Catching a Ride on the Hype Cycle

Gartner has released its “hype cycle” for 2013, with a focus on growing integration in the relationship of humans and machines.

From Gartner:

“The Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies report is the longest-running annual Hype Cycle, providing a cross-industry perspective on the technologies and trends that senior executives, CIOs, strategists, innovators, business developers and technology planners should consider in developing emerging-technology portfolios.”

From: Gartner's 2013 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies

The areas of human-technology interaction reviewed in this report included:

1. The augmentation of humans with technology. The first thing that may pop into your head after reading this is Matt Damon’s powered exoskeleton in the movie Elysium, but there are powerful augmentors already in the market, such as wearable technology like Google Glass.
2. Humans and machines working together. Combining the best of both worlds – the speed and efficiency of machines with the intelligence and problem-management capabilities of humans, offers incredible potential.
3. Machines assuming human operations. There are some instances were machines could be eminently more qualified that humans in executing operations.  Consider the development of driverless cars, which should be a boon to road safety. Google estimates that self-driving cars could reduce the annual road fatalities and injuries in the United States by up to 90 percent.
4. Machines understanding humans... By improving the ability of machines to interpret context as humans do, significant advances can be made in user interactions with technology, CRM and more.
5. … and vice versa. As machines increasingly take on workloads and activities, there will be an increasing premium on the trust required by human beings that the machines are capable of handling these operations. If humanity lacks confidence in the ability of machines to assume these responsibilities, progress will suffer.
6. The growing intelligence of humans and machines. The increasing capabilities of data collection and analytics, combined with cognitive computing technologies, offers both humans and machines incredible opportunities and leverage over their environment.