Everyone is grappling with new technologies: futurologists, consultancy bureaus, asteroid miners, Oreo tasters… What will 2025 look like for them? How will it look for us? Read all about it in our regular round-up of manufacturing-related news.
Fun fact: the name Augury comes from the Greco-Roman practice of observing bird behavior to receive omens that could offer insights into the future. According to Plato, this method was later superseded by haruspices, inspecting a sacrificed animal’s liver, since this was considered much more prestigious.
So, in terms of hygiene alone, it’s easy to understand why crystal balls ended up cornering the soothsaying market.
The Long History of Futurology
“In A Century of Tomorrows, Glenn Adamson offers a hurtling history of the art, science, and big business of looking ahead,” according to ‘From Tarot Cards to Streamlined Design, We Can’t Stop Predicting the Future’.
“The act of probing into the future need not be predictive to be useful,” writes historian Adamson. “Instead, considering what the future might look like can focus attention on the good and bad of the present. Adamson opens with a fascinating, albeit brief, account of weather forecasting, which became more reliable with the advent of the telegraph: as he notes, ‘a lot of tomorrow’s weather is already here today; it’s just somewhere else, usually a little farther west.’”
In more recent weather news: ‘DeepMind AI Weather Forecaster Beats World-Class System’.
The Future Is Futuristic
According to ‘Dreams Of Asteroid Mining, Orbital Manufacturing And Much More’, an army of “space cadets who see the world beyond Earth as something not just to be explored but conquered” is arising.
These cosmo-peneurs are confident they will soon be able to piggyback on asteroids to mine platinum and other precious metals, make optical fiber in Zero-G far superior to the conventional sort, or improve drug efficacy by crystallizing their ingredients in orbit.
But it won’t be easy. “The obstacles would be formidable, even to the less ambitious goal of setting up a nursing home for retired billionaires. But formidable is not insurmountable.”
Go, space cadets, go!
Future Past
“A technology pioneered by Benjamin Franklin is being revived to build more efficient electric motors,” according to ‘Electric Motors Are About to Get a Major Upgrade Thanks to Benjamin Franklin’.
It’s said Franklin used his invention, an electrostatic motor, on a picnic to power a turkey rotisserie. However, enabling technologies only matured enough recently to make the motor efficient enough to go whole-hog. .
“It’s reminiscent of the early 1990s, when Sony began to produce and sell the first rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, a breakthrough that’s now ubiquitous. […] These motors could lead to more efficient air-conditioning systems, factories, logistics hubs, and data centers, and – since they can double as generators – better ways of generating renewable energy. They might even show up in tiny surveillance drones.”
Major players such as FedEx and Rockwell Automation are already testing the motors.
Are Even the Fact-Based Soothsayers Threatened?
“The golden age for CEO whisperers may be coming to an end,” according to ‘Have McKinsey And Its Consulting Rivals Got Too Big?’.
“Not long ago the consulting industry looked indestructible. Fees rocketed during the Covid-19 pandemic as clients sped up efforts to digitize their businesses, diversify their supply chains, and respond to growing calls to bolster their environmental, social and governance (ESG) credentials.”
But now there’s a slump in demand and widespread layoffs due to a potent mix of shrinking markets brought on by deglobalization, a waning interest in ESG, and seemingly endless technological disruption.
But the consultants are not standing still, and are actively developing digital tools to improve their workflows. Many are also partnering up with the companies developing the AIs. “Such partnerships look like a welcome source of growth for the consultants. In time, though, they could become a drag – especially if they are successful. The quicker corporate clients become comfortable with chatbots, the faster they may simply go directly to their makers in Silicon Valley.”
However, these short-term gains from AI could lead the consultancy bureaus to irrelevance – “something for all the strategy brains to stew on.”
The Future Is Tasty!
It’s a problem for food developers: the tastings. According to ‘Oreo Owner Mondelez Taps AI to Tweak Its Classic Snacks’, this is especially true if you happen to be a health fanatic developing sugar products.
“I used to work in Sour Patch Kids, and if you did a tasting every day for a week, it was a nightmare,” says one food developer.
But now AI is transforming the process. “Food scientists there use the AI tool to create optimal recipes by specifying desired characteristics, including flavor (‘buttery,’ ‘in-mouth saltiness,’ or ‘vanilla intensity,’ for instance), aroma (‘oily,’ ‘egg flavor,’ ‘burnt,’ among others) and appearance (‘amount of chips,’ ’roundness,’ ‘chip edges’ are considerations). The tool also considers parameters like the cost of ingredients, their environmental impact and their nutritional profile.”
“Earlier iterations of the tool that weren’t given as much data made some unhinged suggestions. ‘Because [baking soda is] a very low-cost ingredient, it would try to just make cookies that were very high in baking soda, which doesn’t taste good at all,’ said one manager.”
So yes, you will still need human Subject Matter Experts in the loop to serve as tasters and brand stewards. “The brand steward is key… They’d be telling the tool: This is what the essence of an Oreo is.”
Nice work when you can get it.
The Future is GenAI. If We Take A Deep Breath…
In other new use case news, “OpenAI and Google have unveiled their next generation of products,” according to ‘What Do The Gods Of Generative AI Have In Store For 2025?’.
In short, playtime is over, and now it’s time “to release clever products that prove there is a market for all this ingenuity.” However, the rush to produce has meant some of these products have been “marred by glitches”.
It seems GenAI is evolving so quickly that the technology is defining the product. “You are normally taught not to be a hammer looking for a nail,” says Kevin Weil, OpenAI’s chief product officer. But “every two months computers can do something that we have never before been able to do.”
What is the moral of the story? Take a deep breath, people. Take a deep breath and lead with the nail: that problem that really needs solving.
The New Crystal Ball On The Block
In summary, the future is hazy. No one and nothing – including crystal balls – are sure how it will play out.
One thing is certain: the new telegraph in town is called AI. And 2025 might be the year it offers yet sunnier forecasts.
Read last month’s Manufacturing – The News: ‘Will AI Become the Time Person of The Year?’.
