Trends & Signals
Technology & Society
Explore the latest insights, thought leadership, and research from FCAT®
Tech and Art Have Never Been Closer: A Review of SXSW by FCAT Design
May 5, 2023
A small team from FCAT Design (Kseniya Galper, Susan Fabry, and Will Reed) travelled to Austin, TX for the 2023 South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in March. SXSW bills itself as “the premier destination for dreamers, innovators, storytellers, and global thought leaders. Each March, this diverse group of creatives across the tech, film, and music industries converge for 10 days of collaboration.”
What’s New & What’s Lasting: Tidings from SXSW 2023
April 21, 2023
Everything that’s happened these past few months has caused legitimate questioning of how tech is tangibly making people’s lives better. Maybe it is here where reflecting on the venue city of Austin could be fruitful – a city that has risen to become a tech powerhouse, pushing many major Silicon Valley tech companies to uproot their Californian roots.
Finding Community Online in an Age of Individualism
April 18, 2023
Over the past 60 years Americans’ social, political, and economic lives have been dominated by a strong emphasis on individualism. But there are signs this dynamic may be changing. Social activism and labor organizing are on the rise, fueled by digital media and networks. While Americans will always value individual freedom, changing online behaviors portend a shift in priorities that could have a profound impact on business.
Rethinking Time and How We Invest It
April 3, 2023
The pandemic. Inflation. Rising Interest rates. Over the past three years we’ve experienced a series of shocks that have altered how we perceive and value time. How we save, spend, manage, and invest our time are all now top of mind concerns. This is challenging many of our accepted notions about mental health and wellness, productivity, and financial planning.If anything’s changed since the pandemic began it’s our shared sense of the value of time.
A Family of One: The Ascendance of Solo Households
March 27, 2023
Families have been the basic unit of social and economic life across cultures, geographies, and nationalities for thousands of years. That started to change in the middle of the 20th century, when a growing number of people started living alone for sustained periods. These solo dwellers, or soloists, include people delaying partnership to later in life, those choosing to remain single and live alone without roommates or family, as well as divorced or widowed adults who reside independently.
Gen X: A Mature Market That’s Often Overlooked
February 2, 2023
Gen X are in their peak earning and retirement savings years, yet this “forgotten generation” can be overlooked when it comes to the complexity of their financial needs. And yet, the complexity of their financial lives requires attention, perhaps now more than ever.
2022: The Year of the AI Image Generator
November 22, 2022
While 2021 was the year of monster AI language models and AI text generation, thanks to powerful language models like OpenAI’s GPT-3,1 it seems that 2022 is the year of text-to-image AI systems. We’ve seen AI art before – just last year Sophia the robot’s artwork sold as an NFT for almost $700,0002– but the tools we are seeing now let anyone, regardless of technical proficiency, become an artist, a graphic designer, or an illustrator. And the quality of the output is surprisingly good and will no doubt improve quickly.
The Upswing: Q & A with Robert D. Putnam
November 3, 2022
By many measures, Americans are more polarized than ever. Can we come together to solve our biggest social, economic and environmental challenges? After a recent Speaker Series event, legendary political scientist Robert D. Putnam shared some insights with FCAT's John Dalton on how America's past may hold the keys to its future. Robert D. Putnam is the Malkin Research Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University and a former Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is also the author of “Bowling Alone” and more recently “The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again.”
Synthetic Biology: No Longer Life As We Know It?
May 10, 2022
Synthetic biology is the promising and controversial technology platform that combines biology and artificial intelligence, opening up the potential to program biological systems much as we program computers. FCAT recently hosted Amy Webb, founder of the Future Today Institute, and the author of “The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology,” where she discussed the science, and the ethical, moral, and religious issues surrounding synthetic biology. She was interviewed by John Dalton, VP, Research, in FCAT.
Can a Machine Be Moral? A Q&A with Jean-Francois Bonnefon
April 13, 2022
FCAT recently hosted a presentation by psychologist and author Jean-Francois (JF) Bonnefon on his latest book, “The Car That Knew Too Much”. The book discusses a groundbreaking experiment, the Moral Machine, that allowed millions of people from over 200 countries and territories to make choices about life-and-death dilemmas posed by driverless cars. Should they sacrifice passengers for pedestrians? Save children rather than adults? Kill one person so many can live? Following his presentation, FCAT’s Sarah Hoffman caught up with JF to ask a few additional questions about this largest experiment in moral psychology.