Techonomy: How Technology Can Disrupt Food and Shelter

Last week's Techonomy conference wasn't all doom and gloom. Listening to sessions focusing on how sectors such as constructionand food are changing, I heard a number of hopeful predictions that we may see comeback in these areas, though perchance not every bit speedily every bit some would hope.

Autodesk: AI, Robotics, and the Obligation of Business

In his first major interview as the new CEO of Autodesk, Andrew Anagnost was quite optimistic. He talked about how, as we move into an historic period of automation, "we have a responsibility to do it ethically and morally."

Anagnost has iii rules he thinks the manufacture should follow. The start is to call back that the terminate user is the customer, and remarked that some in Silicon Valley have forgott en this. Next, nosotros must deploy technology to solve fundamental issues. Lastly, he said that we must be realistic. While there will be new jobs, some groups will struggle during the coming transition, and he believes the industry has a moral responsibility to help people in "the valley of dread."

For Anagnost, the cardinal problem is our progress toward a earth projected to have ten billion people by 2050, a population for which we lack the capacity and infrastructure. To catch up would require edifice 1000 buildings a day for 33 years, and "we can't practise that" at present. Instead, he believes nosotros must use engineering to exercise more than, do it better, and practice it with less environmental impact.

Anagnost seems to believe it's inevitable we'll succeed, and that "AI automation will help u.s.a. create this chapters without destroying the earth." He noted that fourscore percentage of poor decisions in construction are fabricated very early in the process, and was optimistic that AI will requite designers a ameliorate full arrangement analysis of free energy usage, and offering more options for sustainable-minded, informed decisions.

"I'm a techno optimist," he said, who believes that on the other side of these changes, new jobs will be created. Anagnost thinks information technology will price less to build things, which volition consequence in more than building. For case, he is confident that the era of large factories will exist succeeded by an era of automatic micro-factories employing technologies like 3D press. He noted that, though we haven't figured out the materials that will enable this to work at volume nevertheless, we volition over the next 20 to 30 years.

Asked about productivity, Anagnost said the problem is that technology has been unequally distributed, and that though the coasts are seeing the benefits, "it'due south not getting to other places." He talked about how, over the next few years, he sees generative blueprint growing in popularity and 3D models becoming the currency of processes in both manufacturing and structure, and how we must revamp our didactics system and support retraining so we don't leave people behind. "We need to have empathy for the affect this is having on society," he said.

How Tech is Remaking the Structure Industry

A panel featuring a number of people involved in remaking the construction manufacture reinforced the thought that this is an era where there is room for improvement in the industry.

(Michael Marks, Katerra; Lincoln Wood, Turner Construction Company; Tracy Young, PlanGrid; Simone Ross, Techonomy)

Lincoln Wood, who heads innovation at Turner Construction Company, said that the manufacture is looking to meliorate and sees opportunities to better, simply added that progress will crave multiple stakeholders. Wood talked nearly the challenges of getting all of the people involved on a project to work together as business changes and evolves.

Michael Marks, CEO of Katerra, talked about how his new company makes construction modules in a factory that are then assembled on site. This is different from a pre-fab edifice, in that it allows for custom designs, just it could really speed up construction. For case, Marks talked most building a 24-unit flat building in sixty days.

Marks said information technology was similar in concept to what his previous company, Flextronics, did in the electronics business, simply comparatively "much, much simpler," since a prison cell phone may use parts from as many as 500 different suppliers, while a building doesn't crave nearly as many individual parts. Katerra is a "design/build" company, meaning one that is responsible for both the pattern and construction. It focuses on five sectors of residential construction, and nada with more 12 stories.

Tracy Immature, CEO of PlanGrid, talked nearly her visitor, which makes software designed to help the people who work on big projects collaborate. She said that 98 percent of megaprojects—those that cost $i billion or more—are 20 months behind schedule on average, and typically cost eighty per centum more than their initial upkeep. Such a project is probable to involve a building possessor, architects, dozens of engineers, a full general contractor, 50 subcontractors, and about 2000 vendors.

Young mentioned a "massive labor shortage" in construction, and noted that structure employment peaked at virtually 10 million workers in the United states in 2006-2007. Showtime in 2008 during the recession, unemployment went to 25 pct in the industry and it has since failed to attract a new generation of workers.

When I asked about productivity in the structure industry, Immature noted that the rest of the globe has become much more productive in the by sixty years, only construction has been flat. She talked near the increased use of IT, digitization of data, and process and organizational changes equally ways to improve productivity.

Marks said he could see big productivity gains in the side by side 24 months for smaller buildings, and said we all the same use "stick build" (two-by-4s) in most construction. Woods said that, although he is an optimist at middle, modify will come slower than people think, as information technology involves contracts, partnerships, and lots of restrictions and regulations.

Making Nutrient Healthier, Safer, and More Sustainable

Some of the more interesting discussions revolved around food and food engineering.

Dean Ornish of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute (above), talked virtually research showing how lifestyle changes—improved diet, stress direction, moderate exercise, and support from family and friends—tin can perform meliorate than medications and eliminate the need for surgeries in many medical situations. Overall, he encouraged people to "eat well, stress less, movement more, love more."

Amanda Little of Vanderbilt Academy (below, correct), who has written a book chosen The Fate of Food, talked about technology that is compatible with improving existing foods, rather than technology that seeks to invent new foods. She talked nearly how a robotic weeder that uses AI to distinguish a crop from weeds can bring down herbicide usage past 90 percentage, and how vertical farms tin can grow plants faster and in much less space compared to traditional farms.

Jeff Welser of IBM discussed food safe, and using large data analysis to look at the microbiome of leaner on our bodies and in our foods. Welser talked about "metagenomics" and the utilize of a adjacent-generation sequencing tool to friction match a microbiome against a database and run into how it changes over time. Not only could this ward off pathogens—he said ane in 6 people will have some course of food poisoning over the course of a year—but it could also place a food and its source, and help to reduce the amount of food waste material.

Denise Morrison, CEO of Campbell Soup Company (to a higher place, left) said that "technology is wildly exciting for the food business—the biggest disruption since the supermarket was invented."

Morrison said her firm, which has products in 90 per centum of American households, is trying to create healthier food that is also affordable. Soup is 34 per centum of the visitor's concern, but it has made several acquisitions in recent years, such as Plum Organics Baby Food. She talked about selling "real food that matters for life's moments," and the importance of transparency, such equally labelling GMOs and removing artificial ingredients. "Information technology's a journey," she said, just the company is trying to make healthier nutrient that people desire, while working to keep the cost of such food affordable.

Morrison said the "digital tsunami is upon us," and though digital accounts for just one per centum of food purchases today, she expects it to abound to $66 billion by 2022.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/feature/18250/techonomy-how-technology-can-disrupt-food-and-shelter

Posted by: olszewskifordece.blogspot.com

Share this post