As everyone who reads me regularly will know, I’m a big sci-fi fan and have blogged regularly about Star Trek versus Star Wars and their view of money.
A dystopian or utopian future? Money is the core - Chris Skinner's blog
Today, I’m going off on another trip as I’ve just got hooked on Alien: Earth, a new series on FX, a US TV network although you can also watch it on Disney+. I won’t tell you much about the show, except that it is definitely worth viewing, but the opening words caught me out.
In the future, immortality will come in one of three guises:
Cybernetically enhanced humans – ‘cyborgs’;
Artificially intelligent beings – ‘synths’; and
Synthetic beings downloaded with human consciousness – ‘hybrids’
The words caught me out as I’ve just been immersed in AI ideas lately, and the idea of a delegated AI bot who acts on my behalf with my money. That’s Intelligent Money for you. Yet, since writing that book, things have gone way beyond basic AI to Generative AI to robot races and robots at home.
The age of the cyborg, synth, hybrid is upon us.
Science fiction fans have seen this developing for years, from 2001: A Space Odyssey to The Terminator to Ex Machina, we’ve seen it all. Interestingly, in all of those examples, AI and robots are seen as a double threat to humanity. Why aren’t they seen as a double opportunity?
Of course, it’s because it is far more entertaining to show humans being killed by technology than improved. Just watch the latest Mission Impossible films with The Entity threatening the end of the world as we know it, and you’ll see what I mean. But there are nuggets of truth in all the Hollywood science fiction. After all, as the amazing author Isaac Asimov once said:
“Today’s science fiction is tomorrow’s science fact”
I so agree with this.
Therefore, when looking at bots and borgs, it strikes me that humans will integrate such capabilities into everyday life.
The day of humans as data is here.
Thing is that our digital twins – our data selves – will be dealing with all things on our behalf. Our digital twin will free us from drudgery of admin, filling of forms, waiting for service and completing all tasks. Our bots will choose the best products and services from their bots. As David Birch said six years ago:
The future of banking is basically robots running everything
... banks will have to convince robots – rather than humans – that their deal is the best in the market
Quite prophetic, but it’s the idea that any company who wants business will have to target their customer’s bot, not the customer direct.
Robots, self-driving cars, autonomous delivery drones, interplanetary exploration, synths, cyborgs and hybrids is no longer science fiction. They are all today’s science fact.
I’ll spend more time thinking about what this means to payments, banking and finance – seems a bit like the boring stuff, doesn’t it – but the bottom-line is that the age of robots as AI in reality is here.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...