Episode 371: Back to the Futurists

4 Futurists Offer Surprising Predictions About The Future of Work and Money This episode of Breaking Banks is out of this world! Brett King and Miss Metaverse, Katie King, sit down with Futurists Brian Roemmele, Robert Scoble, Ross Dawson, and Mike Walsh to explore the events of the last twelve months and discuss predictions for the future what work and life will look like in the next 50 to 100 years. And why your bank balance might not matter. After a chaotic 2020, it’s time for humankind to start looking forward. What can we expect for the rest of 2021? Or skipping way ahead, what about 2071? There’s no denying there’s going to be a lot of change. “I think 50 years from now, we’ll look back and say, ‘Hey, 2020 — that was when everything changed,’” says Ross Dawson, a futurist and strategy advisor. We can certainly expect to see a drastic shift in the way we work and, ultimately, the way our economy is structured. On an episode of Breaking Banks, we connected with four futurists: Brian Roemmele, Robert Scoble, Ross Dawson and Mike Walsh. They share their predictions on the future of work and the economy. But first, let’s reflect…  2020 Will Be the Year Everything Changed There’s no denying 2020 was an unprecedented year, but the futurists believe it’ll be the year we all look back on and think: “Wow, that’s when everything changed.” For Mike — CEO of the consultancy Tomorrow, which focuses on designing companies for the 21st century — the fast pace of medical technology evolution stands out. “I think, for the first time in 2020, because of this huge moonshot effort [to develop a vaccine], you're seeing the beginnings of precision medicine and pharmacogenomics that we've been talking about for the last decade,” he says. There was an expedited evolution of mRNA technology to produce a vaccine. Here’s how Mike thinks about it: This technology is essentially uploading code into your body, and, in the future, “new releases of the software” will be released and updated. On the other hand, Robert, the well-known technology blogger and author, is focused on the experiential service economy. With everyone sequestered inside, tech companies are working hard to tap into this opportunity, creating ways for people to attend a concert or show while sitting in their living rooms with a device on their heads. “In this new virtual world that we're heading into, we can deliver any experience to you,” he says. And then, of course, there’s a big shift that occurred in 2020: the restructuring of work. The Future of Work: What We Can Look Forward To One hundred years from now, face-to-face business meetings will seem quaint, your great-grandkids will think your work commute is the equivalent of walking to school uphill both ways, and job training will occur through VR. “I think this is going to be that point where we look back in 100 years where everybody says, ‘People drove to offices? We get into a box and go into another box and then drive back and waste at least an hour?’ That's going to be seen as somewhat ridiculous,” says Brian, a voice AI expert. What else is around the corner when it comes to the physical workspace and the role work will pl...