Four For Friday | Aug 2, 2024
Four For Friday | Aug 2, 2024
LF134 | Dating for biohackers, AI-powered services revolution, Atlas of the gut biome and Super Communicators playbook.
Welcome to Looking Forward’s Four For Friday. Four things that have piqued my interest this week, together with a bonus: AI Tip of The Week. Enjoy!
Dating in the age of longevity
This rather click-baity story will leave a lot of traditionalists fuming, however, I think it’s likely the shape of things to come: submitting dates to a health and longevity audit before proceeding to the next stage in a relationship.
A young woman - who happens to be CEO of a longevity startup - asked a chap she met online to submit to a barrage of personal health diagnostic tests and had a mini behavioral inquisition - asking her suitor if he shopped at the ‘right’ organic shops and auditing his fridge among other things. It is basically this skit.
This is a lady who knows what she wants, and perhaps a reminder that the primacy of “romance” in a relationship is quite a modern invention - for most of human history marriages were for practicality, politics, sustenance and convenience. For example Alan de Botton argues that we’d all be happier without as much romance in the relationship, and a good first date question would be “And how are you mad?"
The So What? Expect ‘match-making’ to get reinvented - beyond the simple profiles to more elaborate personal and business match-making.
AI is a revolution in services
The Industrial Revolution came for the farmers, and the AI revolution is coming for office workers. The next wave of disruption will be slow moving, inefficient industries that are very text-heavy, such as law, health, education, banking and insurance.
It’s not all bad news for those of us who push paper and PowerPoints; it seems there’s a particularly bright spot (a dead cat bounce perhaps…?) in the consulting world as rattled corporates shell out billions to understand the implications of AI for their business. Accenture is on track to earn around $2.4 billion this year in AI consulting, while BCG expects a fifth of its revenue this year to come from generative AI consulting.
This chart above by Bain shows how perceptions of the value of generative AI have shifted since last year, with all but three categories of these services jobs finding that AI met or exceeded expectations (and hence will likely be rolled out further).
The So What? Disruption in services will come to most parts of the services sector but there will be pockets of opportunity along the way.
An Atlas of the gut biome
You can’t get five minutes into a conversation with a biohacker without the topic of the gut biome coming up, often in graphic terms. The growing interest in the topic reflects new research that links the biome to a variety of health issues (such as type two diabetes, depression and Alzheimer’s disease). However everyone’s biome is unique and changes based on diet, medications etc, so it’s been hard to compare across populations.
The new Atlas by King’s College London allows researchers to map different strains of bacteria (see image) they find across 20 diseases, building a global knowledge repository.
The So What? Expect ever more B2C services around the gut biome as novel, data-driven insights become more common.
Becoming a super communicator
I recently read the book Super Communicators by Charles Duhig, and this is a decent summary of the key takeaways. The foundational point here is that good communication is the key to building good relationships, and that itself is key to healthy longevity. The article covers the book’s key messages with 5 specific tips:
Know what conversation you’re having. Do you have characterises conversations into three types – practical, emotional, and identity
Loop to ask questions. Repeat what you’ve just heard them say in your own words, and check with them it’s accurate.
Choose the right format. Rather than default to text, save the difficult conversations, or sarcasm / irony, for in-person conversations.
Questions about emotions. Ask questions, but not just about someone’s day or tactical stuff, but about their emotions, hopes and dreams.
Quality over quantity. Don’t expect to stay on top of all of your network, but do try and have a proper 1-1 call for an hour or more to your top contacts each year.
The So What? Authentic communication skills will be at an increasing premium in the age of AI; this framework can help you live a long, happy life.
Bonus - AI Tip of the Week
McKinsey on the emergence of AI agents.
That’s all for this week. As always, feedback welcome. Feel free to share insights or links of interest.
- Stephen