The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

by Kevin Kelly

Overview

“A quintessential work of technological futurism.” – James Surowiecki, strategy + business, “Best Business Books 2017 – Innovation”

From one of our leading technology thinkers and writers, a guide through the twelve technological imperatives that will shape the next thirty years and transform our lives

Much of what will happen in the next thirty years is inevitable, driven by technological trends that are already in motion. In this fascinating, provocative new book, Kevin Kelly provides an optimistic road map for the future, showing how the coming changes in our lives—from virtual reality in the home to an on-demand economy to artificial intelligence embedded in everything we manufacture—can be understood as the result of a few long-term, accelerating forces. Kelly both describes these deep trends—interacting, cognifying, flowing, screening, accessing, sharing, filtering, remixing, tracking, and questioning—and demonstrates how they overlap and are codependent on one another. These larger forces will completely revolutionize the way we buy, work, learn, and communicate with each other. By understanding and embracing them, says Kelly, it will be easier for us to remain on top of the coming wave of changes and to arrange our day-to-day relationships with technology in ways that bring forth maximum benefits. Kelly’s bright, hopeful book will be indispensable to anyone who seeks guidance on where their business, industry, or life is heading—what to invent, where to work, in what to invest, how to better reach customers, and what to begin to put into place—as this new world emerges.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143110378
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/06/2017
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	244,089
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Kevin Kelly helped launch Wired magazine and was its executive editor for its first seven years. He has written for The New York Times, The Economist, Science, Time, and The Wall Street Journal among many other publications. His previous books include Out of Control, New Rules for the New Economy, Cool Tools, and What Technology Wants. Currently Senior Maverick at Wired, Kelly lives in Pacifica, California.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Becoming 9

2 Cognifying 29

3 Flowing 61

4 Screening 85

5 Accessing 109

6 Sharing 135

7 Filtering 165

8 Remixing 193

9 Interacting 211

10 Tracking 237

11 Questioning 269

12 Beginning 291

Acknowledgments 299

Notes 301

Index 317

Editorial Reviews

A quintessential work of technological futurism . . . what’s valuable about The Inevitable, from a business perspective, is less what it says about how to innovate, and more what it says about where to innovate.”  – James Surowiecki, strategy + business, “Best Business Books 2017 – Innovation”

"Anyone can claim to be a prophet, a fortune teller, or a futurist, and plenty of people do. What makes Kevin Kelly different is that he's right. In this book, you're swept along by his clear prose and unassailable arguments until it finally hits you: The technological, cultural, and societal changes he’s foreseeing really are inevitable. It’s like having a crystal ball, only without the risk of shattering."
—David Pogue, Yahoo Tech

"This book offers profound insight into what happens (soon!) when intelligence flows as easily into objects as electricity."
—Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail

“How will the future be made? Kevin Kelly argues that the sequence of events ensuing from technical innovation has its own momentum . . . and that our best strategy is to understand and embrace it. Whether you find this prospect wonderful or terrifying, you will want to read this extremely thought-provoking book.”
—Brian Eno, musician and composer

"Kevin Kelly has been predicting our technological future with uncanny prescience for years. Now he's given us a glimpse of how the next three decades will unfold with The Inevitable, a book jam-packed with insight, ideas, and optimism."
—Ernest Cline, author of Ready Player One

 
"As exhilarating as the most outlandish science fiction novel, but based on very real trends. Kevin Kelly is the perfect tour guide for this life-changing future."
—Mark Frauenfelder, Boing Boing

"Creating a fictional future is easy; Kevin Kelly makes a habit of doing the difficult by showing us where we're actually going. The Inevitable is an eye-opening roadmap for what lies ahead. Science fiction is on its way to becoming science fact."  
—Hugh Howey, author of Wool

“Automatic must-read.”                             
—Marc Andreessen, co-founder Andreessen Horowitz

From the Publisher

07/04/2016
Kelly (What Technology Wants), a cofounder and former editor of Wired magazine, reflects on the revolutionary digital and technological changes currently underway and seeks to define 12 of the forces driving these changes. He writes that these forces are active trends that make certain outcomes inevitable: "There is a bias in the nature of technology that tilts it in certain directions and not others." Throughout the book, Kelly catalogs the many new developments of the last couple decades, from the Internet itself to the explosion of cloud computing and digital services such as Facebook and Uber. Each chapter addresses one of the 12 forces and ends with a vision of what our daily lives might look like if the given trend persists 30 years from now; for example, he predicts the personalization of nearly everything—including healthcare and advertisements—based on comprehensively collected, maintained, and shared data profiles. These imaginative speculations reflect an optimistic and arguably idealistic view, and the book as a whole exudes faith in the power of technology to better the world. Kelly notes that bad actors are just as inevitable as the technological changes themselves, but he chooses to elide discussions of the specific downsides that likely will accompany the changes he describes. Kelly's stated goal is "to uncover the roots of digital change so that we can embrace them." The book effectively identifies these roots, but in omitting critical discussion of them, it leaves the reader inadequately equipped to thoughtfully embrace or engage with them. (June)

Publishers Weekly

2016-04-30
That futurists have a terrible record hasn't discouraged them, and this delightful addition to the genre does not deny that predictions have been wildly off-base.The reason that futurists are often wrong is that people assume the future will resemble the present except for improvements or decay. Three decades ago, relevant observers assumed that the Internet would become "five thousand TV channels"—paradise for the couch potato. Few saw that viewers would take over, sucking up (but rarely paying for) traditional journalism, art, and entertainment and producing their own. Unfathomable technological changes are in the works, writes Wired founding executive editor (and current "senior maverick") Kelly (What Technology Wants, 2010, etc.), who proceeds to tell us what they will be. While readers will encounter hints of robotic doctors and clothes that give the washing machine cleaning instructions, the author's 12 ingenious chapters eschew high-tech spectaculars in favor of their driving forces. All the chapter titles are verbs in the present participle form: flowing, cognifying, tracking, accessing, sharing, etc. "Sharing" and instant "Accessing" will make possession irrelevant. If a self-driving car appears as soon as you summon it, owning one is a hassle. "Access is so superior to ownership in many ways that it is driving the frontiers of the economy," writes Kelly. Eventually, we will live in the world's largest rental store. In the 19th century, inventors added electricity to tools (fans, washers, pumps, etc.); in the 21st, they will add intelligence: cognifying. "There is nothing as consequential as a dumb thing made smarter," writes the author. "Even a very tiny amount of useful intelligence embedded into an existing process boosts its effectiveness to a whole other level." Kelly's arguments ring true, and his enthusiasm is contagious. Readers will enjoy the ride provided they forget that he has disobeyed his warning against assuming that today's trends will continue.

Kirkus Reviews