Enhancement, Obsolescence, Retrieval, Reversal.

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The tetrad of media effects examines the effects on society of any technology by dividing its effects into these four categories and displaying them simultaneously (see pic).
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It was created by Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan, first appearing in print in 1975 as part of the journal Technology and Culture.
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McLuhan believed that the introduction of new technologies into a society has a determining effect on the organisation of that society, the perceptions of its members, and the way in which knowledge and information are stored and shared.
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The tetrad is an analogical, simultaneous, fourfold pattern of displaying the impact of transformation.
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McLuhan designed the tetrad as a pedagogical tool, phrasing his laws as questions with which to consider any medium:
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➡ What does it enhance or intensify?
➡ What does it displace, or render obsolete?
➡ What does it retrieve that was previously obsolesced?
➡ What does it produce or become when pressed to an extreme?
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McLuhan believed that a medium could be anything that conveys information or alters human perception and interaction.
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His famous phrase "the medium is the message" emphasised that the medium itself - not just the content it delivers - has a profound impact on society.
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This focus on the medium rather than just the message highlights how technologies shape our experience, behavior, and worldviews in often subtle or unnoticed ways.
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When applying the tetrad in the context of contemporary emerging technologies and applying Strategic Foresight, in essence any innovation:
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Enhances something.

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Makes something outdated.
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Brings something back from the past that was previously junked.
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Flips into something opposite or reverses its effect or characteristics when pushed to the limits of its potential.
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Let's take a very simple example: modern mobile broadband Internet:
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​Enhancement: Access to 24x7 services.
​Obsolescence: Landline telephones.
​Retrieval: Nomadic lifestyle.
​Reversal: Data overload.
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As our time is increasingly spent in a digital-enabled and digital-native context, the more profoundly important frameworks like the tetrad of media effects will become for forward-thinking, value-focused organisations.
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This is just another example of the tools and techniques we use with clients who are assessing the future with us via Strategic Foresight.
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With Q4 2024 just days away, how might emerging technologies impact your organisation in 2025 and far beyond?
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In a business environment where technological advancements rapidly redefine the competitive landscape, the ability to foresee and adapt to emerging trends directly influences bottom line and shareholder value.
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Choose Future Horizon to transform emerging technologies from potential disruptions into powerful drivers of profitability and market leadership.

The Cobra Effect.

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A perverse incentive is when the original stimulus cooked-up by designers unintentionally rewards people for making the issue worse.
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The term "cobra effect" was coined by economist Horst Siebert based on an anecdotal occurrence in India during British colonial rule.
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The government, concerned about the number of venomous cobras in Delhi, offered a bounty for every dead cobra snake.
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Initially, this was a successful strategy; large numbers were killed for the induced reward.
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Eventually, however, people realised they could game the system, and began to breed cobras for the cash.
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When the government became aware, the reward program was scrapped; with no money coming in, breeders no longer had use for their snakes - so they released them.
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Naturally, the wild cobra population quickly increased further - making the problem worse than before.
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The "cobra effect" is thus used as a term to illustrate how incorrect stimulation can cause unintended consequences.
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Which brings us, neatly, to Artificial Intelligence (AI).
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Current iterations of Large Language Models (LLMs) which underpin all of our generative AI are not really powerful enough to be dangerous - yet.
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If we can, eventually, develop AI services which can comprehensively reason like humans...that will be a true seismic revolution for our species.
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Look at the big picture here.
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We must care less about startup valuations and how quickly updated models are being released, instead assessing where are we going as a society when it comes to the future and emerging technologies.
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Adequate policy oversight is prudent - to protect us from ourselves, never mind what AI might unilaterally be able to do in future.
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What that looks like in practice is, of course, much more challenging.
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We must be able to define what we actually want: what does "good" look like in this realm (and what do we want to avoid)?
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If knives & forks were banned, people would adapt and eat with spoons.
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It is the same with regulation: legislators will be well-meaning but people will find a way to skirt around perceived compliance obstacles - perhaps leading us to the precise destination we were trying to avoid in the first place.
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Finding the right balance when it comes to safety is challenging, but not impossible with sufficient dedicated time and resource.
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We must be prepared to put in the effort to think deeply and analyse how such potentially powerful pervasive systems can be designed, developed, and operated safely in the long-term.
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We might soon reach a critical macro stage where things have backfired significantly, but reversing is impossible.
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What if before long GPT-Cobra, Gemini-Cobra, Claude-Cobra, or Llama-Cobra et al are phenomena at our fingertips and we might not even know it: will we be adequately prepared for the consequences?
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What's your take: are you now rattled, or is this a hiss-terical perspective?

Advanced wearable display technologies are coming.

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Innovative lighting devices and other technologies may be possible thanks to new full-colour fiber Light Emitting Diodes (Fi-LEDs).
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Fiber light-emitting diodes (Fi-LEDs) stand out as a key component in the realm of flexible LEDs because of their excellent spatial luminance uniformity, and compatibility with textile fabrication.
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These new Fi-LEDs utilise Perovskite Quantum Wires (PeQWs), and have been developed by a research team led by the School of Engineering of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology​ (HKUST).
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The project's primary purpose was to find a better way to make Fi-LEDs, as being of flexible material has often caused uneven or inefficient light emission.
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This work presents a significant advancement in the field of Fi-LEDs.
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The research work was published in multidisciplinary journal Science Advances entitled “Full-Color Fiber Light-Emitting Diodes Based on Perovskite Quantum Wires”.
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Advancing Fi-LEDs in this manner is also expected to improve future wearable display technologies and unconventionally-shaped lighting sources in general.
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With "bendable, stretchable, twistable, and waterproof" Fi-LEDs now possible, the future for wearable applications is looking quite interesting.
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You might recall the character DYNAMO (pictured) from the 1987 movie "The Running Man".
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OK, so your typical business shirt might not suddenly turn into a roving advertising board, but there are certainly practical implementations.
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Security officers could make use of them, as could those in precarious roles where visibility is critical such as construction, or cyclists who wish to be seen by others to ensure safety.
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It might also spell the end for urban gig workers having to hold a large arrowed sign aloft with the likes of "Golf sale" written on it; they can be the signage themselves, potentially with real-time wireless dynamic updates.
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If nothing else, contemporary Festive jumpers could be even more eye-catching!
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Could you see yourself wearing something like this in the future?

The difficult second album.

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The curse of the second album in music is when an artist struggles to replicate their initial success with the follow-up to their popular debut.
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It can also be a syndrome more widely applicable, for example in University students, or sports players / teams who encounter a slump in their second season.
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Neuralink​, a neurotechnology company that develops implantable Brain–Computer Interfaces (BCI), seems to have got past this particular hurdle.
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In August it successfully implanted in a second patient its device designed to give those paralysed the ability to use digital devices by thinking alone.
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Its device, intended to help people with spinal cord injuries, has allowed the previous inaugural patient to play video games, browse the internet, post on social media and move a cursor on his laptop.
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The first patient, who has been using it for more than seven months, has recounted how the device has given him a modicum of independence and reduced his reliance on caregivers.
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As well as learning French and Japanese, he has aspirations to return to University to complete his degree.
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That said, the initial procedure was not without subsequent challenges.
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Some of the electrode threads connecting the BCI to the brain retracted, reducing functionality; post-surgery software algorithm tweaks mitigated the issue.
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For the second patient, Neuralink reduced brain motion during the surgery and also the gap between the implant and the surface of the brain (basically, going deeper).
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Incredibly, the second patient left the hospital, the Barrow Neurological Institute​ in Phoenix USA, one day after undergoing the surgery.
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Following discharge, the second patient has adapted quickly: he has been using Computer Aided Design (CAD) applications, as well as gaming.
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All being well, Neuralink expects to provide the implants to eight more patients this year as part of its clinical trials.
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There are of course competitors.
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Recently, a team of researchers at ETH Zürich​ say they’ve developed a new type of BCI electrode that rivals those of Neuralink.
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Due to a process developed by the team, the bundles that make up the electrodes are slimmer, and can be slowly inserted into the brain seemingly without causing “any detectable damage”.
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The group are investigating if these electrodes have applicability for neurological and psychiatric disorders such as epilepsy, depression, or schizophrenia
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BCI were also previously explored here: https://lnkd.in/gRaYZsQq​
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Whilst many technical and ethical challenges lie ahead, it's an exciting area of progress and future possibilities.

Treating disease - with sound.

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Focused ultrasound is a rapidly evolving technology with the potential to transform the treatment of many medical disorders.
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Not just ultrasound for diagnosis, that you may have experienced with a muscle issue, or pregnancy.
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It works by using ultrasonic energy to target tissue deep in the body without incisions or radiation.
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The fundamental principle is analogous to using a magnifying glass to focus beams of sunlight on a single point to burn a hole in a leaf.
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With focused ultrasound, an acoustic lens is used to concentrate multiple intersecting beams of ultrasound on a target deep in the body with extreme precision and accuracy.
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Where each of the individual beams passes through the tissue, there is no effect.
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However, at the focal point the convergence of the multiple beams of focused ultrasound energy results in many important biological effects, creating the possibility of treating a variety of medical disorders.
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Focused ultrasound has the potential to treat Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, hypertension, plus prostate, breast, brain, and pancreatic cancers.
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There are currently more than 170 clinical indications or disorders in various stages of development.
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Depending on the design of the lens and the ultrasound parameters, the target can be as small as 1×1.5mm or as large as 10x16mm in diameter.
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Focused ultrasound treatments can be performed on an outpatient basis, require no incisions, and can result in minimal discomfort and few complications, allowing for rapid recovery.
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One of the people backing the innovation is high-profile novelist John Grisham, who in 2018 produced a short book titled "The Tumor: A Non-Legal Thriller".
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Available for free as an eBook, he provides readers with a fictional account of how a real, new medical technology could revolutionize the future of medicine by curing with sound.
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Ultrasound for diagnosis is part of the medical fabric, having been established for a long time.
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It began with the Curie brothers in France around 1880; they discovered the piezoelectric effect in certain crystals, leading to the evolution of high frequency echo-sounding techniques.
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Ultrasonic energy was first applied to the human body for medical purposes by Dr George Ludwig at the Naval Medical Research Institute​ in the late 1940s.
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Many indicators point toward the evolution of this platform technology into a robust medical field.
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The pace of research and development, publications, patents, patient treatments, and the number of device manufacturers all increasing rapidly in the past few years.
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The field has already exceeded 500,000 cumulative patient treatments.
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High-frequency focused sound waves could thus potentially provide a disruptive, game-changing alternative or complement to surgery, radiation therapy, drug delivery, and cancer immunotherapy in the future.