Nesta, the global innovation foundation, has published its annual predictions for the year ahead and forecasts that fireworks will be replaced by swarms of drones flying in formation, that we’ll start using our ecoanxiety drive action to save the planet and that surveillance AI will start to track us from how we walk.
As people go to the polls in the most unpredictable elections in many years Nesta will be looking beyond the turmoil to make its annual predictions about the year ahead. Previously, Nesta predicted that 2017 would see the emergence of meat-free meat an explosion of which in 2019 has seen that prediction come belatedly true, 2018 would see the rise of AI artists and later that year Christie’s sold its first AI art for nearly half a million pounds.
Last year, Nesta predicted the rise of deepfakes as a political tool and 2019 has seen repeated controversies over the use of faked video. This year Nesta has also been running a series of crowd predictions which have correctly predicted Brexit delays months ahead of their confirmation.
Vicki Sellick, Executive Director of Programmes, said: “On the day that Britons go to the polls to make a big decision about how the country will look in 2020, we’re delving beneath the headlines to look at the ideas and trends that could have as large an impact on our lives as where we put our ‘x’ today.
“Any look to the future gives us a chance to own it and define in the way that suits us best and Nesta’s predictions for 2020 allow us to prepare for another unpredictable year. Whether it’s keeping an eye out for swarms of drones, practicing our silly walks or buying cyber insurance – we hope these predictions will help people to take control of their futures and shape them for the better.”
The full list of Nesta’s predictions for 2020 is:
Fireworks will be replaced with swarms of drones – Fireworks have been part of public celebrations for centuries but in 2020 their unsustainable financial, human and environmental cost will see them fall out of favour, increasingly replaced by drone swarms. Capable of vastly more intricate and engaging displays than fireworks and at an increasingly lower price, eventually, drone swarms will eventually replace fireworks altogether.
Doctors will start prescribing eco-action to combat our ecoanxiety – Ecoanxiety, ‘a chronic fear of environmental doom’ is an increasingly common response to the climate crisis and is already having an impact on our well-being. In 2020, doctors could start prescribing time outdoors, tree-planting, and even activism, to help improve our mental well-being.
Monty Python-style silly walks become the latest way to avoid cameras tracking us – Debates about facial recognition tech used to track people without their knowledge have raged throughout 2019. In 2020 another kind of surveillance will take centre stage: gait analysis that identifies us by the way we walk. Whether it’s criminals evading the authorities or just those protecting their privacy, we’ll see people adopting silly walks and other disguises to avoid recognition.
We’ll use digital twins to test out possible futures – The big decisions in our lives can paralyse us as we play out different futures in our minds. In 2020, we’ll use digital versions of ourselves to analyse us and test out the impact of everything from how that latest career move might impact our ability to buy a house or what going vegetarian will mean for our health, all before we have to make a real world decision. Our faithful twin could even warn us about risks to our health and possible mitigations to take now, decades before symptoms start to show.
As digital assassinations become common, more and more of us will start to insure ourselves against cyber attack – Digital assasination – the manipulation of someone’s online life to erase, or effectively kill their cyber presence is increasingly common. Few of us see it as a real threat or take steps to protect ourselves from potentially ruinous attacks but cyber insurance is now available to cover us and in 2020 more people will start seeing it as a worthwhile investment.
The fight begins to save a generation being lost to rote learning – Pupils in the UK now ‘learn by heart’ the third most of any country unlike countries like China and Japan who have listened to the evidence and now focus on creativity and problem solving rather than rote learning. As the dangerous implications of rote learning make the headlines in 2020 parents will take the lead in campaigning for a curriculum that emphasises skills that future generations need to thrive.
Fixes for the world’s broken democracies will start to emerge – There is increasing evidence that people are feeling alienated from our political system and that their votes are meaningless. As a series of democratic crises push us towards a breaking point even politicians that have benefited from the centuries old system will start to see the benefit of making changes that reconnect people to democracy.
One solution that will gain more attention in 2020 sees voters given multiple voting credits that they can use to buy votes allowing them to put all their credits behind one candidate that they prefer or spread them more evenly if they’re less sure.*
Women get to know their hormones with the help of data – The rise of menstrual cycle tracking apps have helped women to better understand their hormones. With a huge pool of mostly untapped data, in 2020, women will start to plan and respond to hormonal changes based on this acquired insight and doctors will be able to use it to better understand women’s health
In 2020 the drive towards cashlessness will start to have consequences – Just three in 10 UK transactions now involve cash and for many cashlessness is convenient. But, for the 1.5 million people in the UK who don’t have a bank account and are cut off from a cashless world unable to pay or to be paid there are consequences.
In 2020 we’ll start to see a dual economy emerge as those who are cashless have access to the full spread of the economy but find their spending habits changing and end up in more debt, while a shadow economy exists in a parallel used only by criminals and the cash-only who have no other choice.
A new kind of trade union will make the voice for workers more relevant, powerful and visible – Trade union membership has been falling for decades but in the last couple of years we’ve seen a renewal of worker activism with Google and Amazon workers striking and gig workers unionising. Much of this new activism has been in response to new technology and in 2020 a new breed of trade union will arise to shape the role of automation and other technologies in the workplace.
Nesta will monitor the success of its predictions throughout the coming year and for the first time this year will be conducting experiments to test them. Details of the experiments will be announced in the new year.
Pictures: SKYMAGIC
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