Page 8 - AeM_Apr_2018

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Spoiler alert! The future is…

Spoilers are everywhere. Remember that season’s number a dice might land on to a higher degree of
finale episode that you’ve been planning to watch accuracy using the laws of physics, if we are given the
once you get home from work? Spoiled. Or that right data. It is not impossible to see that we are well on
insanely good plot twist that was supposed to blow our way to predicting many things in the not too distant
your mind? Yup, spoiled too. It doesn’t matter where future.
you are or what time zone you are in. Chances are,
someone from across the globe will not be able to 20 billion prediction devices
contain their excitement and will drop the bomb on
social media before that mind-blowing plot twist With more than 20 billion devices expected to be
even had the chance to ‘surprise’ you first hand. It connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) in the next five
sucks, right? years, predicting the future does not seem so far-
fetched anymore. As more people share their
That, however, is for fictional stories. In real life, not information online, computers will be able to analyze
knowing what will happen in the future is excruciating, the changes in trends and behaviors over time and
nerve-wracking and far scarier. When you’re on the calculate the probabilities with higher accuracy. In fact,
other end of the line, waiting for the final verdict, you’d several data-rich practices such as modelling,
wish you could have seen what was coming, or that algorithms, predictive and computational analytics have
someone could’ve spoiled it and relieved you from already caught the attention of businesses, offering
anxiety, especially when there is just too much to lose. In them the “alluring promise of precision and
real life, spoilers can be our life savers. predictability” ‒ and they are taking the bait!

20 years ago, researchers attempted to simulate micro “Everywhere we look, companies are putting data to
physical interaction between aggregates and mortar use ‒ driving market share, reducing costs, raising
(concrete). People criticized this, saying it wasn’t productivity, and improving products and
practical – it took weeks to complete even the tiniest of services,” says consultancy company McKinsey. And
numerical analysis. 20 years later, this criticism is no this is not even a surprise. Digital disruption has
longer valid. It can be done with ease using current shaken up businesses and organizations like a
computing power, not to mention harnessing the hurricane, and has them always on their toes, worriedly
advancement of quantum computing. thinking “when will the next one hit?” or worse, “are we
next?” To save themselves from potential doom, they
If we can now easily predict the trajectory of cracking in are all trying to get ahead of the game and are on a
concrete in the micro-scale, we might well be heading to mission to predict the future before the next disruption
a place where something as random as predicting what comes and gets them.

8 April 2018 - Strategic Social Media & Augmented Reality (AR)