Get Ready for The Next Wave of Tech Disruptions

 Futurism  

Futurist Vivek Wadhwa predicts change "at a scale which is unimaginable before," thanks to advances in technologies like robotics and 3D printing. "New trillion dollar industries will wipe out out existing trillion dollar industries," he says. "This is the future we’re headed into, for better or for worse."

According to technology expert Vivek Wadhwa, "One of the things that has begun to worry me is the fact that I'm seeing change happening at a scale which is unimaginable before and that it's impacting industry after industry after industry."

"Every industry I've looked at I've seen a trend of major disruption happening," says Wadhwa in a new piece for Big Think.

Wadhwa is a fellow at Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University, director of research at Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke, and Distinguished Fellow at Singularity University.

 Wadhwa tells how manufacturing will be dramatically changed due to robotics and 3D printing. "As of this year, it is cheaper to manufacture in the United States than it is in China, he says.

Robots, like Rethink Robotics' Baxter have become very sophisticated with a cost of operation is less than the cost of human labor. "Give it five years and these robots will become ever more sophisticated. They'll be doing many, many more jobs, which means that the manufacturing industry is going to be disrupted in a very big way," says Wadhwa.

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By the end of the decade you're going to see major upheaval in manufacturing, opportunities and problems. Wadhwa also goes on to say that the robotics revolution will be as short-lived as it is disruptive. Within 15 to 20 years we'll be able to 3D print electronics, he states. "Move into the next decade, these robots will probably go on strike because we won't need them anymore."

Wadhwa also talks about the impact of technology on the financial services industry, from Bitcoin to crowd funding. "We may not need the banks anymore. We may not need financial institutions the way we do right now," he says.

One of the biggest changes will be in the field of healthcare.  He talks of how Apple is focused on health and medicine. "They want all of this data being uploaded to the Apple platform. Do you think Google will be left behind? Do you think Microsoft will be left behind? Do you think Samsung will be left behind?" asks Wadhwa.

In healthcare the impacts will be truly profound, especially with near zero-cost genomic data. "We will have AI based physicians that can advise us when we're about to get sick, that can advise us on what we need to do to get healthy."

"We're going to now upend the entire healthcare system the way we know it all in the next five to ten years. People don't seem to understand this."

"The cost of human genome sequencing has dropped to $1000 over the last 15 years. At the rate at which we're going, the cost of sequencing will be practically zero, which means that we'll all have genomes done. Combine that with the medical sensor data, combine that with the data that we have in the cloud and you've got a healthcare revolution," says Wadhwa.

"We're going to now upend the entire healthcare system the way we know it all in the next five to ten years. People don't seem to understand this."

In energy other huge changes are already underway.  From the US adoption of fracking technolgy, to the rise of solar power. "Solar has dropped about 97.2 percent over the past 35 years in price. At the rate at which solar is advancing, by the end of this decade we achieve grid parity in the United States," claims Wadhwa. Grid parity means it's cheaper to produce energy at home on your solar cells then buy it from the grid.

"Move forward another ten years. It costs you 100th as much to produce your own energy then to buy it from the grid, which means that we have these grid companies now in serious trouble. This is why you have the utilities fighting solar."

The author of the new book, Innovating Women: The Changing Face of Technology, continues: "It's going to eclipse the fossil fuel industry. And solar is one of maybe a hundred technologies that are advancing, which will change energy industry."

"I can go on and on and on but every industry I look at I see a major disruption happening. So the world ten to 15 to 20 years from now is going to be completely different. We're going to be disrupting industry after industry after industry...This is the future we’re headed into, for better or for worse."


SOURCE  Big Think

By 33rd Square

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