Robot Butlers, Tattoo Tourism and Sam Altman Gets Grilled At TED

Dear Fellow Trend Curator,

Lots of non-obvious stories to share this week, starting with a recap of some of the early release talks from the TED conference last week that are already online. In other stories this week, you’ll read about a few ideas for gardens of the future … just in time for those of us heading outdoors as the weather starts to shift here in the US. You’ll also read about the rise of “tattoorism” where people use tattoos as souvenirs from a trip and a campaign around it from Kimpton hotels that falls flat.

In other stories, you’ll read about the backlash (and upside) of the recent all-female Blue Origins spaceflight, a new study that suggests ecommerce is boring and emotionless, how crunch took over our taste buds and how robots are changing modern farming.

Enjoy the stories and stay curious!

rohit

This Week in Video …

3 Powerful Talks from TED This Week That Are Already Available Live to Watch

The TED conference took place this past week and some of the talks have already been released. While most of the year the TED social channels repackage and release talks from past events, this is the one moment when you can actually watch talks close to when they were first presented live. Going through the site and watching some of the talks, here were three that stood out as important to watch along with some of my thoughts:

How would a robot butler actually work? In this fascinating live presentation, roboticist and founder of 1X Bernt Børnich introduces NEO, a humanoid robot designed to help you out around the house. As he talks about the possibilities, you see NEO doing household tasks. Børnich’s main insight is that if robots are going to gain more intelligence, it will not come from doing limited tasks in a factory setting. Instead, we will need to test them in the home, and this is an example of what happens when you do that.

Perhaps the most shared talk from TED already is this urgent talk from investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr who breaks down the “broligarchy” and the real costs of allowing technology companies to dismantle democracy. Most importantly, she shares some actionable ways to take the power back by protecting your data, pushing back on surveillance and giving money and support to those that are protecting the things that matter such as journalists and platforms like the Wayback Machine.

Clearly this conversation between TED founder Chris Anderson and OpenAI founder Sam Altman was going to be a blockbuster … a fact that the TED team likely knew since this was available to watch live. In the talk, Anderson asks Altman tough questions about IP theft, future plans, ethical issues and all the things you would want to know about. Altman largely sticks to the script, offering a utopian take on all the ways things could go right while generally avoiding any thought or suggestion that perhaps things could go awry. I’m not sure you’ll get much new from this interview, but as Anderson concluded, “Sam, I think over the next few years you’re going to have some of the biggest opportunities, some of the biggest moral challenges, some of the biggest decisions to make of perhaps any human in history. We are all cheering you on to make the right decisions.” Yikes.

The Gardens of the Future Are on Display

Sometimes a garden show is about more than stopping to smell the roses. At the upcoming Chelsea Flower Show, some of the exhibits will help imagine what the future of gardens and open spaces could be. There’s a concept ADHD Garden that features a central reflection pool and “the plant selection has been chosen to provide a subliminal effect on the senses, inducing a sense of calm and rest from an overactive mind.” Another intriguing concept is the Peace of Mind Garden where the plantings are laid out to reference a colour wheel and the aim of the garden is to “grounded in the moment to mindfully observe plants and colour which can enhance mood and benefit mental wellbeing.”

One of the most inventive ideas is a futuristic Dog Garden that teaches people plants to avoid that are harmful to dogs and how to create a hardy lawn that is perfect for pets to roll around and do their business. The entire show is a perfect reminder of the importance of time outdoors (we wrote about the therapeutic effects of this in our Green Prescriptions trend from The Future Normal), and also how the best gardens are created with intention. We don’t need to settle for dog “parks” that are basically a rectangular cage around some turf spread out over concrete.” As we head into Spring up here in the Northern hemisphere—it’s a great time to go plant something. And if all these garden concepts seem like a lot of work, you can always try “chaos gardening” instead.

The Complex Reality of “Girlbosses” In Space

This week the first all-female crew for a “manned” spaceflight headed to space—for ten minutes—on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. One of the passengers was pop singer Katy Perry who reportedly broke into song while on the flight (What a Wonderful World) and promptly kissed the ground when she landed safely back to Earth. Again, she was gone for ten minutes. Of course, the backlash was swift and fierce, which surprised some of the passengers. People online called it everything from a publicity stunt (true) to a complete waste of money (maybe true). Katy Perry, to her credit, did exactly what she has always done and owned her own choices while offering soundbites along the way: “We’re putting the ass in astronaut!”

Not exactly the sort of female empowerment that the world needs, but the fact that this is the first all-female space mission is historically significant. This underscores the biggest problem with private space travel itself: it may simultaneously be something great for the future of humanity and a “vacuous PR stunt” too. In the rush to criticize or praise it, we can easily miss this fact. Good things can be done for selfish reasons. Just as world-shifting inspiration can come from unexpected places. Even someone who’s greatest contribution to science is putting the ass in astronaut.

Tattoorism and the Elusive Quest for the Ultimate Souvenir

How do you remember a trip forever? Last year there was a feature story about “the rise of tattoo tourism” and how more Millennials and Gen Zers were planning vacations around visiting famous artists around the world and coming home with the ultimate souvenir. A boutique hotel in NY opened an in-house tattoo parlor and one hotel chain even had a program where they brought celebrity tattoo artists into the hotel so you could have a more exclusive experience and get inked in style and comfort. All these earlier efforts had one thing in common … the tattoo artists were creating memorable works of art as part of the travel experience.

This week, Kimpton hotel group announced a program teaming up with Tiny Zaps (a studio specializing in tiny tattoos) where they offer a fixed range of “locally inspired” tattoos for guests to pick from and then get local artists to do them in first-come, first-served sessions. This is a brilliant idea, but sadly the range of tattoo designs they offer are obvious, uninspired and forgettable.

As someone who has engaged in “tattoorism” by getting multiple tattoos while traveling, the beautiful thing about the experience is meeting a local artist (like these guys in Bali) with a style that you like and having them customize something truly personal for you. Without that, Tiny Zaps and Kimpton just offered the tattoo equivalent of going to Venice to try the coffee and grabbing a latte at McDonald’s instead.

The Non-Obvious Media Recommendation of the Week

Design Taxi

While Design Taxi is technically a site and community made for designers, the stories they surface every week are routinely interesting and unique—and many don’t really focus on the tactical side of designing either. From sharing the latest new marketing campaigns to offering news about rebranding, the site is worth adding to your weekly reading list to browse. The only downside of this one is the constant barrage of advertising. If you can deal with that, you’ll get something valuable out of reading this one most of the time that you visit.

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week

The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr

It is perhaps odd to describe a book as both timely and urgent when it was first published more than 15 years ago … but that’s the thing that will probably strike you first about The Shallows. The scenarios and human behaviors it describes are chillingly accurate for right now. Deservedly selected as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize when it first came out, the book was an interesting read for me this week as I turned back to some of the pages because amidst many of the dated references to innovations of the time (video books known as “vooks” and limited discussion of AI or social media), the larger arguments and points he raises feel still important today:

“Every tool imposes limitations even as it opens possibilities. The more we use it, the more we mold ourselves to its form and function.”

Reading passages like this make The Shallows feel as though it was written with a cautionary tale for modern times. Much of the book is indeed exactly that. For offering a sobering historical perspective on the dangers of the past days of the Internet and reminding us all that some of the ethical technology questions we face today are the same ones we left unanswered from years ago.

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About the Non-Obvious Book Selection of the Week:

Every week I will be featuring a new “non-obvious” book selection worth sharing. Titles featured here may be new or from the backlist, but the date of publication doesn’t really matter. My goal is to elevate great books that perhaps deserve a second look which you might have otherwise missed.

Even More Non-Obvious Stories …

Every week I always curate more stories than I’m able to explore in detail. Instead of skipping those stories, I started to share them in this section so you can skim the headlines and click on any that spark your interest:

How are these stories curated?

Every week I spend hours going through hundreds of stories in order to curate this email. Looking for a speaker to inspire your team to become non-obvious thinkers through a keynote or workshop? 

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This Non-Obvious Insights Newsletter is curated by Rohit Bhargava.Copyright © 2024 Non-Obvious, All rights reserved