Dubai, United Arab Emirates: The world is going through massive technological and environmental changes, which are set to transform societies and the lives of individuals in the future, futurist Jamais Cascio said at a 20-minute session held on the first day of the 18th Arab Media Forum.

Cascio, who was selected by Foreign Policy magazine as a Top 100 Global Thinker, took the audience ’20-minutes into the Future’ to talk about future possibilities that could change our world in the next decade.

Using the phrase ‘incoming asteroids’ as a metaphor to describe the massive changes impacting our world today, Cascio said societies need to start thinking about what they need to do to deal with challenges rising from climate disruptions, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and systems that are able to manipulate reality.

“We currently have AI in our phones, in our homes and even in our cars. It’s not just that they can learn how to understand what we say, these are systems that are capable of doing things better than people can. As they become more complex, it becomes harder for us to understand how they come up with their own answers,” said Cascio, who is also an author of the book Hacking the Earth: Understanding the Consequences of Geoengineering.

He added that as AI becomes more powerful, we are going to be facing plenty of situations where people are going to rely on AI to do things for them without knowing why. “In the next decade, there will be a race between cars and phones, as to which one will be the most important AI system in our lives,” he said.

Cascio mentioned how the rules made in the past increasingly no longer apply to the global issues humanity is facing now.

He added that the ‘asteroid’ that is going to be really destructive and is going to be the most critical for the media to wrestle with, is the manipulation of reality. The boundary between reality and deception has become dangerously thin. Increasingly, our tools allow us to create falsehoods that are indistinguishable from reality.”

Cascio gave the example of systems that can generate faces of people who do not exist through neural-network driven algorithm. “We are doing this right now with still images and soon with video. Humans are coming up with easy ways to manipulate reality, whether through social networks, sending out tweets, using Facebook, or even through buying votes to push posts on the first page on reddit.”

Cascio believes mobile phones are powerful tools to combat manipulations. “Mobile phones allow us to capture images, and when you have multiple people in one place with their phones and cameras taking pictures, it makes it hard to manipulate reality, because you have a diversity of perspectives on the event.”

He further said that global warming is real, dangerous and getting worse much faster than we thought. “The warming we are experiencing today is from carbon put into the atmosphere up until the 1980s. What that also means whatever we do to push back against climate change and whatever we do to reduce carbon globally, we won’t see the results and benefits of that immediately.”

He said it was important to think in terms of how to convince people to change their lives, “knowing that they won’t see any improvement until generations, and that’s going to be one of the big issues.”

Despite all of this, Cascio was optimistic about the human race being able to grapple with these changes successfully. “It will be a long and difficult process, but it won’t be impossible. We need to think about how we can respond to these metaphorical asteroids and the choices we have to make and might want to make in order to adapt, survive and thrive.”

Held under the theme ‘Arab Media: From Now to the Future’, the region’s leading annual event for the media industry has brought together more than 3,000 prominent regional and international media leaders, scholars, writers and experts, to share their views on the current state of the Arab media and the shifts that are shaping the future of the industry.

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About Arab Media Forum (AMF)

The Middle East’s most prominent media event, the Arab Media Forum (AMF) is a platform designed to enrich dialogue, exchange ideas and attract attention to the reality and future of media industry in the region. AMF strives to trigger a change in the Arab media and call for a requisite redefinition of content and substance.

Since its inception in 2001 under the patronage of Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai Press Club has been responsible for organizing the Arab Media Forum. The Forum has consistently strived to facilitate in-depth debates and exchange of ideas on the regional media. Since its first edition, the annual event has successfully attracted exceptional media experts from across the region and the world, in addition to politicians and academia.  AMF platforms have also played vital roles in opening up channels of communication between Arab media professionals and their global peers. The Arab Media Forum is regarded as a much-awaited calendar event by high-caliber professionals including editors-in-chiefs, directors of TV and broadcasting channels, columnists, analysts and commentators, as well as academic professors and media students. For more information, pls. visit www.arabmediaform.ae/en 

About Dubai Press Club (DPC)

Established in 1999 under the patronage of Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai Press Club (DPC) is a proactive platform for journalists and media professionals to debate and deliberate on various topics of different interests ranging from political, economic and society. Dubai Press Club plays a significant role in supporting and developing regional media industry by launching unique initiatives including the renowned Arab Media Forum (AMF), Arab Journalism Award (AJA) the promising Emirates Media Forum (EMF)  and Arab Social Media Influencers Summit (ASMIS).

Additionally, DPC’s busy agenda offers a variety of activities targeting different segments of the media community. DPC hosts and organizes workshops and seminars on issues affecting regional and international socio-political scenarios, as well as strategic communication, business, economy, education and technology. The club periodically invites high-profile speakers and senior delegates to interact with local media and newsmakers. DPC is an active producer and sponsor of specialised media research and studies that keep pace with the rapid changes in the media industry. For more information, pls. visit http://www.dpc.org.ae 

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