Daily Archives: May 2, 2017

James Scully’s radical idea for the fashion industry: Treat models like human beings – Washington Post

Posted: May 2, 2017 at 10:30 pm

James Scully did not intend to become the public scold of a global fashion industry one that views models as interchangeable widgets, that strong-arms them into unhealthy weight-loss regimens and insists on referring to them as girls. Nonetheless the veteran casting director has emerged as one of the most vocal agitators for change. He wants the fashion industry to treat models like human beings rather than commodities.

In February, several models came to him complaining about their treatment at an audition for the fall 2017 Balenciaga runway show the kind of prestigious booking that could pave a young models way in the business. Not only had some 150 hopefuls waited hours for the chance to be one of 47 chosen to walk in the show, they also had been left languishing for hours in an unlit stairwell while the casting directors went out for lunch.

Incensed, Scully took to Instagram to call out the Balenciaga team. But he wasnt done yet. In that same post, Scully claimed that representatives of the French fashion house Lanvin told model agencies not to send black women to its auditions. Finally, he voiced his suspicions that underage models were being booked in Paris, where 16 is the standard minimum.

I made the post out of personal outrage, Scully says a month later.

His alert led to apologies from Balenciaga, as well as denials and explanations from Lanvin and the casting directors accused of wrongdoing. But more than anything, Scullys words a rather modest call to arms, on the face of it managed to add fuel to an ongoing conversation about the often unprofessional, disorganized and offensive treatment of models by their own industry.

The frock trade has always been far grittier and seamier than its glossy trappings would suggest. There have been dramatic examples of drug abuse, deaths from eating disorders and sexual misconduct. But there are far more stories of mistreatment by omission or disregard. Models are expected to wait hours at an audition. They have fittings that last until the wee hours of the morning for which they receive no overtime pay. Sometimes they are paid for their services in clothes, not currency. They can wind up as nearly indentured servants working to pay off debts to their agencies.

And often designers and their staffs even fail to recognize that models need water as became clear during Kanye Wests presentation on Roosevelt Island last summer, when unpaid models collapsed in the September heat.

Im trying to make people realize the human cost of this behavior, Scully says. We have normalized it and become desensitized to it.

The Council of Fashion Designers of America offers some guidance all of it optional about providing food and water backstage and at long fittings, about not booking unhealthily thin models, about striving for diversity. The New York legislature passed a law in 2013 giving models younger than 18 protections similar to those that govern child actors, such as limits on work hours and regulations regarding pay.

But there are loopholes. And models 18 and older are essentially on their own, says Sara Ziff, who in 2012 founded the Model Alliance, an advocacy organization for models working in the United States.

I make sure parents understand that their child might be pressured to miss school, says Ziff, a former model. There are a lot of adult pressures that come with working in the industry at a young age.

In the past, models were typically in their 20s, with a sense of how the industry worked, by the time their careers gained traction. Now its all accelerated, Scully says. Todays models are being asked to do a womans job, and theyre kids.

The potential for abuse has grown with practices such as street casting, in which designers invite everyone from friends to their favorite bartender to participate in a show. The philosophy suggests that almost anyone can be a model at least for a few hours. The churn of fast fashion means that not just clothes are disposable; people are, too.

Girls are seeing this big dream world through social media. They think they can be a model and dont realize what theyre getting into. The turnaround now is so fast; its almost like trafficking, says Scully, who sits on the Model Alliance advisory board. Theyre pulled in and traumatized and then spit back out.

Scully, 52, is tall and slim with neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper hair, a jutting jaw, and a resting expression that is pleasantly somber supporting-actor handsome. His Manhattan apartment is filled with calming earth tones and nubby textures. He is the picture of earthy serenity by way of Architectural Digest.

But when he speaks, its at full gallop, his voice filled with the agita of someone whose childhood fantasy-come-true has gone bad.

One of 10 children in a working-class family, he spent his early childhood in South Amboy, N.J., a small city about an hour outside Manhattan that was almost all white and largely Catholic. It was the smallest town with the most bars, he says. Id never been around an Asian person. I didnt know what a Jewish person was.

He was transfixed by acting after an aunt took him to see Pippin on Broadway, but he loved fashion, too, thanks to an older sister with a stash of Cosmopolitan magazines. He enrolled at the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (LIM), where he took a class taught by Audrey Smaltz, a former host of Ebony Fashion Fair and founder of the team of backstage dressers and assistants called the Ground Crew. Scully became her intern.

His freelance work with her helped pay his way through school until he was distracted by jobs in retail and nightlife. His grades fell, he lost his scholarship and dropped out. He got a job at the influential fashion boutique Charivari, later worked for the production company Kevin Krier & Associates, and then Harpers Bazaar. Scullys career helped him see the fashion industry from virtually every angle.

Hes been a part of fashion shows since the early 90s, and hes seen a lot in that time, Smaltz says. Hes seen all thats happened and how its changed. Its not nice.

Smaltz recalls when a runway show featured 10 to 15 professional models, and each would make three or four changes in a single show. Today, a show hires 50 women. Mostly, anonymous. No clothing changes.

How can you pay all those models? They try to pay the models in clothes. Smaltz says. You dont need anyone with experience. Theyre like robots. ... Some directors tell the girls: Do not smile. Do not clap. Its one model after another. Its a human conveyor belt.

Scullys foray into activism began in the mid-2000s, but the seeds had been planted earlier. As a teenager, his vision of fashion was shaped by images of the multicultural aesthetic of Saint Laurent and Halston in the 1970s an ideal he continued to carry into his career.

He went on to work on some of the most influential runway shows of the late 1990s, including those mounted by Tom Ford for Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, whose casting was particularly diverse. Fords shows helped turn the Ethiopian-born model Liya Kebede into a star. In 2003, she became one of the faces of Estee Lauder the first black model to represent the beauty brand.

But the prejudices Kebede faced along the way exasperated Scully. A few years later, after taking time away from the industry, he joined activist Bethann Hardison and models Naomi Campbell and Iman in industry town halls, panel discussions and a media blitz to highlight the lack of black and brown models on the runway. Hardison, a former model and agent, worked to mentor more women of color, and men. Scully pushed to cast more of them in shows.

[Once Again, White Is the New White]

He speaks his mind. Thats who he is, Smaltz says. I just thought, Good for you, Scully. Take care of these young girls.

In May, he will be honored by the Black Alumni of Pratt Institute for his efforts.

In the winter of 2016, Scully delivered an impassioned talk at a Business of Fashion conference in Europe about labor practices that include bullying young women and treating puberty like a career-killer.

His February Instagram post, with more than 9,700 likes, received overwhelmingly positive feedback. Change is on the way thanks to you, wrote model Karolina Wallace.

It gives me a lot of hope to know that there is someone like you fighting for better treatment of models, wrote Gwen Van Meir, a young model. I once [was] in Milan, waited at a casting for almost four hours in the hot sun, with no water available. ... It seemed like a lot of the models were afraid to say anything.

Over the years, the very nature of what it means to be a model has shifted, from one of performer and experienced professional to that of an anonymous, prepubescent-looking mannequin. Only a few savvy young women of this era Gigi Hadid, Karlie Kloss, Kendall Jenner have successfully positioned themselves as full-fledged personalities with the potential for professional longevity. Thats largely thanks to their diligent off-the-clock efforts on social media.

But models have few work protections. Theyre not unionized. Financial agreements with agencies can be opaque. Pressure to lose weight is not just a medical concern but also a labor issue, says Ziff of the Model Alliance.

I think that many of the problems James called out models waiting an inordinate amount of time, working through the night, not having breaks all of that is a symptom of a bigger problem, Ziff says. And thats a power imbalance.

Modeling has always been unregulated. And a models career was always relatively short and reliant on a certain amount of good timing and genetics. But there was a code of ethics and on some human level, you did care about models, Scully says.

I sit and I have to do massive castings with 600 girls a season, Scully says. Im bleary-eyed. I have no idea who I saw.

Now its really about being clothes hangers, he says. Theyre disposable and replaceable.

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Researchers Have Started a Trial to Refreeze the Arctic – Futurism – Futurism

Posted: at 10:29 pm

In BriefA spin-off of an ambitious idea to refreeze the Arctic usingmachines is about to get a trial run in Switzerland where a team ofresearchers plan to add ice to a glacier in the Alps using snowmachines. Snow Machines

One of the strongest and most obvious indications of global warming is the receding polar ice caps, most specifically, the Arctic sheets. In February of this year, scientists brought up a peculiar solutionfor combating melting ice caps: refreezing them. Now, this seemingly outlandish idea is about to get a test run in Switzerland.

The pilot Swiss plan is similar to the proposed Arctic solution, except instead of entire ice caps, the target would be a small, artificial glacierat the foot of the Diavolezzafirn glacier. Whilethe Arctic plan proposed the use of wind-powered pumpsto spew water on top of ice, this mini-version of the project willuse snow machines to preserve the glacier over the summer by covering it with artificially created snow.

We have to carry the glacier through the summer, Utrecht University researcher Johannes Oerlemans explained toNew Scientist.

This ambitious plan is one of several ideas to combat global warming, which range from decreasing fossil fuel dependence to even geoengineering the planet.

If it works, the next step would be to try it out on the larger Morteratsch glacier in the eastern Swiss Alps, a plan Oerlemans recently presented at an annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, Austria. Rising temperatures due to global warming have caused this vast valley glacier to recede at an alarming rate of 30 to 40 meters (98 to 131 feet) each year, according to a New Scientist report.

Oerlemans and his colleagues, however, dont just plan to keep the Swiss glaciers from receding. They want to grow them back, and 4,000 snow machines might just do the trick. In principle, even the snout could grow back, said Oerlemans. Within 20 years, he concluded, the glacier might be able to grow by 800 meters (2,625 feet) if researchers blow just a few centimeters of artificial snow over a 0.5 square kilometer (.19 sqaure mile) plateau each summer to give it cover.

In the case of the Arctic, however, it wouldnt be that simple. The area is huge, roughly 107square kilometers(3.8 million square miles), and the plan to refreeze it with water pump would require a hugeinvestment. If it worked, however, an extra meter of sea ice could be added in just one year, according to the Arctic plan, winding the ice cap clock back by 17 years.

Buying that sort of time might just be worth the effort required to put seemingly impossible ideas to fight climate change into action, and this smaller project in Switzerland could providethe confidence needed to give them a shot.

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Elon Musk Just Unveiled His Plans for the Future in a Ted Talk – Futurism

Posted: at 10:29 pm

In Brief

This past weekend, the tech world was abuzz with the most recent developments discussed by mega-CEO Elon Musk at the annual TED conference in Vancouver.

During his talk, Musk updated the crowd on some of his most anticipated projects, including his future vision for The Boring Company, the all-electric semi-truck from Tesla, as well as developments regarding the Gigafactory. This progress was already covered over the weekend, but now we have a video of his entire talk.

Musk dazzled audiences with a video presentationthat displayed a network of underground tunnels. Vehicles were skirted through the tunnels at high speeds on proprietary platforms, dubbed skates. During the talk, Musk stated that Theres no real limit to how many levels of tunnels you can have. The deepest mines are much deeper than the tallest buildings are tall, suggesting that his plans for the company are titanic in scale.

Musk also gave the audience a glimpse into Teslas new heavy-duty electric truck. The all-electric vehicle is said to be capable of rivaling or surpassing sports cars in terms of performance.

He also, of course, discussed SpaceX and his vision of putting humans on Mars.

To the uninitiated, Musk can look a lot like a Wizard of Oz type figure. However, unlike the wizard, Musks magic is being backed up by both action andverifiable science.

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EPA Website Purged of Climate Change Information to Align With Trump Administration Claims – Futurism

Posted: at 10:29 pm

Controlling the Message

Major changes in the message sent by the United States government began the moment Donald Trump took his oath of office on January20th. Shortly after the inauguration, all mentions of climate change and itshuman origins were deleted from the White House website. These pages have yet to be restored.

These pages have yet to be restored.

The administration continued to try and control their messaging with public information updates. In their latest act, the website for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been purged of a great deal of the science related to anthropogenic global warming. One of the removed pages was recently used to refute claims made by Scott Pruitt, the head of the agency.

In an interview last month with CNBC, Pruitt stated that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and theres tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that its a primary contributor to the global warming that we see. Previously the page stated that it is extremely likely that human activities have been the dominant cause of that warming. It comes as no surprise that the administration is removing this language from its site. You simply cannot have an agencys website fundamentally disagreeing with the statementsmade by those running it.

The old site has been archived with a red banner on top which labels the information as purely historical. In a statement, J.P. Freire, associate administrator for public affairs for the EPA, stated As EPA renews its commitment to human health and clean air, land, and water, our website needs to reflect the views of the leadership of the agency. We want to eliminate confusion by removing outdated language first and making room to discuss how were protecting the environment and human health by partnering with states and working within the law.

In response, Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, told the Washington Post, Its hard to understand why facts require revision. To the same end, former EPA department head Janet McCabe stated Historical and factual information about these issues, and regulations over time, is something that EPA has always made available to people. It belongs to the people, and people should be able to find it easily.

The top level EPA page now refers to a Back to Basics approach, which apparentlyincludes an agenda with three tenets: protecting the environment, engaging with partners, and sensible regulations for economic growth. Examples of this approach show Pruitt meeting with workers at a coal power plant.

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Cryptocurrency All-Time Highs Reveal How Blockchain Is Transforming Our World – Futurism

Posted: at 10:29 pm

In Brief Cryptocurrencies Ether and Bitcoin are trading at record prices, and while no one is sure why that is, political uncertainty seems to correlate with the trends. This reflects an evolving way of thinking about money and how we should keep it safe. Bitcoin Boom

Both Ether and Bitcoin prices are trading at a record high right now, and no one is entirely sure what is happening in the world of cryptocurrency thats pushing this surge. According to the Coindesk price index, bitcoin peaked today, May 1,at $1,444. That high represents an increase of approximately 12percent over the course of 7 days, part of an increase of 33percent over the month of April.

Romain Dillet of TechCrunch has noted that Bitcoin and Ether prices tend to rise when the world is receiving bad news: If Donald Trump tweets about North Korea, chances are it will have positive effect on cryptocurrencies. Conversely, I noticed a micro-crash minutes after the results of the first round of the French election prices went up again minutes later. Marine Le Pen arrived second, which was a good sign for traditional currencies like USD and EUR.

This trend reflects the evolution of how we think about money and what it means to keep money safe. As the political outlook appears less predictable and governments seemmore unstable and even corrupt, cryptocurrencies are considereda safer investment than traditional currencies and markets. They are not tied to any one government or political system, and they offer a verifiable trail so investors can watch what happens to their money.

In times when governments can look more incompetent or untrustworthy than consumers prefer, at least we can depend on cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

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A World First Fusion Reactor Just Created Its First Plasma – Futurism

Posted: at 10:29 pm

Achieving First Plasma

After being turned on for the first time, the UKs newest fusion reactor has achieved first plasma. This simply means that the reactor was able to successfully generate a molten mass of electrically-charged gas plasma inside its core.

Called the ST40, the reactor was constructed by Tokamak Energy, one of the leading private fusion energy companies in the world. The company was founded in 2009 with the express purpose of designing and developing small fusion reactors to introduce fusion power into the grid by 2030.

Now that the ST40 is running, the company will commission and install the complete set of magnetic coils needed to reach fusion temperatures. The ST40 should be creating a plasma temperature as hot as the center of the Sun 15 million degrees Celsius (27 million degrees Fahrenheit) by Autumn 2017.

By 2018, the ST40 will produce plasma temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit), another record-breaker for a privately owned and funded fusion reactor. That temperature threshold is important, as it is the minimum temperature for inducing the controlled fusion reaction. Assuming the ST40 succeeds, it will prove that its novel designcan produce commercially viable fusion power.

Tokamak Energy CEO David Kingham commented in a press release: Today is an important day for fusion energy development in the UK, and the world. We are unveiling the first world-class controlled fusion device to have been designed, built, and operated by a private venture. The ST40 is a machine that will show fusion temperatures 100 million degrees are possible in compact, cost-effective reactors. This will allow fusion power to be achieved in years, not decades.

Nuclear fusion is a potentially revolutionary power source. It is the same process that fuels stars like our Sun, and could produce a potentially limitless supply of clean energy without producing dirty waste or any significant amount of carbon emissions. In contrast to nuclear fission, the atom splitting that todays nuclear reactors engage in, nuclear fusion requires salt and water, and involves fusing atoms together. Its primary waste product is helium. Its easy to see why scientists have tried to figure out how to achieve this here on Earth, but thus far its been elusive.

The journey toward fusion energy undertaken by Tokamak Energy is planned in the short-term and moving quickly; the company has already achieved its half-way goal for fusion power delivery. Their ultimate targets include producing the first electricity using the ST40 by 2025 and producing commercially viable fusion power by 2030.

Kingham remarked in the press release: We will still need significant investment, many academic and industrial collaborations, dedicated and creative engineers and scientists, and an excellent supply chain. Our approach continues to be to break the journey down into a series of engineering challenges, raising additional investment on reaching each new milestone.

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Remarkable Interactive Graphs Show How Climate Change Could Transform Your Town – Futurism

Posted: at 10:29 pm

In BriefThe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hasdeveloped a website that can show you the potential future impactof climate change, down to the very neighborhood. The tool gives apersonal touch to the potential esoteric topic. Local Lessons

The climate is changing. Most people know that its changing, and a sizeable majority even say theyworry about those changes.But at the same time,just 40% of Americans think its going to harm them personally. And just 33% of Americans say they talk about climate change even occasionally.

One of the reasons for this discrepancy may be that discussion of climate science tends to happen at the 30,000-foot level examining global shifts in average temperatures and weather or focuses on extreme environments, like the Arctic, where the impacts of climate change are most extreme.But climate change is going to impact every corner of the Earth in some way or another.

Thats why the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations slick new online Climate Exploreris so fascinating.

The updated system lets you zip across the 48 contiguous states (and Washington DC), and see for yourself how the local climate in any given neighborhood is likely to change between 2010 and 2100. The Climate Explorer also includes data on how the climate has behaved between 1950 and 2010; scroll forward in time, and youre seeingdata pulled from international climate models.

NOAAs site plots out changes according to two possible futures one in which global emissions peak in 2040 and then begin to decrease, and another in which emissions keep increasing apace. Take a look.

This image swipes back and forth between the two scenarios in a map of the country in 2090. Darker shades of red indicate more days each year above 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

That darkest red, visible around Phoenix, Arizona, as well as parts of southern Texas and Florida in the high-emissions scenario, indicates as many as 225 days over 95 each year.

The chart shows the difference between the two scenarios.

The red area indicates the range of possibilities for the higher-emissions scenario, and the blue area indicates the range for lower emissions. Those lines down the middle indicate the most likely outcomes.

You can see that for Cherry Hill, the difference between high and low emissions amounts to about 50 days with highs over95 degrees each year by 2090. Thats a lot of dangerously hot weather.

You can see the northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest turning brown in both scenarios, signaling theyre likely to get much drier.

But California shows the most dramatic impacts to precipitation. Look at that deep brown in Northern California, where the climate is expected to dry out. Then flick your eye down to deep green Southern California, expected to get a whole lot wetter than its been historically.

The darkest blue indicates deep subfreezingtemperatures highs of 20 degrees or lower.

As it gets lighter, were in the territory of 32 degrees highs right around freezing.

Some counties in these scenarios, particularly the high emissions scenario, show average highs above freezing in January. Thats a major shift for the region, with potential impacts on local life, ecosystems, and economies.

(Cook County includes Chicago.)

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Australians need to ‘wake up’ to the robot threat, with five million jobs at risk: Futurist Shara Evans – NEWS.com.au

Posted: at 10:29 pm

It's tough enough getting and keeping a job when competing against other humans... but what about when you're competing with the relentless advance of technology? National Political Editor Malcolm Farr talks us through the relentless advance of technology, and how it is shaping the workplace.

Think your cosy office job is safe?

MILLIONS of Australians are destined for the unemployment queue if they dont wake up to the robot revolution, warns futurist Shara Evans.

Creeping automation is set to transform how we work, shop and socialise and the changes are a lot closer than most people realise.

New research by recruitment agency Randstad reveals that 84 per cent of Australians surveyed are not concerned that automation will affect their future job prospects, while 77 per cent believe that they wont need to change careers in the next 10 years.

But the reality was the opposite, said Ms Evans, who suggested Australians take their heads out of the sand and wise up to the dramatic transformation that had already begun.

The reality is that 40 per cent of current jobs in Australia wont exist in 10 to 15 years due to automation thats five million jobs gone, she said, citing the latest report on the topic by CEDA.

If I look at the exponential advancements in technology, it is very clear that this figure will continue to rise.

The really scary part? Its not future innovation that puts our jobs at risk, but existing technology that is available for use right now.

SALARIES WIPED OUT

A recent report by consulting firm McKinsey found that 45 per cent of the activities people are currently paid for could be automated using currently demonstrated technologies.

Robotic checkout systems are being rolled out at convenience stores in Japan, and insurance firm Fukoku Life replaced 34 of its claims assessors with robots earlier this year.

The company laid off the workers after spending $2.36 million on a computer program that calculates payouts to policyholders, a move it said would boost productivity by 30 per cent.

Fukoku Life expected to save about $1.65 million a year on salaries with the new system, meaning it would pay itself off in less than two years.

Amazon now has 45,000 robots moving products around its cavernous warehouses, an approach that has been adopted by companies like DHL Logistics as they scramble to keep up with the e-commerce giant.

Chinese e-commerce billionaire Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, last week predicted that even chief executives like himself would see their jobs taken over by robots.

And Volvo has predicted that driverless cars will become commercially available in the next five years, a prospect that would make taxi and Uber drivers redundant.

The rise of automation is so significant that Microsoft founder Bill Gates has called for governments to impose a robot tax to slow down the pace of automation a suggestion Ms Evans said was a nice idea, but not viable to implement.

We are already seeing robots performing concierge tasks within the retail space, and the future workplace will see humanoid type robots with greater physical capabilities, she said.

The appeal of robots was not just their ability to do things faster than humans; in industries like agriculture or mining, Ms Evans said, they could be used to gather valuable data on ground conditions, with sensors to detect mineral deposits or analyse the bugs on crops.

And more and more businesses would start to use robots and artificial intelligence systems as they became cheaper, while skill shortages threatened to speed up the spread of the technology.

MAKE YOURSELF IRREPLACEABLE

So how can you keep your job safe from the robots?

According to Ms Evans, the key was to be aware of which aspects of your role could be automated, and look for ways to develop skills that will make you irreplaceable.

There are certain job categories that are more prone to automation first, she said.

If a job is a lot of predictable, repetitive behaviour and a fairly low cost to implement automation to replicate that labour, those are the kinds of jobs that are likely to be affected first.

Next on the list were jobs involving data processing and data collection, both of which could be easily replaced by artificial intelligence like the Japanese insurance company mentioned above.

Even those people lucky enough to stay employed would likely find their job descriptions changing, Ms Evans said.

Shara Evans with the Ehang 184 autonomous personal flying vehicle at the Consumer Electronics Show.Source:Supplied

If youve got someone who used to just analyse data and is not really doing a whole lot of social interaction, and that task has been subsumed by an AI bot, their job role might take on more of a customer-centric focus, she said.

But that particular individual may not be suited to move into the more customer-centred focus because of their innate personality.

Emotional intelligence, strategic planning, social and creative skills would remain in demand, she said.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

The impact of the changes would depend on how well they had prepared. Ms Evans said.

For somebody that has their head in the sand and they find their job has been replaced by automation, and they havent bothered to look at what else theyre good at reskilling, those changes would be pretty devastating, she said.

But on the flip side, young Australian who kept their finger on the pulse would be the first to benefit from the amazing possibilities of future job roles that aren't even invented yet, Ms Evans said, citing fields such as genetic research, bionics and 3D printing as likely growth areas.

They might look at 3D printing and realise how many different materials are being used and become a materials expert, or learn how to program and design robots or become an expert on integrating them into the workforce, she said.

Theres just so many new job possibilities that the technology will open up. Yes, jobs will disappear, but new ones will be created; youve just got to make sure that youve got the skill sets to step into those roles.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO

Do a skills inventory to understand what you are good at and what you want to do.

If your job does change, what other kinds of jobs would you enjoy doing? Where do they sit in the spectrum of automation?

Ask yourself how your skill set fits in with the jobs market and, if you need additional skills, take proactive measures to gain them.

dana.mccauley@news.com.au

How will the AI revolution change the world? Will there be a rise in robots? And how could AI soon be changing healthcare? Bloomberg follows the March of the Machines.

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DAVID HOULE, THE FUTURIST: Disruption ahead in the next 20 years – Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Posted: at 10:29 pm

There will be more change in the next 20 years than any 20- to 50-year period in history. In fact, future historians may well look back on this time as a historical transit as significant as the beginning of the Industrial Revolution or the Renaissance.

It is hard to imagine any area of life that will not be changed. This means that life will be disconcerting, disorienting and disruptive, and that reality as we know it today will end. This, of course, means that a significant percentage of humanity will endure a great psychological upset as we all like, or at least accept, our version of reality.

This is not a warning but a call for readers of this column to begin to prepare for massive, inevitable change. The name of this column is The Futurist. It is my responsibility as a futurist to be a catalyst to get people to think about the future and to help readers and audiences find context and concepts.

Here are just some of the changes ahead for Americans between now and the late 2030s:

Electric cars become the majority of all cars driven.

Autos that are autonomous, meaning driverless, become 25 to 75 percent of cars on the road.

The number of cars in America drops by 30 percent.

A move from fossil fuels to renewables, a move to energy that is free.

A movement toward a marginal-cost economy with ever lower prices for any part of the global economy that is connected to technology.

A loss of some 50 percent of all current jobs and professions due to artificial intelligence and big data.

The complete transformation of education and medicine.

The ability to extend the human lifetime to a maximum of 125 to 150 years.

Increasing the average life span from 80 to 100.

The emergence of a new,21st-century religion in which man and technology merge.

An emerging collective global consciousness.

The widespread use of virtual reality which will alter entertainment, education, training, travel and personal relations, in short redefining most human experiences.

Global legalization of marijuana.

Largely curing cancer and other diseases as a result of altering DNA for personalized treatments.

Climate change will redefine weather, seasons and coastlines and will create both tens of millions of refugees per year and hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars of real estate and other economic losses.

An urgent development of crew consciousness for This Spaceship Earth as the red warning light and buzzer for getting "all hands on deck" starts to go off in the next five years.

A reinvention beginning of both capitalism and democracy.

The list could go on, but the above provides an indication of what lies ahead. I am so confident of these forecasts that you can cut out this column and file it away to read in 2025 or 2030.

Recently I have been receiving an increasing number of requests to deliver keynote presentations to organizations as the desire increases to seek out a futurist as uncertainty and unease increases. My career as a speaker actually took off when the Great Recession hit.

My current presentation is called Shift//Transformation: 2017-2037. In it, I start off with some definitions and quotes that I want to share with readers of this column as they may help you prepare for the massive changes ahead.

The definition of shift: To put something aside and replace it with another or others, to change or exchange.

The definition of transformation: A change in form, appearance, nature or character.

A quote from Dr. Alvin Toffler, one of the greatest futurists of the last 50 years:The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.

And perhaps my favorite quote about the future, from Miguel de Unamuno, a Spanish essayist who died in 1936:We should try to be the parents of our future rather than the offspring of our past.

So, in your business, your profession or your personal life, open up to embracing change and accepting transformation so you can prepare yourself to enjoy being alive during one of the most interesting times in history.

Sarasota resident David Houle is a globally recognized futurist. He has given speeches on six continents, written seven books and is futurist in residence at the Ringling College of Art + Design. His website is davidhoule.com. Email him at david@davidhoule.com.

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DAVID HOULE, THE FUTURIST: Disruption ahead in the next 20 years - Sarasota Herald-Tribune

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Futurist Campaign Group Asks For More Public Backing – Yorkshire Coast Radio

Posted: at 10:29 pm

The group trying to save Scarborough's Futurist Theatre says it needs more support from the public.

Campaigners are still waiting to hear about their application for a judicial review into Scarborough Borough Council's decision to demolish the building.

That was lodged last month by a new company that's been set up by the group-Save The Futurist Theatre (Scarborough) Ltd.

The group are still trying to raise more than 10,000 in order to fund the legal services and so far have raised just over 1,000.

They have also raised nearly the 6,000 target they need to cover the costs of specialist legal advice regarding the council's decision on the theatre.

The group is planning to hold a public meeting within the coming weeks.

Debi Silver is from Save The Futurist Theatre (Scarborough) Ltd. She said:

"The reason we're taking legal action against Scarborough Borough Council is because we're not happy with how the whole thing has been dealt with.

At the end of the day, we don't feel what they've done has been done correctly and it's left us with no other option.

I can't tell you the amount of work that's gone into bringing this case forward, presenting it to our solicitors.

This is a huge undertaking that's gone on, it's not been done lightly. Please continue to support the campaign and please donate some money to our JustGiving page."

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Futurist Campaign Group Asks For More Public Backing - Yorkshire Coast Radio

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