Artificial Intelligence a hot trend in 2017: Ericsson

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an important development and consumers globally will see it playing a much more prominent role -- both in society and at work -- next year, a new report said on Tuesday.

Ericsson ConsumerLab, in its annual trend report titled "The 10 Hot Consumer Trends for 2017 and beyond", said that 35 per cent of advanced internet users want an AI advisor at work and one in four would like AI as their manager.

At the same time, almost half of the respondents were concerned that AI robots will soon make a lot of people lose their jobs.

With an increase in IoT adoption, two in five believed smartphones will learn their habits and perform activities on their behalf automatically. Also, one in four pedestrians would feel safer crossing a street if all cars were autonomous and 65 per cent of them would prefer to have an autonomous car.

"As autonomous cars become reality, car sickness issues will increase. Three in ten foresee needing sickness pills. One in three also want motion sickness pills for use with virtual and augmented reality technology," the report added.

While mentioning about the Virtual Reality (VR), the report pointed out that almost four out of five VR users believe it will be indistinguishable from reality in only three years.

"Beyond real time, I believe we should be talking about reality time. In fact, what we call reality becomes ever more personal and subjective," said Michael Björn, Head of Research at Ericsson ConsumerLab.

"Consumers not only surround themselves with the like-minded on social networks but also are also starting to customise the way they experience the world with augmented and virtual reality technologies," Björn added.

Over 50 per cent are already use emergency alarms, tracking or notifications on their smartphones. Of those who say their smartphone makes them feel safer, three in five say they take more risks because they rely on their phone.

One in three respondents said social networks are their main source of news and more than one in four value their contacts' opinions more than politicians' viewpoints.

"Over half of people would like to use augmented reality glasses to illuminate dark surroundings and highlight dangers. More than one in three would also like to edit out disturbing elements around them," the report found.

When talking about security, two in five advanced internet users want to use only encrypted services. Almost half would like to have just reasonably good privacy across all services and more than one out of three believes privacy no longer exists.

"Consumers also want the future to remain fully mobile, implying that demand for battery-friendly, instant and fast connectivity is set to grow rapidly. In that sense, reality time means it is time for 5G networks," Björn noted.

--IANS

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