We work in an ever-increasing world of complexity, perhaps best exemplified by our inability to tell each other, using simple descriptions, about the new technologies that are hitting the market. Whilst I appreciate these technologies are multifaceted, bleeding-edge and thus difficult to describe, I did a little experiment – I asked some kids at an event we were running at to rank in order the things they understood.
Here’s the results (plus some selected comments from them for entertainment value):
- Virtual Reality (“I’m not sure why Facebook bought Oculus but they did”)
- Artificial Intelligence (“It’s in all the movies now”)
- Machine Learning (“A computer beat someone at a game I don’t understand”)
- Augmented Reality (“You can see things that aren’t there”)
- Internet of Things (“It’s just things connected together, isn’t it?”)
- 5G (“It’s just 4G plus one, I think?”)
- Blockchain (“What? I don’t understand it!”)
I’ll let you decide why this order came about – the influence of games, movies, lack of consumer products in certain field, simple naming of tech are just a few suggestions.
But just give it a try next time you have the privilege of spending some time with our future generation – it’s food for thought…
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