some of the weak signals Samantha is paying attention to in 2020:
“3D printing from recyclables, namely post-manufacturing trim & scrap is top of our mind these days! The more we work with different materials and organizations, the more we are appalled at how much big brands pay to sustainably dispose of waste and the sheer volume of waste created in manufacturing operations that could be used for internal needs (thus a double value-add) and/or to support local circular economies/new job creation. This is especially evident on islands such Puerto Rico that have many factories, high unemployment, landfills at capacity and import 85% of goods!”
Dr. David A. Bray, Senior Fellow, Institute for Human-Machine Cognition
Director of a new Center with the Atlantic Council (launching March 11)
David is incubating a new global Center with the Atlantic Council to champion positive paths forward and that ensure new technologies and data empower people, increase prosperity, and secure peace. He also provides strategy to both Boards and start-ups espousing human-centric principles to technology-enabled decision making in complex environments. Here are some of the weak signals David is paying attention to in 2020:
Over-saturation of discussions of AI right at the same time that actual data scientists are increasingly concerned about the fragility or brittleness of current machine learning techniques - this might create yet another “AI winter of disillusionment” in a year or so?
On an optimistic note, increasing length in which larger numbers of qubits can be kept stable. Curious as to where this quantum development will take us in 3-5 years.
Increasing pessimism among technology professionals about the ability of tech to strengthen democracy, as shared by this Pew study.
radical Recommends:
We get it. There’s a lot out there. With radical Recommends, we’re not going to overwhelm you. We’ll only highlight a couple of reads/watches/listens each Briefing that are shaping our thinking, challenging our assumptions, or changing our minds.
⇒ Automatic for the People? Two musician-programmers generated every possible melody and released the collection to the public domain. An awesome example of the use of AI combined with decentralized innovation.
⇒ The new political reality of digital campaigns and disinformation wars at staggering scale is here — just in time for the US presidential election.
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