Weak threats and strong opportunities 2024

Since 2019, we have published the Digihumaus report, which scans the future at the level of megatrends. To supplement it, we have drawn up a report on the weak threats and strong opportunities of digitalisation. By looking at weak threats, we want to examine in more depth the grey areas of digitalisation, the feelings it evokes and the phenomena simmering beneath the surface.

By weak threats, we mean signals of potentially adverse events or trends. These threats are derived from the weak signals that we have identified in our workshops. We believe that anticipation and imagination can also be used to identify strong opportunities for different futures on the basis of weak threats. No one can prescribe the future and by interpreting weak threats and opportunities together, we can contribute to what kind of channel the flow of development that now seems intense will settle to.

In previous years, we have also identified tensions related to the development of digitalisation.

• Centralisation – Decentralisation

• Sustainable – Unsustainable

• Standing out – Identifying

• Limited resources – Unlimited world

• Shared – Unique

• Responsible – Irresponsible

• Attractiveness – Resources

• Immersion – Restriction

This year, in relation to each phenomena, we have also considered tensions that reflect the potential threats and opportunities of the highlighted items. Perhaps the weak tensions we now highlight will in the near future develop into tension pairs that will define digitalisation more strongly.

Endless stream of propaganda

Only fifteen years ago, the internet and social media were regarded as tools for a new kind of participatory and real-time democracy. The understanding now is that the societal impacts of the latest developments of artificial intelligence may even be equal to the internet. In addition to occasional optimism, the future scenarios associated with artificial intelligence have also included the fear of uncontrollable harmful effects of technological developments, even a coup caused by machines as a result of singularity. The far-right riots  seen in England at the end of the summer of 2024 were indeed incited through numerous Telegram messaging groups and a new kind of propaganda. For example, far-right propaganda music made with a new kind of generative artificial intelligence was sent to these groups reaching thousands of people.

Social media is becoming fragmented into networks of Telegram accounts, Discord servers, YouTube channels, Tiktok trends and Instragram influencers consisting of smaller and smaller nodes. Facebook is no longer the channel for political or societal discussion it used to be. The weak threat of mass propaganda generated by means of artificial intelligence that promotes extremist thinking may therefore simmer and brew beneath the surface, hidden from the eyes of the general public so that it cannot be reached by collective interpretation. In a digital decentralised environment, words, concepts and, consequently, the flows of societal thinking may change increasingly unnoticed in the future. These tools enable anyone to be a thought influencer, and this also applies to malicious actors. The impacts of the phenomenon spread instantly and may erupt violently and unpredictably, like in the United Kingdom.

The role of media literacy and media criticism is emphasised in such an information environment. In addition to general knowledge and skills, AI literacy is also needed. We may be subjected to covert influencing in the digital everyday life just like anywhere else, such as when browsing recommendations on TikTok or Instagram. Trust in the accuracy and purposes of information may be threatened in ways that are difficult to notice.

Strong opportunity: If it is possible to create any kind of content with AI tools, the tools can also be used to do something good instead of producing propaganda that increases polarisation. The task of art is to tease and create new things, and AI art helps us tune our brain to identify different contents, also political influencing.

Tension: Sincere – Propagandist, Open – Invisible

Recording the day at work

The black boxes that survive falling from the sky are familiar to us from aeroplanes, but technology that works in a similar way has also been recently applied in operating theatres in the United States. ”The black box of the operating theatre” records both a video and medical data during operations in which a surgeon makes several decisions affecting life and death within a relatively short time. Technologies with a similar ethos have also been developed at least for monitoring the work performances of bus drivers.

The world of work is becoming increasingly based on data and algorithms. The monitoring of workers has previously been talked about especially in connection with the so-called blue-collar jobs, in which it is easier to quantify and consequently measure performance at work. Recording and analysing increasingly diversified sources of data is cheaper and easier than it used to be, and possible with extensive language models. In future, the technological development enabling black boxes may also change professions that it was first not though to be capable of changing.  The influence of language models also affects work that does not involve just text processing and “fiddling with papers”. For example, it includes the work of teachers, social workers and, say, doctors. Will the technology of black boxes also become more common in other professions, in which significant decisions are made in a stressful environment?

In addition to an increase in controlling and downright spying, the threat of black boxes is related to the security of the data and its interpretation. The black box and “recording everything” with unnoticeable technology blurs the boundary between the target inspected and the environment. When so much data is formed that its interpretations are not unambiguous, new links form that are weak from the point of view of the worker’s, the employer’s and the client’s legal protection. A counter-reaction to comprehensive recording is not likely to come as a surprise: in the US, the new technology of the “black box” has been found intruding and systems have even been sabotaged.

Strong opportunity: Intensive recording of data may create good things and increase diverse understanding of demanding everyday and work environments. What if working life were quantified in a manner that would make it possible to intervene in problems such as exhaustion and burn-outs in time?

Tension: Observation – Trust, Support for work – Control

The world through electric blue lenses

When the metaversum bubble burst, both consumers and large companies were ready to throw their AR/VR devices into the bin. However, technology has continued to develop in a different direction: the new generation of smart glasses look like ordinary glasses and their ubiquity can be compared to that of smart watches, for example. The glasses have been combined with a camera, the microphone of a telephone and a multimodal AI assistant. This may sound futuristic, but familiar in a way! The first generation of smart glasses resembles the technological futures that have already been imagined because similar glasses have been part of many films and tv-series placed in the future. Now that the development path of the AR/VR technology is at a crossroads, it looks as if the future may be in technology that looks normal instead of huge immersive and wearable gadgets.

Behind the familiar futurism, there is a weak threat related to smart glasses. New ubiquitous technologies may create data points and flows, the further use or unethical utilisation of which we cannot even begin to anticipate yet. How will our understanding of privacy or remembering change if everything can be recorded with a POV perspective, using a pair of glasses. In addition to recording what is seen and heard, there are already devices in the market that record and analyse the electroencephalogram of their users.

On the other hand, it is possible that humanity will rapidly adapt to the new technology and its socio-technical impacts. There are often significant differences between generations in the way they interpret new technologies. According to one study, children in the United Kingdom feel increasingly safe online although their parents are worried about the influence of the internet. The next generational difference may be based on different views as to what extent technology should be allowed to infiltrate and become part of the picture our senses convey to us of our world.

Strong opportunity: Through experiments, smart glasses may bring surprising benefits. When technology is in a way familiar at the level of the concept, functioning benefits that make life smoother may be created within safe limits.

Tension: Path dependency – Clean table