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Peter Diamandis is best known as the founder of the XPrize Foundation, which offers big cash prizes as an incentive for tech solutions to big problems. The entrepreneur and investor is also co-founder of the Singularity University, a Silicon Valley-based nonprofit offering education in futurology. His new book, The Future Is Faster Than You Think, argues that the already rapid pace of technological innovation is about to get a whole lot quicker. Do you think people are worried about where technology is going to take us? I can palpably feel how fast things are changing and that the rate of change is accelerating, and I have picked up a growing amount of fear coming from people who don't understand where the world is going.

Every day, roughly 60 percent of all market trades are made by computer. When the market turns volatile, this can climb to as high as 90 percent. Robo-advisors are increasingly making this process available to the consumer, saving them time and money as a result. With humans no longer in the transaction chain, fees are slashed. Undercutting the typical 2 percent cut of profits (not to mention 20 percent incentives) charged by a wealth manager, most robo-advisors take around 0.25 percent.

As we enter our third decade in the 21st century, it seems appropriate to reflect on the ways technology developed and note the breakthroughs that were achieved in the last 10 years. The 2010s saw IBM's Watson win a game of Jeopardy, ushering in mainstream awareness of machine learning, along with DeepMind's AlphaGO becoming the world's Go champion. It was the decade that industrial tools like drones, 3D printers, genetic sequencing, and virtual reality (VR) all became consumer products. And it was a decade in which some alarming trends related to surveillance, targeted misinformation, and deepfakes came online. For better or worse, the past decade was a breathtaking era in human history in which the idea of exponential growth in information technologies powered by computation became a mainstream concept.

Recently I participated in the ThinkX program sponsored by SAP Innovation Partnership Program and Singularity University. The origins of ThinkX touch the xPrize competitions and other design events which seek to leverage exponential learning. Over the past 5 years, SAP and SU have hosted over 800 SAP executives, leaders and employees to events around the world. In this second article of a three-part series I will explore the big trends, themes and take-aways - including how they may impact industry and society in the coming years. Advances in cognitive science, particularly in areas such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and blockchain will increase at an accelerated rate.

On our sidewalks, in our skies, in our every store… Over the next decade, robots will enter the mainstream of retail. As countless robots work behind the scenes to stock shelves, serve customers, and deliver products to our doorstep, the speed of retail will accelerate. These changes are already underway. In this blog, we'll elaborate on how robots are entering the retail ecosystem. On August 3rd, 2016, Domino's Pizza introduced the Domino's Robotic Unit, or "DRU" for short.

AI and broadband are eating retail for breakfast. In the first half of 2019, we've seen 19 retailer bankruptcies. And the retail apocalypse is only accelerating. What's coming next is astounding. Why drive when you can speak?

Try Hyperloop, rocket travel, and robotic avatars. Hyperloop is currently working towards 670 mph (1080 kph) passenger pods, capable of zipping us from Los Angeles to downtown Las Vegas in under 30 minutes. Rocket Travel (think SpaceX's Starship) promises to deliver you almost anywhere on the planet in under an hour. Think New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes. As 5G connectivity, hyper-realistic virtual reality, and next-gen robotics continue their exponential progress, the emergence of "robotic avatars" will all but nullify the concept of distance, replacing human travel with immediate remote telepresence.

The accelerated pace of success in machine learning applications reflects significant improvements in specialized hardware, algorithms, and access to data. Corporations now know that they need to deploy machine learning rapidly, but they are unsure about best practices. Public sentiment has shifted from skepticism to fears of runaway AI, as well as employment, privacy, and ethical issues. The future success of machine learning depends on our ability to capture competitive advantages and manage downside risks effectively. About Singularity University: Singularity University is a benefit corporation headquartered at NASA's research campus in Silicon Valley.

Their creator observed, "And now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." According to the myth, God thwarted this effort by creating diverse languages so that they could no longer collaborate. Language remains a barrier in business and marketing. Even though technological devices can quickly and easily connect, humans from different parts of the world often can't. Translation agencies step in, making presentations, contracts, outsourcing instructions, and advertisements comprehensible to all intended recipients.