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<keyword id="107950" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="artificial-intelligence" source="Orion">Artificial intelligence</keyword> (<keyword id="19899640" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="AI" source="keywords">AI</keyword>) has taken the world by storm. Since the release of OpenAI’s <keyword id="19918826" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ChatGPT" source="keywords">ChatGPT</keyword> in 2022, discussions have ranged from optimistic visions of a utopian future to pessimistic fears of threats posed by technology to humanity itself. But no matter what, it's undeniable that AI has captured everyone’s attention. <br /><br />However, in spite of all the hype, very few people around the world are actually making use of AI on a regular basis, a survey has found.<br /><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Bursting the bubble: The divide between AI hype and everyday use" comment="subhead" text="Bursting the bubble: The divide between AI hype and everyday use"><span data-til="noop">Bursting the bubble: The divide between <keyword id="21872732" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="AI-hype" source="Orion">AI hype</keyword> and everyday use</span></cmsannotation><br /><keyword id="19896272" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="generative-AI" source="keywords">Generative AI</keyword> — a technology that produces human-like outputs such as text, images, audio or video based on input prompts — burst onto the public scene with the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022. This sparked a frenzied competition among tech giants, who have since invested billions into developing their own generative AI capabilities.<br /><br />However, research suggests that despite the substantial investment and attention, generative AI has yet to integrate seamlessly into everyday internet use. <br /><br />The <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/what-does-public-six-countries-think-generative-ai-news#header--3">online survey</a>, conducted by the <keyword id="21872733" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="reuters-institute" source="keywords">Reuters Institute</keyword> and <keyword id="19897709" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="oxford-university" source="keywords">Oxford University</keyword>, surveyed 12,000 individuals across six countries — Argentina, Denmark, France, Japan, the UK, and the USA — to explore perceptions of generative AI tools.<br /><br />Despite relatively high awareness of ChatGPT compared to other generative AI tools, the survey found that only an average of 54% of respondents across the six countries had heard of it. Even among those aware, the majority reported limited or no usage, with only about 3% using the tool daily.<br /><br />Usage patterns varied by demographics, with men and individuals with higher education levels more likely to use ChatGPT. However, the most significant disparities were observed by age group, with younger individuals aged 18 to 24 exhibiting higher usage rates, albeit predominantly infrequent.<br /><br />The study also sought to understand public perceptions of generative AI's societal impact. While many respondents anticipate significant contributions to fields like news, media and science, the overall sentiment was cautiously optimistic, with concerns about the technology's broader societal implications.<br /><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="The trough of disillusionment" comment="subhead" text="The trough of disillusionment"><span data-til="noop">The <keyword id="21872734" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="trough-of-disillusionment" source="Orion">trough of disillusionment</keyword></span></cmsannotation><br />The findings of this online international survey highlight a notable disparity between the hype surrounding AI and public engagement with it. This phenomenon, where the technology is heavily hyped but the practical application and adoption lag behind, mirrors the concept of the “trough of disillusionment” described in the Gartner Hype Cycle.<br /><br />The “trough of disillusionment” signifies a phase in the technology lifecycle where inflated expectations meet the reality of practical limitations, leading to a decline in enthusiasm. Despite this disillusionment, the phase also marks an opportunity for deeper understanding and practical application of the technology.<br /><br />At the moment, the adoption of AI and related technologies appears to be widespread across technology and media companies, compared to individuals. However, the discourse around the topic varies within a wide spectrum of ideas ranging from ‘technological determinism’ (the idea where technologies shape human societies) to ‘social constructivism’ (where our social behaviour shapes technological advancement).<br /><br />In some cases, the ‘trough of disillusionment’ phase is followed by the ‘slope of enlightenment’, This represents a pivotal phase where the benefits of the technology become clearer, driving increased adoption and investment. It heralds a transition from hype to tangible outcomes, laying the groundwork for broader integration and innovation.<br /><br />Will this be the case with generative AI as well? Only time will tell.<br />

Despite the hype, AI tools like ChatGPT remain dormant in daily use, shows global survey

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Interest in wearables like the Apple Watch and fitness tracking devices have already peaked.</p><p>Enthusiasm for the wearable category is declining towards the gloomy-sounding <span>"trough of disillusionment," according to Gartner's annual Hype Cycle report on emerging technologies.</span></p><p>Before the Apple Watch was released in April, the market was flooded with new smartwatches and fitness trackers.</p><p>According to Gartner's 2013 Hype Cycle, wearables were at the peak interest around the time when Samsung's first smartwatch, the Galaxy Gear, launched.</p><p>The Gear was met with a poor reception, and the hype around wearables slowed down. Yet,<span> expectations still remained high as many waited for <span>the Apple Watch, which was being hyped as</span> being the ultimate example of smartwatch capability when it was going to be released. </span></p><p>But the Apple Watch was met with a resounding "meh" when it was released, as people's expectations were too high. It's more of a nice accessory than a must-have gadget like the smartphone. </p><p>However, just because a category doesn't live up to expectations doesn't mean it's dead. Like many emerging technologies, the first wave of products tend to be the worst example of their categories. For example, the very first iPhone had no app store and it ran on a slow 2G network.</p><p>One the main drawbacks in smartwatches are their short battery lives and the fact that they do very little to justify their high price tags, and with high price tags come high expectactions.</p><p>So far, their best use it to show you some details of your notifications so that you don't need to take your phone out of your pocket. But as time progresses and technology improves, smartwatches will surely become more appealing.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3114217">Gartner</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div>The Gartner report suggests that expectations in wearables will further decrease to a more realistic level where people will realize that smartwatches are just best used as watches rather than smartphone replacements.</p><p>Interest should pick up again when wearable technology matures in five to 10 years time when it reaches the "plateau of productivity," where people's interest will be rekindled, but not nearly as much as the initial hype. </p><p>That's when we might see wearable batteries that last more than a single day, as well as refined user interfaces and general technology. But most importantly, price tags need to come down.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-pebble-time-steel-watch-unboxing-2015-8">Here's what Pebble's new watch 'Time Steel' looks like out of the box</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="x5ZWpwdjrycbYZgnzuREDRSuqpE14A72" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Wearables like the Apple Watch and FitBit are entering the 'trough of disillusionment'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Humanoid robots are symbols of power and technological capability, a geopolitics expert says.</li><li>China and the US are going head-to-head `to mass produce them, like a 21st-century space race.</li></ul><p>The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-russia-falling-behind-us-china-in-moon-space-race-2023-9">space race</a>, an epic showdown between the US and the Soviet Union, epitomized the quest for scientific dominance and the battle for geopolitical supremacy in the 20th century.</p><p>It conjured up legendary imagery of intercontinental missiles piercing the skies, animals being launched into the earth's orbit, and Neil Armstrong's historic moonwalk.</p><p>An incident earlier this month involving a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-male-humanoid-robot-inappropriately-touched-female-reporter-video-shows-2024-3">Saudi humanoid robot inappropriately touching a female reporter</a> might not at first seem even remotely connected.</p><p>But the incident inadvertently propelled Saudi Arabia's robotic endeavors into the international spotlight, underscoring how nations around the world are jockeying to make strides in developing functional humanoid robots.</p><div type="image" title="Muhammad the Humanoid Robot" height="1410" width="2030" msid="108900700" hostid="261" sizebytes="112900"></div><p>Saudi Arabia, for one, is investing heavily.</p><p>"We built a huge building at the heart of Riyadh, we hired more than 70 engineers," Elie Metri, the CEO of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-humanoid-robot-wont-talk-about-sex-politics-creator-says-2024-3">QSS Robotics</a>, which made the robot and has the Saudi government's backing, told BI.</p><p>Muhammad, the robot with the wandering hand, was showcased at <a target="_blank" href="https://www.agbi.com/analysis/tech/2024/03/saudi-arabia-leads-gcc-adoption-robotics">DeepFest</a>, an AI conference where some of Saudi Arabia's more than 2,000 robotics companies sought to showcase the kingdom's technological prowess.</p><p>Similar projects are emerging elsewhere, from India to Nigeria, as nations vie for leadership in this burgeoning industry.</p><h2><strong>Humanoids are visual representations of breakthroughs in AI</strong></h2><p>In Italy, the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia is working on iCub, a research-grade <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/humanoid-robots-jobs-manufacturing-tech-workforce-data-2023-12">humanoid robot.</a></p><p>According to Giorgio Metta, the institute's scientific director, their primary objective is knowledge-based: to investigate whether "machine learning and AI require a physical embodiment to develop a comprehensive understanding of the world."</p><p>But Metta also acknowledges the escalating global competition to showcase innovational might, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-artificial-intelligence-chatgpt-world-economy-china-stock-market-analysis-2023-9">particularly in light of AI's growing economic value.</a></p><p>He told BI that human-like robots are particularly effective in demonstrating progress because they offer a visual and easy-to-understand representation of advancements.</p><p>"It's very easy to show that your technology is good because you see it, and there's not much to explain," he said. "If you show a computer a program, you get an answer … no matter how impressive it can be, it's not as visible as a robot."</p><div type="image" title="iCub, the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia's research-grade humanoid robot." height="4197" width="6296" msid="108900702" hostid="261" sizebytes="723258"></div><p>Despite much of their work being collaborative, particularly with others in the European Union, Metta said he has been advised to exercise caution when working with one major global player in humanoid robotics: China.</p><p>"We are asked to be more careful," he said of the additional scrutiny.</p><p>It's "unfortunate" that scientists are being told to consider the sensitivities of the geopolitical situation during their research, he added.</p><h2><strong>China wants to take the lead</strong></h2><p>When it comes to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/humanoid-robots-talk-carry-items-and-even-run-a-company-2023-11 ">humanoid robots</a>, China is vying for the top spot, so it's no wonder other nations are getting nervous.</p><p>The country plans to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-plans-mass-production-humanoid-robots-within-two-years-2023-11">mass produce advanced-level humanoids by 2025</a>, according to a blueprint document published by its Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in October.</p><p>Fourier Intelligence, headquartered in Shanghai, told BI that it expects to have up to 1,000 units ready for delivery this year.</p><p>CEO Zen Koh said: "China is a formidable competitor in the quest to establish dominance as a leading market force for humanoid robots."</p><p>Koh explained that many factors have contributed to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/robotics-in-china-2015-11">China's prominence,</a> including substantial investment in research and development, namely in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/generative-ai-exaggeration-openai-nvidia-microsoft-chatgpt-jobs-investors-markets-2024-3">AI and robotics,</a> which he says has already given the country a leg up.</p><p>"The vast magnitude of the market offers an unmatched chance to test, improve, and expand the uses of humanoid robots," he said. "This could facilitate quick, frequent updates and enhancements, giving Chinese companies a competitive edge."</p><h2><strong>The US also wants dominance</strong></h2><p>Competing with Chinese ambitions, Agility Robotics in the US says it will produce "hundreds" of its <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-amazon-warehouse-robot-humanoid-2023-10">Digit robots</a> in 2025. The company is building a factory in Oregon that's set to open later this year.</p><p>Agility CEO Peggy Johnson told BI: "We'll get to the hundreds in 2025 and then ramp up capacity to thousands in the years following that."</p><p>Johnson said it's well-positioned to engage customers and ramp up production and "welcomes" the competition. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-testing-humanoid-robots-digit-warehouses-agility-robotics-boston-dynamics-2023-12">Amazon is testing its robots</a> in its warehouses to help automate some functions.</p><div type="image" title="Digit, an upright robot by Agility Robotics demonstrates package delivery at the Ford booth during CES 2020 at the Las Vegas Convention Center on January 7, 2020." height="712" width="1024" msid="108900704" hostid="261" sizebytes="85136"></div><p>Several other key players in the US have also been flexing their muscles.</p><p>This includes the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-bets-big-on-humanoid-robots-with-figure-ai-2024-2">$2.6 billion firm Figure AI</a>, which recently signed an agreement with OpenAI to "develop next-generation AI models" for its robots.</p><p>The company also <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-openai-talks-investment-figure-ai-humanoid-robotics-report-2024-1">inked a deal with BMW</a> to try out its robots in its manufacturing process.</p><p>Texas-based Apptronik, meanwhile, signed a partnership with Mercedes to test out how its robot Apollo can help in the production assembly line.</p><p>Tesla has its own <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-optimus-humanoid-robot-delivery-rollout-2024-1">humanoid ambitions</a> and has previously said it wants to start selling its Optimus robot by 2027.</p><h2><strong>High stakes</strong></h2><p>In today's geopolitical landscape, Julian Mueller-Kaler, director of the Strategic Foresight Hub at the Stimson Center, said that "high technology has come to define high politics," with humanoid robots and AI representing the apex of technological development and serving as symbols of power.</p><p>The US, he said, is "defining national security through the prism of supremacy, not just in military terms and political terms, but also in economic and technological terms."</p><p>The US is strategically investing in these cutting-edge technologies as part of its bid for supremacy, he said, as well as employing other <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-economy-trade-war-export-manufacturing-property-crisis-biden-trump-2024-3">measures to impede China's growth</a> in the field.</p><p>Over the last couple of years, the US has been implementing <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-china-tech-war-computer-chips-semiconductor-plants-costing-americans-2023-1">export controls on semiconductors to China</a> to limit the country's high-tech capabilities.</p><p>But China, he said, has stepped up to the challenge: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-planning-41-billion-semiconductor-fund-chip-war-heats-up-2023-9">US sanctions supercharged China's chipmaking industry</a>, with the majority of the fastest-growing chip firms in the world now being Chinese, <a target="_blank" href="https://time.com/6189341/us-sanctions-china-chips-semiconductors/">according to TIME.</a></p><p>"They know it takes decades to build a ship fleet or aircraft carrier," Mueller-Kaler said. "The high-tech sector is where the Chinese think they have a chance to catch up."</p><h2><strong>Humanoids are the peak of a 'hype cycle'</strong></h2><p>Beijing announced last August that it was establishing a $1.39 billion fund to develop a hub for the humanoid robotics industry.</p><p>At the time, the city was already home to 100 robotics enterprises.</p><div type="image" title="umanoid service robots dance at the booth of Dataa Robotics during 2023 World Robot Conference at Beijing Etrong International Exhibition &amp; Convention Center on August 18, 2023." height="716" width="1024" msid="108900707" hostid="261" sizebytes="65048"></div><p>But Li Boyang, president of EX Robots, a humanoid robot company based in China's Liaoning Province, <a target="_blank" href="https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-12-25/China-s-booming-humanoid-robotics-industry-embraces-bright-future--1pP17eWe6SA/p.html">told CMG</a> that China faces challenges in getting robots out of laboratories and into mass production.</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-inspired-by-boston-dynamics-humanoid-robot-atlas-2024-2">Boston Dynamics</a> agrees. Deploying robots at scale is "an incredibly difficult challenge," a representative told BI.</p><p>While obstacles to mass adoption of the technology exist, the potential rewards are substantial.</p><p>The mass production of humanoids could increase a nation's perceived power by increasing its workforce and population, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/watch-viral-video-of-realistic-ameca-robot-2021-12">Engineered Arts</a> CEO Will Jackson told BI.</p><div type="image" title="Human-shaped robot Ameca of Engineered Arts interacts with visitors on July 6, 2023, in Geneva, Switzerland." height="3456" width="5184" msid="108900711" hostid="261" sizebytes="159842"></div><p>"If you could manufacture your population, suddenly you've got all of these kinds of digital citizens, or you can raise the importance of your country. They don't complain, go on strike and don't ask for workers rights," he said.</p><p>But Jackson warned that we're at the peak of what <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-emerging-tech-from-gartners-hype-cycle-2015-8">management consultant firm Gartner calls a "hype cycle," </a>characterized by five phases: technology trigger, the peak of inflation expectations, the trough of disillusionment, the slope of enlightenment, and the plateau of productivity.</p><p>Humanoids are in the inflated expectations stage of the cycle, according to Jackson, with lots of talk on what the technology could do.</p><p>"They are not deployed," he said. "It's not a technology that's actually being used. Most of the humanoid robot companies out there now haven't ever even shipped the robot. There's a lot of optimism that is probably not very well founded."</p><p>Even so, the industry is expected to be boosted by Nvidia's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-humanoid-robots-jensen-huang-2024-3">recently unveiled Project GR00T</a>, according to Jackson and Agility Robotics' CTO Melonee Wise.</p><p>It could help the sector reach a point of inflection by building a general-purpose foundation model for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/humanoid-robots-talk-carry-items-and-even-run-a-company-2023-11">humanoid robots</a>, they said, which would help them learn from past interactions and perform everyday tasks.</p><div type="image" title="A robot appears on stage as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers a keynote address during the Nvidia GTC Artificial Intelligence Conference at SAP Center on March 18, 2024 in San Jose, California." height="711" width="1024" msid="108900714" hostid="261" sizebytes="35384"></div><h2><strong>Saudi Arabia won't give up</strong></h2><p>While the competition to unleash humanoid robots on the world looks like a two-horse race between the US and China, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/saudi-arabia">Saudi Arabia</a> refuses to be sidelined.</p><p>Metri, of QSS, said: "We have all the capabilities, we have the brains, we have the resources, we have a very huge market. Saudi Arabia today is competing with Europe, it's competing with the US. It's between the biggest markets globally."</p><p>The Saudi market, fueled by significant investments, is projected to have revenues nearing $120 million this year, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.statista.com/outlook/tmo/robotics/saudi-arabia">according to Statista. </a>The markets in China and the US have already surpassed the billion-dollar mark.</p><p>But Metri remains undeterred by the global competition: "Why are we doing this from Saudi Arabia? Because why not?"</p>

A global scramble to make humanoid robots is gearing up to be the 21st century's space race

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Meta's VP of Metaverse said the hype cycle for the metaverse is dead, but that's okay.</li><li>The metaverse team can "put their heads down and build" the experiences, Vishal Shah told Fortune.</li></ul><p>Metaverse hype is no longer a thing, according to Meta's VP of Metaverse — but he's not mad about the lack of noise — it lets his team focus on cracking the code on the ambitious project.</p><p>Meta exec Vishal Shah told <a href="https://fortune.com/2023/07/11/meta-vp-vishal-shah-happy-metaverse-hype-is-dead/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fortune</a> that the metaverse hype cycle was followed by a "trough of disillusionment" that was "tough to live through," but now his team can "put their heads down and build." Shah spoke on Tuesday at <a href="https://fortune.com/conferences/fortune-brainstorm-tech-2023" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fortune's Brainstorm Tech</a> live conference hosted in Utah.</p><p>"I think the metaverse hype is dead. I think we were in a hype cycle," Shah said at the conference. "We didn't invest for the hype, we have been investing in the space for years," he added.</p><p>For many people, even <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-the-metaverse-crypto-blockchain-gaming-vr-real-estate-2022-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the concept of "the metaverse" is confusing</a>, but it's generally a catch-all term used to describe the idea of a virtual world of connected digital experiences accessed via a headset where people can simulate reality with the ability to work, socialize, shop, view entertainment, and generally hang out.</p><p>"I don't think it's like a light switch, where one day you'll suddenly feel like you're in the metaverse, whereas the day before you weren't," Shah told Fortune." I think it will be an iterative process over the course of many years."</p><h2>Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse long game has faced pushback</h2><p>Mark Zuckerberg is a big believer in the metaverse, even rebranding his company Facebook into Meta to reference his view that the future was heading in that direction. But Meta's internal metaverse and VR efforts, which posted <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-reality-labs-metaverse-lost-1b-more-than-year-ago-2023-2">a loss of nearly $14 billion in a single year</a>, have drawn scrutiny from Wall Street as they have yet to turn profit.</p><div type="image" title="A composition shows a white sign with Meta's &quot;infinity&quot; logo in blue, address 1 Hacker Way. And Mark Zuckerberg, darkly lit, wears a black suit and red tie while adjusting his cuffs." height="1080" width="1440" msid="101735426" hostid="261" sizebytes="140076"></div><p>Even some Meta employees are hesitant about the effort. According to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/09/meta-morale-artificial-intelligence/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Washington Post</a>, only <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-employees-lose-confidence-company-leadership-mark-zuckerberg-layoffs-report-2023-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">26% of Meta employees</a> who responded to an internal survey said they were confident in Zuckerberg's leadership since the company's pivot toward the metaverse. <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/6/23391895/meta-facebook-horizon-worlds-vr-social-network-too-buggy-leaked-memo?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Verge</a> reported in October that staff said the flagship metaverse app had <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-metaverse-app-horizons-quality-problem-report-2022-10#:~:text=Internal%20memos%20from%20Meta's%20VP,by%20Metaverse%20VP%20Vishal%20Shah" target="_blank" rel="noopener">quality and performance issues,</a> and according to one memo, the team weren't really using the software much either.</p><p>Zuckerberg has largely seemed unfazed by the doubters, but more recently he's been talking up about the company's AI efforts in public instead, and not talking about the metaverse nearly as much as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-layoffs-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-moves-away-from-metaverse-ai-2023-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">he used to</a>. That's a big change from last year, as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-metaverse-obsession-driving-some-employees-nuts-2022-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Insider's Kali Hays and Ashley Stewart</a> previously reported his metaverse obsession in conversations had been "driving employees nuts."</p><p>Meta and Zuckerberg are also about to have some major competition in the space. People access Meta's metaverse apps through the company's Quest lineup of headsets, but Apple recently announced the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-headset-no-mention-metaverse-once-2023-6?r=US&amp;IR=T" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$3,499 Vision Pro headset.</a> Interestingly enough, Apple is avoiding the term metaverse in favor of "spatial computing." <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tim-cook-apple-avoids-term-metaverse-facebook-2022-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CEO Tim Cook</a> has said he avoids using the word metaverse because most people don't understand what it means, and executive <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-executive-slams-mark-zuckerberg-metaverse-will-never-say-metaverse-2022-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Greg Joswiak</a> told <a href="https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1lDxLnDlbDYGm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Wall Street Journal</a> that the term is one that he will never use.</p><p>Meta CTO Andrew "Boz" Bosworth recently responded to jabs at the word in an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-cto-compares-confusion-around-metaverse-to-defining-the-internet-2023-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Instagram Q&amp;A</a> where he was asked if the term had done more harm than good. He disagreed, and said he compared the confusion around the word to the initial misunderstanding of the word "internet." </p><p>"The internet actually is still, to this day, kind of hard to define," Bosworth said, "except that we all know what it is because we use it."</p>

Meta's VP of Metaverse says 'the metaverse hype is dead,' but that's OK

<ul class="summary-list"><li>ChatGPT has been touted as a Google killer and the turning point for AI to enter the mainstream.</li><li>It's fascinating to play with, but ChatGPT is still limited, and the backlash has already started.</li></ul><p>Over the past few weeks, social-media feeds and tech-pundit newsletters have been filled with stories and conversations written by artificial intelligence. </p><p>All it was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-new-ai-chatbot-conversation-with-questions-answers-examples-2022-12">written by ChatGPT</a>, a project from the <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/11/openai-shifts-from-nonprofit-to-capped-profit-to-attract-capital/">"capped-profit" research group</a> OpenAI. ChatGPT lets users ask its bot questions or give it prompts using GPT-3, an impressive piece of natural-language-processing AI tech.</p><p>GPT-3 has been available to the public since earlier this year. What caused some people to call ChatGPT AI's "iPhone moment" was its ease of use. Depending on the prompt, ChatGPT can write an essay on the Napoleonic Wars or craft someone's cover letter for a job application. </p><p>Some are now saying ChatGPT could be the end of Google's search dominance, pave the way for widespread cheating in universities, or even do away with many types of white-collar jobs.</p><p>But tech insiders and pundits are already becoming cynical about ChatGPT, with some calling it "<a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/chatgpt-problems-flaws-51671060494">overrated</a>," "<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2022/12/13/on-crm-is-chatgpt-over-hyped/">overhyped</a>," and "<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/chatgpt-openai-artificial-intelligence-writing-ethics/672386/">dumber than you think</a>." <br /><br />It's what comes next, during the period when general sentiment toward ChatGPT turns skeptical, that will determine if and how tech like ChatGPT becomes an essential part of our lives.</p><h2>ChatGPT and the Gartner Hype Cycle</h2><p>In layman's terms, ChatGPT is a chatbot using GPT-3, a state-of-the-art AI model that uses a massive amount of data to generate humanlike text. It's capable of performing a variety of natural language processing tasks, such as answering questions, summarizing text, and generating complete sentences and paragraphs. It's considered one of the most advanced language-processing AI models currently available.<br /><br />How advanced? The above paragraph was written by ChatGPT. You can criticize the prose — an editor might take issue with the use of the adjective "massive" for something nonphysical, and the sentence structure tends toward the simplistic — but it reads as if a human wrote it.</p><p>GPT-3 is of a branch of machine learning <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/generative-artificial-intelligence-hot-ethical-safety-concerns-funding-venture-capital-2022-10">called "generative AI."</a> Generative AI analyzes huge amounts of data and trains models that can generate new things. Feed a generative-AI program millions of pieces of art, and it learns how to produce art, like OpenAI's other viral sensation DALL-E. Feed a generative-AI program a huge amount of computer code, and it can create code.</p><p>It's all very exciting and new, which is where the Gartner Hype Cycle, from the tech-research and consulting firm Gartner, comes in handy. Debuted by the <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/podcasts/thinkcast/behind-the-research-gartner-hype-cycle">analyst Jackie Fenn in 1995</a>, it lays out the five stages for any emerging technology.</p><div type="image" title="Graphic showing the Gartner Hype Cycle." height="1756" width="2501" msid="96370587" hostid="261" sizebytes="57538"></div><br />Most of the significant tech innovations of the past 30 years — the internet, the smartphone, cloud computing — can be tracked using the Gartner Hype Cycle. <p>Take the internet. The "technology trigger" would be the first public demonstration of the World Wide Web in 1989. It's exciting but barely noticed by the general public, and very few understand its potential.</p><p>The "peak of inflated expectations" hits in the 1990s. The internet is rapidly expanding, fueled by exciting but sometimes overly ambitious or frivolous ideas and the dot-com bubble of the late '90s. </p><p>The "trough of disillusionment" is when the dot-com bubble burst. Excitement cools, and a period of disillusionment sets in. Companies get wiped out. The conventional wisdom is the internet was overhyped.</p><p>Finally, you get the longest part of the process: the "slope of enlightenment" into the "plateau of productivity." The internet matures. Developers and investors focus on practical applications and refining the user experience. The mobile web launches, and the modern internet, which undergirds a good portion of economy, blooms.</p><h2>ChatGPT's future</h2><p>So where is ChatGPT now? Gartner placed generative AI on the very beginning of the track in its <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/what-s-new-in-the-2022-gartner-hype-cycle-for-emerging-technologies">August emerging-technologies trend report</a>, its most recent. But a lot has happened since August, especially now that ChatGPT has emerged as an easier way for people to access its technology. </p><p>ChatGPT seems to have led to a surge in sign-ups for other generative-AI tools, like Lensa AI. <a href="https://hbr.org/2022/12/chatgpt-is-a-tipping-point-for-ai?ab=hero-main-text">Harvard Business Review</a> wrote this latest version of ChatGPT "feels like a tipping point" for AI, as it shows the technology is ready for a wider variety of uses.</p><p>In other words, it feels like ChatGPT is nearing the peak of inflated expectations. That means people are already finding all the ways it falls short. At Barron's, <a href="https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/chatgpt-problems-flaws-51671060494">Tae Kim wrote about all the ways he said ChatGPT was "overhyped,"</a> comparing it to Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri.</p><p>"While great AI tools for specific tasks," he wrote, "they never fulfilled their initial promise."</p><p>Ian Bogost in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/chatgpt-openai-artificial-intelligence-writing-ethics/672386/">The Atlantic summarized all the ways he said ChatGPT was "dumber than you think."</a> The tech-culture writer Ryan Broderick said that with ChatGPT and other generative-AI methods, "all the edges have been smoothed away, and I don't hate it, but, perhaps worse, I'm getting bored fast."<br /><br />Insider's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-hype-replacing-google-misses-how-limited-the-tech-is-2022-12">Tom Dotan on Friday detailed</a> many of the tech shortcomings of ChatGPT, including the inability to verify information, its high cost, and its tendency toward "hallucinations" — or creating an answer not based on facts.</p><p>Much like the internet in 2001, generative AI like ChatGPT is a young technology. Developers will continue improving the underlying models, and other developers will figure out how to deploy generative AI for useful purposes, not just as interesting playthings. <br /><br />If things work out, general users soon won't realize they're interacting with a bot. Workers will begin to work side by side with generative AI as a matter of course, the same way billions of workers today turn to Google to quickly figure something out. That's when tech like ChatGPT becomes essential — when it makes the long climb up the slope of enlightenment.</p><p>To be sure, the rise of generative AI and more forms of ChatGPT aren't assured. Many emerging technologies never reach the final stage of being productive and get mired in a failure of the tech or the business model — or a combination of the two. </p><p>Perhaps it's best to let ChatGPT predict its own future:</p><p>"As people begin to realize that artificial intelligence is not a magic solution to all of our problems, the hype around it will die down, and it will be able to develop and improve more effectively."</p><p>Well put, ChatGPT. In a couple of more years, you'll be able to say it even better.</p>

Viral chatbot ChatGPT will be overhyped, then overlooked, and then, perhaps, essential

<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">For years, big data has been one of the hottest buzzwords across all industries.</span></p>
<p class="p1">Big data is the term used to describe the process of analyzing complex set of data sets to discover information that could help make better decisions or find certain patterns that were previously unknown.</p>
<p class="p1">For example, Amazon is able to recommend products based on your previous buying patterns. Singapore healthcare providers are able to dig in to patient records to come up with <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/21/5-ways-big-data-is-helping-companies-help-their-customers/">more individualized treatment plans.</a></p>
<p class="p1">It's one of those things big companies and startups constantly talk about when people ask what "the next big thing" in tech will be.</p>
<p class="p2"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But despite its hype, big data is still considered a relatively obscure concept, failing to reach wider roll-out in companies outside tech and highly data-driven sectors.</span></p>
<p class="p2"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Gartner, for example, says big data still has a long way to go. It put big data at the "Peak of Inflated Expectations" in its Cycle for Emerging Technologies Map <a href="http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2575515">last year.</a> This year it slightly improved, moving to the tip of <a href="http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2819918">the "Trough of Disillusionment"</a> category, which means it's slightly getting better in terms of wide scale usage.</span></p>
<p class="p2"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Still, it's mostly just hype.</span></p>
<p class="p2"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div><br /></span></p>
<p class="p3"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Big data solutions provider <a href="https://www.talend.com/about-us/press/talend-survey-reveals-big-data-interest-is-soaring-but-adoption-rates-are-stalling">Talend also revealed in a survey</a> last year that only 10% of respondents were engaged in a large scale big data implementation, despite seeing nearly 40% growth in interest in big data within their organization. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"There is still a significant gap between those businesses expressing an interest and those taking the plunge and actually implementing the (big data) approach," said Yves de Montcheuil, VP of Marketing at Talend.</span></p>
<p class="p2"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Part of the reason for this imbalance in realizing the need for big data and actually implementing it can be found in corporate culture, says Santhosh Nair, VP of Strategy and Business Development at Wind River, an Intel-subsidiary focused on information appliance software.</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>
<p class="p1">"Organizations are very slow to change, especially when you move to regulated industries, like defense, medical, aerospace, and energy," Nair said at GE's Data Forecast event held on Tuesday.</p>
<p class="p3"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"It's this organizational inertia of not wanting to make a mistake. The cost of a mistake or a learning opportunity is very high and nobody wants to be the first to do that," he added. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"This data-driven, decision-making culture is not very common in 'traditional' organizations, where decisions are made in a certain way - and it's not always with data as an input."</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Another reason is because a lot of companies are just too focused on short-term growth. Nair said big companies in general are faced with the short term pressure of doing something for this year or this quarter, that sometimes, "impedes what you need to do for long-term sustainability."</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"You need to be in for the long-term. There's no quick, big win here. You need to invest to grow your business and revenue streams, and that's the challenge," he said.</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But there are positive signs in a lot of these "traditional" industries, he says, as even a lot of the energy companies are seriously looking into the benefits of data science. "There's a lot of good dialogue we're entertaining," he said.</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">He added the best way to speed up more big data implementation is to "just learn from the best use cases." He recommended creating a platform about best practices and sharing it across industries to raise awareness of big data science.</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"Big data is right at the 'trough of disillusionment,'" Nair said. "People are becoming more practical with big data. The hype is over and now is the implementation of the hype."</span></p>

'Big Data' Is One Of The Biggest Buzzwords In Tech That No One Has Figured Out Yet

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glideme/photos/a.471901482844018.114101.402947279739439/1287782674589224/?type=3">Facebook/Glide</a></span></p><p class="caption">Glide launched on Android Wear in February this year</p></div><p></p></div></div>Glide, the Jerusalem-based video-messaging startup <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/video-messaging-firm-glide-talk-secures-20-million-funding-round-1417574874">once reportedly valued at $100 million</a>, recently laid off 25% of its staff as it looks to focus on smartwatches.</p><p>The company launched the Glide app in 2013. It allows users to quickly send short video messages to friends, in a similar fashion to the way text messages work.</p><p>The free app has been downloaded "tens of millions" of times, resulting in "billions of messages" being sent since its debut, <a href="http://www.glide.me/press-releases/glide-upgrades-live-video-messaging-app-for-windows-10-mobile">the company claims.</a></p><p>Glide has attracted around $36.5 million in funding to date, which includes a recent $8 million round of "bridge financing," which was structured as convertible debt, the company's CEO Ari Roisman confirmed to Business Insider.</p><p>The investment came from a "syndicate of new strategic investors" plus participation from all of the company's Series B investors, which comprised Menlo Ventures, Marker LLC, and Two Sigma Ventures.</p><p>Roisman also confirmed the company had recently laid of 25% of its workforce as it pivots to focus on "the emerging smartwatch ecosystem."</p><p>Roles eliminated were those that did not directly support its new focus, Roisman said. The company now has 55 staff worldwide.</p><p>Roisman told Business Insider:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">As we increase focus and investment on the emerging smartwatch ecosystem and seek to keep operations lean, we decided to part ways with some friends and colleagues who did not entirely align with our strategy moving forward. We will continue to develop our visual messaging app and support our millions of users, yet we're also hard at work on an exciting new project for smartwatches that we plan to unveil later this summer.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glideme/photos/a.471901482844018.114101.402947279739439/1287782674589224/?type=3"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://twitter.com/ariroisman">Twitter/@AriRoisman</a></span></p><p class="caption">Glide CEO and cofounder Ari Roisman.</p></a></div><p></p></div></div>Glide launched its app on Android Wear in February this year and last year expanded its Palo Alto office to support its increased focus on smartwatches.</p><p>As part of the expansion, in June last year, Glide hired Shawn Grening, who was an early technical program manager on the Apple Watch team.</p><p>Pivoting the company to primarily work on smartwatches is a bold move.</p><p>In August last year, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/wearables-arent-as-exciting-anymore-2015-8">Tech Insider reported enthusiasm towards the wearables category was declining</a> toward the "trough of disillusionment," according to Gartner's annual Hype Cycle report on emerging technologies. </p><p>However, despite some of the early hype around the devices dying down, smartwatch sales continue to rise. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/apple-dominates-smartphone-sales-strategy-analytics-q1-2016-4">Strategy Analytics estimates that in Q1 2016, there were 4.2 million global smartwatch shipments, up from 1.3 million in Q1 2015</a>. </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bumble-tinder-whitney-wolfe-dating-profile-app-2016-5">Bumble founder: Men should stop putting these 4 things in their profiles</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="RkeHhnMzE6pk1hm6GnqIxTySYJTlGOFx" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Glide, the $100 million video-messaging startup, laid off 25% of its staff as it looks to focus on smartwatches

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Wikipedia</span></p><p class="caption">Two of MakerBot's founders Zach Smith and Bre Prettis.</p></div><p></p></div></div>3D printing company MakerBot is laying off 20% of its staff for the second time in six months, CEO Jonathan Jaglom announced in a <a href="http://www.makerbot.com/blog/2015/10/08/makerbot-reorganizes-to-adapt-to-market-dynamics-and-prepare-for-the-future?siteID=TnL5HPStwNw-nsKbiOb85A1Cy50yAvH_zg&amp;ls_affid=TnL5HPStwNw">blog post.</a> The company let 80 staff go back in April, and now the team is at less than 400.</p><p>Jaglom writes that the company has struggled to meet "ambitious goals" thanks to the "broader challenges" in the industry.</p><p>Right now, according to Gartner's annual <a href="http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3114217" target="_blank">Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies</a> report, 3D printing has been out of the "hype" stage (when everyone gets really excited about a new technology) for the last two years. But it could be another <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/gartner-hype-cycle-report-shows-3d-printing-expanding-2015-8">five to 10 years</a> before the tech really takes off with consumers. So that means 3D printing is currently stuck in a "trough of disillusionment" - a stage right after the hype for a new technology reaches its peak and consumers begin to lose interest.</p><p>It's at this point that companies in the space typically either establish their permanence or fail.</p><p class="p1">Cofounder and former CEO Bre Pettis had previously talked ambitiously about the future of 3D printing. "People draw a lot of parallels between the personal computing industry and the personal manufacturing industry," Pettis told Business Insider back in 2012, "and there's a lot of similarities ... now, just like the Altair and the Apple 1 and the homebrew days of homebrew computing, you can now have a MakerBot ... The future's bright."</p><p>After the last round of layoffs the company pivoted to focus on <a href="http://qz.com/519975/the-only-3d-printing-company-anyones-heard-of-just-laid-off-a-huge-chunk-of-its-staff/">the education market</a>, and shut down its <a href="http://qz.com/401569/makerbot-has-found-its-audience-and-its-not-you-or-me/">three retail stores</a> in New York, Boston and Connecticut. Around 5,000 schools across the US now have MakerBot printers.</p><p>The company is also moving its research and development staff from a manufacturing complex in Brooklyn called Industry City to its headquarters at MetroTech in Downtown Brooklyn so the teams can work more efficiently together. But the MakerBot factory will remain in Industry City, Jaglom writes. He also hinted that the company would be outsourcing the production of the next generation of its printers.</p><p>Former MakerBot CEO Bre Prettis <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/makerbot-ceo-bre-pettis-steps-down-2014-9">stepped down</a> in September last year, and was initially replaced Jenny Lawton. But after a few months Jaglom took over. He had previously worked for Stratasys, the massive 3D printing company that bought MakerBot for more than $400 million (£260 million) in 2013.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/south-koreans-tech-watching-people-eat-online-mukbang-2015-9">14-year-old makes up to $1,500 a night eating dinner in front of a webcam in South Korea</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="MwMDZkdzr7V54pSPAwMT1JU7p7MqmuY1" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

The company that was supposed to take 3D printing to the masses has laid off a huge chunk of staff

<h2><br /></h2><keyword id="6355684" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="blockchain">Blockchain</keyword> is the trending topic in the industry today, and organizations are vying with one another to take a position on this disruptive technology, if they have not done so already. A fallout of blockchain being at the peak of the hype cycle is that it tends to become a technology in search of a problem to solve, much like a hammer to which everything around looks like a nail. It is imperative to pause and understand the context in which this technology operates best and where and how it can truly deliver value.<br /><br />Here are three things to keep in mind about blockchain before you dive into it.<br /><br /><b></b><br /><br /><b>The true value of blockchain is realized in collaboration across trust boundaries</b><br /><br />Trust is a fundamental pre-requisite in any business. At the core of blockchain’s value proposition is its ability to enable trust through technology rather than central authorities or trust agents. Cryptography and pre-defined consensus mechanisms are used to enable trust based transactions. Blockchain can create a reliable record of transactions which can span organizational boundaries. And this record, or ledger, is available to all the members of the network at all times, enabling a highly visible, reliable and secure environment for exchange of value or information across peers. <br /><br />While blockchain plays a critical role within the confines of an organization, the inherent trust and hierarchy of decision-making within an organization can render its key capabilities redundant and take away from the value it can deliver. However, in cross-organizational processes, blockchain ushers in efficiencies by eliminating time staking paper based exchanges and latencies created due to hops across one or more central authorities that orchestrate trust between the parties. It can help create previously difficult-to-achieve levels of visibility across organizations and enable faster and better collaboration. With transactions and information exchange made easier and more reliable, it can even open up new and transformational possibilities for businesses to collaborate on new services and offerings.<br /><br /><b></b><br /><br /><b>Blockchain goes well beyond technology and calls for deliberate collaboration</b><br /><br />Blockchain is at the heart of it, a piece of technology - driven by cryptography, digital assets, distributed storage and digital contracts. However, unlike some other technology innovations that can be adopted by simply having the IT department buy and install a software, platform or a box, blockchain calls for much more. <br /><br />Realizing value from blockchain’s promise of enabling trust based interchanges across organizations requires a paradigm shift in how businesses think and strategize. Blockchain opens up new opportunities to be leveraged by engaging differently not only with partners but also with competitors. The delicate boundary between collaboration and competition, between sharing and withholding must be navigated. Motivations, incentives and funding models must be negotiated. Governance, administration, operations and accountability across organizations must be collectively worked out. Collaboration can no more be an afterthought; it has to be part of the design of the process.<br /><br /><b>There are costs and trade-offs in blockchain, like with anything else in life</b><br /><br />Blockchain creates many exciting possibilities, and it is tempting to think of it as the panacea for all ills. But it is prudent and important to be realistic about its capabilities and limitations, and understand the tradeoffs that will be necessary in the context of where and how it is used. <br /><br />One of these is transparency vs confidentiality of data. A fundamental premise of blockchain is complete transparency of the data on it, and this is ideally required to establish the level of transparency and trust promised by blockchain. However, while this is very desirable in public value exchange networks like the <keyword id="6354947" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="bitcoin">Bitcoin</keyword> where all transactions are available for anyone to verify, complete transparency is not preferred in the enterprise context for various reasons – privacy, confidentiality, competitive advantage and so on. Enterprises would want to retain control of what data is private and what is shared publicly, and have the ability to selectively give access to data. <br /><br />Another factor is the cost of disintermediation – in a completely trustless network such as the peer-to-peer Bitcoin network, disintermediation comes at the cost of reduced transaction speed (in comparison with traditional database systems). A consensus mechanism such as proof-of-work (through the mining process) demands a significant time window that is in proportion to the size of the network. While research and technology work is ongoing to enhance this, in networks where there is already complete or some element of trust, simpler and faster consensus mechanisms can be used thereby achieving much higher transaction speeds. <br /><br />A third is decentralization vs centralization of data. The distributed and shared ledger concept of blockchain essentially implies that all data is replicated and stored in every copy of the ledger at each node. This works well enough in networks like the Bitcoin where the only data stored is the transactions of bitcoins. However, in an enterprise context where more, heavier information is to be stored and exchanged, such as a documents or images, storing such information at every node can prove to be expensive and unwieldy. So, while still talking about a decentralized network, it makes sense to centralize the storage of heavier data assets and enable linked, need based access through the decentralized nodes.<br /><br />Getting a deeper understanding of the blockchain technology is necessary to ensure that it is used to address the right business problem, there is awareness of the elements and approach required for its design, and informed choices are made in designing the network; all these aid in mitigating the risk of getting ahead and then slipping into the trough of disillusionment.<br /><br />(This article is authored by Prasad Joshi, Vice President and Head, <keyword id="6354512" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="infosys">Infosys</keyword> Center for Emerging Technology Solutions)<br /><br />

3 things to know before adopting blockchain

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The cannabis bubble, propped up by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-cannabis-companies-pursue-reverse-takeovers-2018-11">a thriving market for reverse takeovers</a> on the Canadian Securities Exchange, has burst. </li><li>Business Insider spoke with over a dozen top CEOs and execs about the industry's prospects. They said that while the shakeout is here - and some companies will likely fail - the business will turn around.</li><li>The current period of low valuations provides an opportunity for savvy investors to put money to work, and for stronger companies to buy up their rivals, executives said.</li><li>Click here for more <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime">BI Prime stories</a>, and subscribe to our weekly cannabis newsletter, <a href="http://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/cultivated">Cultivated</a>.</li></ul><p>2019 was the year that the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/cannabis">nascent legal cannabis industry</a> crashed directly into the floor. </p><p>A year that began with a flurry of multibillion-dollar deal announcements, companies going public, and shareholders getting rich on paper ended with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pax-eaze-weedmaps-hexo-canntrust-layoffs-job-cuts-in-cannabis-2019-10">thousands of layoffs</a>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-medmen-pharmacann-blowup-is-a-disaster-for-cannabis-ma-2019-10">deals canceled or reduced in scope</a>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-canopy-growth-ceo-bruce-lintons-talks-about-new-ventures-2019-9">CEOs fired</a>, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cannabis-investing-slump-stocks-fall-layoffs-fewer-deals-2019-11">capital-markets turmoil</a>. "Dot-com", as in the crash that ended the tech boom of the 1990's, has become a common refrain in countless conversations with industry insiders. </p><p>"I think it's exactly what happened to tech as far back as the eighties and nineties," Green Growth Brands CEO Peter Horvath told Business Insider in an interview last week.</p><p>In other words, over a dozen cannabis CEOs and C-suite execs Business Insider spoke for this story said that there wasn't a shakeout coming - the shakeout is <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/tilray-stock-price-falls-below-ipo-price-first-time-ever-2019-12-1028776841">already here</a>. For the companies that survive, this era of crashing stock prices will be seen as a small blip on the path to global domination, they said. They said that while some companies will fail, the current period of low valuations provides an opportunity for savvy investors to put money to work, and for stronger companies to buy up their rivals.</p><p><em><strong>Read more</strong>: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cannabis-investing-slump-stocks-fall-layoffs-fewer-deals-2019-11">Layoffs, cratering stocks, and blown-up deals: 11 experts take us inside the cannabis industry's meltdown and tell us where the industry goes from here</a></em></p><p>Curaleaf, a cannabis cultivator and retailer, was forced to reprice <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/curaleaf-acquires-cura-partners-in-949-million-transaction-2019-5">a near-billion dollar deal to acquire the Select Brand</a> of cannabis products from Cura Partners, and its other marquee deal, an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/curaleaf-is-acquiring-grassroots-cannabis-for-875-million-2019-7">acquisition of Grassroots Cannabis</a>, is expected to close "early next year," CEO Joe Lusardi said. The company's stock changed hands for more than $11 a share earlier this year, though it's now trading for half that, around $5.35</p><p>Still, Lusardi said that 2019 "was the best year in company history."</p><p>In an interview on the sidelines of MJBizCon in Las Vegas, he pointed out that more people are coming into stores and buying cannabis legally every day in the US and around the world, and said the US is "on an amazing growth trajectory."</p><p>He blamed the company's stock gyrations on the fact that Curaleaf, like other companies that cultivate and sell THC-containing products in the US, trades in Canada, and is being weighed down by disappointing financial results across the sector.</p><p>Lusardi said he expects to see even more consolidation among smaller players in the industry, in a push to survive a tough market. </p><p>"I think you will likely see companies banding together because in this case, being big and having scale is helpful and you can spread your costs over a bigger operating base and be more efficient," says Lusardi. </p><p>And while Lusardi said the past few years were focused on making acquisitions, securing licenses, and building out infrastructure, "2020 we'll be focused on building a proper CPG [consumer packaged goods] business."</p><h2>A classic tale of irrational exuberance</h2><p>To Green Growth Brands CMO Jann Parish, cannabis in 2019 is a classic tale of market exuberance, pegged to the attractive story of taking what was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/latest-cannabis-business-news-2019-6">once a demonized, illegal drug</a> and leveraging the wheels of capitalism to turn it into an upscale consumer product.</p><p>"I think that there was a kind of irrational exuberance when the business of cannabis became relatively more mainstream and you saw the markets open up," Parish said.</p><p>Steve White, the CEO of Harvest Health &amp; Recreation, said there's a "mismatch" between the fundamentals of his business and share prices in the wider cannabis industry because many big investors can't own shares in cannabis firms.</p><p>"Large institutional investors can't play US cannabis," White said on the sidelines of MJBizCon in Las Vegas last week. "You're going to have an imperfect market determining the price of shares when you have an artificial constraint on demand. It's a simple supply-and-demand question."</p><p>While White sees the M&amp;A among cannabis companies slowing next year, he says there will be an opportunity for companies to scoop up distressed assets in the industry.</p><p>"It's hard because when your share price is down, you can't use stock as currency the same way you could," White said. "The flip side of that coin is you'll find some distressed assets that are available and I think people will take advantage of those opportunities to the extent they can." </p><h2>Shareholders and investors have gone from unbridled excitement to wanting to see concrete results, execs say </h2><p>Cannabis, by nature, is a capital intensive business. So once analysts and shareholders started looking at companies to actually generate returns, and not just spend money to acquire licenses and build out cultivation facilities, operators found themselves in trouble, Horvath said. </p><p>"The narrative has moved from, 'Who can accumulate the most assets,' to 'Who can make the most money,'" he said. </p><p>More than one executive brought up, in some form or another, the <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/gartner-hype-cycle">Gartner Hype Cycle</a> of emerging technologies, and pointed out that we've slid well past the "peak" into what's known as the "trough of disillusionment," where a slew of negative press, supply chain issues, and capital constraints weighs on share prices in any new industry, whether its software or cannabis.</p><p>From here, things are only going to get better, Green Thumb Industries CEO Ben Kovler told Business Insider in an interview last week in Las Vegas.</p><p><em><strong>Read more</strong>: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/some-financial-advisers-allowing-clients-cannabis-shares-if-they-ask-2019-10">Some cannabis stocks now have the green light from US wealth managers like Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and Wells Fargo. We have details on firms' policies.</a></em></p><p>"Companies that are focused on their stock price are focused on the wrong things. We view this as a long term game," Kovler said. "Next year, it's all about execution, execution, execution." </p><p>In terms of capital markets, Kovler said he's not surprised at what he's seeing. "If we can continue to put up good numbers, the stock price will ultimately find the right level, but we can't worry about where it goes now or the next month - or the next three or six months." </p><p>Andy Grossman, a hedge fund veteran and Green Thumb Industries' head of capital markets, sees a slew of missteps on his competition's part. </p><p>"The companies around us are running out of cash," Grossman said. "They're doing deals - they don't have cash for them. So you're seeing deals break, you're seeing things get cut. We operate very differently and we have to pay attention to it."</p><h2>'There's pain to come', but the market will get more efficient in 2020</h2><p>When asked about his predictions for cannabis in 2020, Kush Bottles CEO Nick Kovacevich said there will be a shakeout on the private side as well.</p><p>"There's a ton of companies and the majority of them are raising money and they need money," Kovacevich told Business Insider on the sidelines of MJBizCon in Las Vegas. "And there's just simply not enough active cannabis investors to support the sheer amount of capital needed."</p><p>What will happen, says Kovacevich, is that some companies will be forced to shut down, benefiting the stronger companies that remain, he said.</p><p>To Chris Walsh, the incoming CEO of Marijuana Business Daily - an industry intelligence platform that hosts the MJBiz conference and has an editorial department as well - the long term outlook for cannabis is great.</p><p>"But there's pain to come," he said. "To survive, you're going to need a good source of funding, a realistic understanding of the market, and set reasonable growth targets."</p><p>That being said, Walsh sees lots of companies that will "end up being victims of circumstance" and lots of room for distressed asset sales. </p><p><em><strong>Read more</strong>: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/vcs-have-poured-2-billion-into-cannabis-but-investors-are-still-wary-2019-10">Venture funds have poured close to $2 billion into cannabis startups this year. But top investors are starting to get wary as headwinds mount.</a></em></p><p>Tim Leslie, the CEO of cannabis information site Leafly, said he isn't worried about the cannabis market. Leslie, who took over as Leafly's CEO earlier this year, was forced to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cannabis-site-leafly-freezing-hiring-limiting-travel-internal-memo-2019-10">pare back expenses at the company</a> but said that things are on the right track for 2020.</p><p>"I think coming into 2020, you'll actually see more investment dollars," says Leslie. "Investors will take losses for tax purposes, but they'll come in with a clean slate. And valuations - many of which were too high to begin with - will fall."</p><p>Reduced valuations, at least in the private market, might provide a new entry point for venture capital investors, Leslie said.</p><p>The same can be said for the public markets, said Beth Stavola, the chief strategy officer of iAnthus Capital, a New York City-based cannabis company. </p><p>"If you have the capital, and you haven't lost your shirt in the markets yet, it's a screaming opportunity right now," Stavola said. "I just think that there's a lot of scared money right now, but those that are actually going out there and deploying capital are going to make a ton of money for their investors."</p><ul class="read-more-links"><li><strong>Read more:</strong></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/exclusive-barry-saik-taking-over-cannabis-startup-green-bits-ceo-2019-12">A cannabis startup backed by Tiger Global just swapped its longtime CEO for a tech-industry veteran. We got the first interview with the new exec.</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/canopy-rivers-ceo-narbe-alexandrian-key-cannabis-trends-in-2020-2019-12">A VC who runs a $200 million cannabis fund told us why China is the next big frontier for cannabis and hemp</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/constellation-brands-cfo-david-klein-becomes-canopy-growth-ceo-2019-12">The world's largest cannabis company has a new CEO, and Wall Street is betting it's a sign that Canopy Growth's investors aren't willing to wait for results to improve</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/traders-piling-into-bets-against-aurora-tilray-hexo-canopy-growth-2019-11">Wall Street stock traders are piling into bets against cannabis stocks, even as shares have plummeted</a></li></ul> <p class="tagline"><a href="/intelligence/digital-health?IR=T&amp;itm_source=businessinsider&amp;itm_medium=ctgr_bii&amp;itm_term=ctgr_subscription&amp;itm_content=health&amp;itm_campaign=digital-health"></a></p><p>Featured Digital Health Articles:<br />- <a href="/telehealth-industry-explained">Telehealth Industry: Benefits, Services &amp; Examples</a><br />- <a href="/value-based-care-pay-for-performance-healthcare-model">Value-Based Care Model: Pay-for-Performance Healthcare</a><br />- <a href="/senior-care-market-trends">Senior Care &amp; Assisted Living Market Trends</a><br />- <a href="/wearable-technology-healthcare-medical-devices">Smart Medical Devices: Wearable Tech in Healthcare</a><br />- <a href="/artificial-intelligence-healthcare">AI in Healthcare</a><br />- <a href="/remote-patient-monitoring-industry-explained">Remote Patient Monitoring Industry: Devices &amp; Market Trends</a></p>

2019 was the year the cannabis bubble burst. We talked to more than a dozen top cannabis execs about what's next.

<p><em><em><em><strong><keyword id="1737805" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Social-Media-Insights">Social Media Insights</keyword></strong> is a new daily newsletter from <strong>Business Insider</strong> that collects and delivers the top <keyword id="6354632" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Social-media">social media</keyword> news first thing every morning. You can <strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/newsletter">sign up</a></strong> to receive <strong>Social Media Insights</strong> <strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/newsletter">here</a></strong> or at the bottom of this post.</em></em></em></p>

<p><strong><a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/marketing-director-understand-twitter_b35376">If Your Marketing Director Doesn’t Understand Twitter, Don't Tweet</a> (Mediabistro)</strong><br />What happens when you combine an intern-created <keyword id="6354616" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Twitter">Twitter</keyword> account, a marketing director who doesn’t understand how to use it and 60 disgruntled employees, some with access to the account and nothing to lose? You get <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hmv-employee-live-tweets-firing-2013-1">HMV’s Twitter stream</a> last week. And this can happen to you. When budget cuts happen and heads must roll, one of the last things you want is to find your company’s financial drama under a social media spotlight:</p>
<p><div class="image-container center" style="width:505px"><div class="image"></div><p class="source"><a href="http://twitpic.com/bzsfij">Twitter</a></p></div></p>
<p>So if your marketing director doesn’t know how to “shut down Twitter” or even how silly that statement is, then your company shouldn’t be tweeting. And maybe you’re firing the wrong person. <a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/marketing-director-understand-twitter_b35376">Read &gt;&gt;</a></p>
<p><strong><a href="http://deadspin.com/5980852/">Who Is America’s Favorite NFL Team?</a> (Deadspin)</strong><br />According to <keyword id="6354576" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Facebook">Facebook</keyword>, it's the <keyword id="4586" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="dallas-cowboys">Dallas Cowboys</keyword>, even though they haven't won a Super Bowl in nearly two decades:</p>
<p><div class="image-container center" style="width:600px"><div class="image"></div><p class="source">Facebook</p></div></p>
<p>The exact numbers:</p>
<p><div class="image-container center" style="width:600px"><div class="image"></div><p class="source">Facebook</p></div>  <a href="http://deadspin.com/5980852/"></a></p>
<p>The Cowboys won a clear plurality. It's far from a majority, but based on the country's largest fanbase and widest distribution, the Dallas Cowboys have earned the right to keep calling themselves "America's Team," at least in the <keyword id="103436" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="NFL">NFL</keyword>. Check out the article for more insight into other leagues. <a href="http://deadspin.com/5980852/">Read &gt;&gt;</a></p>
<p><strong><a href="http://realbusiness.co.uk/article/17516-the-top-social-media-business-tactics">Top Social Media Business Tactics</a> (Real Business)</strong><br />Here are examples of companies that made social media work in their favor:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Hertz:</strong> Through the use of Facebook, Hertz started the <em>Share It Up</em> campaign. The more coupons you shared with friends on Facebook, the greater discounts you could earn. Almost half of consumers who saw the coupon shared it with friends. </li>
<li><strong><keyword id="25952" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Mercedes-Benz">Mercedes-Benz</keyword>:</strong> The company incorporated a unique promotion through the use of user interaction. The <em>Choose Your Own Adventure</em> idea allowed consumers to control the outcome of future advertisements. This made the viewers not only participate and spread the word, but wait eagerly for the ads to appear.</li>
<li><strong>FoodCycle:</strong> Possibly the best example of the power of social media is the charity FoodCycle, which aimed to publicize itself through Twitter. Using 140 character recipes under the name <em>Tweet Pie</em>, it collected an abundance of knowledge from its viewers in turn.</li>
</ol>
<p>Are you not gaining the success you've wished to achieve with social? Curious what tactics other businesses have used? Check out the article for three more examples. <a href="http://realbusiness.co.uk/article/17516-the-top-social-media-business-tactics">Read &gt;&gt;</a></p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.zdnet.com/social-medias-rocky-road-in-business-7000010652/">Social Media's Rocky Road In Business</a> (ZDNet)</strong><br />Despite all-time high levels of adoption in many organizations, the early results have at times been decidedly mixed. However, this has long been the case with emerging tech, whether the next big "revolution" was ERP, CRM, cloud, etc.</p>
<p><div class="image-container center" style="width:600px"><div class="image"></div><p class="source">ZDNet</p></div></p>
<p>Those who track the online discourse on enterprise social media are surely aware that the trough of disillusionment is likely at hand. Yet the dreaded industry trough, brought about by the over-heated promises and inflated expectations bandied about from just about every quarter—including thought leaders, journalists, vendors, and yes, even end-users themselves— is considered a largely inevitable step in the process of maturity of any new technology. <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/social-medias-rocky-road-in-business-7000010652/">Read &gt;&gt;</a></p>
<p><strong><a href="http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2013/02/02/foursquare-now-includes-the-businesss-twitter-handle-when-you-tweet-your-check-in-from-that-location/">Foursquare Now Includes Businesses' Twitter Handles</a> (TNW)</strong><br /><keyword id="76575" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Foursquare">Foursquare</keyword> announced businesses can now add their Twitter account to their profile, pulling the two services even closer together. As a result, when customers check-in to a business with a Twitter account attached, if they choose to tweet about it, their message will feature the company’s Twitter handle. If you manage a single location on Foursquare and have already connected your Twitter account, you don’t have to do anything, as this change has already been applied for you. If you manage multiple locations, still need to connect your Twitter account, or want to turn this feature off, you can do so on the tools page. <a href="http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2013/02/02/foursquare-now-includes-the-businesss-twitter-handle-when-you-tweet-your-check-in-from-that-location/">Read &gt;&gt;</a></p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-lousy-ad-business-is-just-a-warm-up-act-2013-2">Facebook's Lousy Ad Business Is Just The Start</a> (Business Insider)</strong><br />The journalists are at odds. Christopher Mims, among others, argue that Facebook will never make a significant profit. They argue that Facebook will always have slim margins and rely on sheer volume to generate a larger total sum. However, Simone Foxman thinks they are wrong. Facebook’s competitive strategy— to get more users in more places before working out how to make money from them— will give it a virtual monopoly over social media across the globe. That’s a far more important long-term benefit than immediate profits for shareholders. And once the company has this monopoly, it can and will capitalize on it. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-lousy-ad-business-is-just-a-warm-up-act-2013-2">Read &gt;&gt;</a></p>
<p><strong><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:268px"><div class="image"></div><p class="source"><a href="http://socialtimes.com/social-media-stock-tracker-lukewarm-reaction-to-facebook-results_b118002">Social Times</a></p></div><a href="http://socialtimes.com/social-media-stock-tracker-lukewarm-reaction-to-facebook-results_b118002">Social Media Stock Tracker: Lukewarm Reaction to Facebook Results</a> (Social Times)</strong><br />The social media sector was flat this week as Facebook’s fourth quarter results failed to impress investors who expected dramatic gains in mobile revenue and Yahoo also failed to excite with its earnings and 2013 outlook. However, for the calendar year of 2013, the social media sector is still up 8 percent and this week we will see notable earnings from <keyword id="188699" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Zynga">Zynga</keyword>, <keyword id="86061" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Yelp">Yelp</keyword> and <keyword id="28120" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Linkedin">LinkedIn</keyword>. <keyword id="1773620" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Angies-List">Angie's List</keyword> led in weekly performance with a gain of 8 percent, mainly from a new payments partnership with Square and an upgrade from analysts ahead of its earnings in two weeks. <a href="http://socialtimes.com/social-media-stock-tracker-lukewarm-reaction-to-facebook-results_b118002">Read &gt;&gt;</a></p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.virtualsocialmedia.com/youtube-marketing-how-to-popularize-your-brand-using-youtube/">How To Popularize Your Brands Using YouTube</a> (Virtual Social Media)</strong><br />There are literally millions of people who spend hours watching different <keyword id="10879" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="YouTube">YouTube</keyword> videos. Aside from Facebook and Twitter, YouTube is also one of the most visited sites over the web. There are more than 900 million users visiting YouTube globally. If you use YouTube for proper marketing of your brand, you can come up big. Here's how:</p>
<ul>
<li>Make sure the viewers will be entertained</li>
<li>Change the look of your channel</li>
<li>Make sure that viewers will be educated</li>
<li>Display your channel content using your modules</li>
<li>Learn to socialize in the community</li>
<li>User generated content may also be encourage</li>
<li>Lead visitors to your website</li>
</ul>
<p>Video marketing is one of the best ways to make money online and drive effective traffic to a website too. <a href="http://www.virtualsocialmedia.com/youtube-marketing-how-to-popularize-your-brand-using-youtube/">Read &gt;&gt;</a></p>
<p><strong><a href="http://socialmediatoday.com/peter-claridge/1208766/infographic-targeting-social-media">How Insurance Companies Are Targeting You On Social Media</a> (Unmetric via Social Media Today)</strong><br />It must be hard to be a marketer in an <keyword id="35450" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="insurance">insurance</keyword> company. You are selling a necessary product that hardly gets the pulses racing. But all the insurance brands, which spend tens of millions on TV commercials, have taken to YouTube like a duck to water. <a href="http://socialmediatoday.com/peter-claridge/1208766/infographic-targeting-social-media">Read &gt;&gt;</a></p>
<p><div class="image-container center" style="width:600px"><div class="image"></div><p class="source">Unmetric</p></div></p>

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