Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and the Internet of Things are shaping every aspect of modern society, including national security. This geotechnological revolution is fuelling global competition, in particular the great power rivalry between the United States and China. Areas of competition include cloud technologies, semiconductor chip technology, hypersonic and new missile technologies, and space-based applications. Canada and other industrialized nations are incorporating many of these new technologies into their national security strategy. As this decade unfolds, AI is expected to transform modern warfare through advances in military technologies, fueling a global arms race that will redefine the way Canada defends itself.

“All roads lead to Rome”. In fact, this is no exaggeration: The Roman Empire depended upon 250,000 miles of roads for maintaining and supporting its 70 million inhabitants. In the 21st century, Chinese President Xi Jinping would seem to have similar strategic ambitions with regard to China’s multi-trillion dollar “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI). Stretching across Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, BRI represents a strategic trade network for Chinese goods and services. One industry that could benefit enormously from BRI is clean energy technologies. Beijing’s 12th Five-Year Plan directly focuses on investments in advanced technologies, especially clean energy technology.

From the proliferation of sharing platforms like Airbnb and Uber to the advent of blockchain networks and advanced robotics, the nature of work is changing. According to MIT researchers, we are moving into a “Second Machine Age” in which advanced technologies have begun automating work across multiple industries. Given the inherent capacity of technology to automate labor, it stands to reason that developing the right kinds of learning and development (L&D) systems is now fundamental to the future of work. 

As more routine and predictable labor is automated, and technology gives rise to unprecedented opportunities, creative work associated with the human imagination (meaning-making, communication, and critical reasoning) will be uniquely valuable. The scale and pace of this disruption requires an education system that is able to harness emergent opportunities linked to AI. Surfing the Fourth Industrial Revolution will mean bridging human and machine intelligence through learning systems that support creativity and innovation.

Since its inception some sixty years ago, artificial intelligence (AI) has evolved from an arcane academic field into a powerful driver of social and economic change. AI is now the basis for a wide range of mainstream technologies including web search, medical diagnosis, smart phone applications, and most recently, autonomous vehicles. Given the prospects of an economic future in which large swaths of the working population are at risk of losing their jobs or seeing them diminish in quality, how might government mitigate the impact of AI?

The Venus Project proposes an alternative vision of what the future can be if we apply what we already know in order to achieve a sustainable new world civilization. It calls for a straightforward redesign of our culture and society based on scientific principles. My interview with Roxanne Meadows.

Even as the capabilities of self-driving cars continue to evolve, it is not a given that consumers will choose to buy one. What is equally likely is that autonomous vehicles will transform the automotive industry entirely. According to some estimates, there could be as many as 10 million cars with self-driving features on the road by 2020. In fact, surveys suggest that there will be fewer car owners and more driverless vehicles in the future.

The common assumption today is that robots will soon drive our cars, manage our work, and manufacture our goods. But what is the reality of disruptive innovation in U.S. manufacturing? And how should schools educate skilled labor for this new era?