TRANSCRIPT

We’re all afraid of something.

Snakes, spiders, sharks, the dark heights.

There’s a fear for everyone. But come with me to the future, where maybe we can use technology to get rid of our phobias.

My name is Graeme Codrington, and this is Throw Forward Thursday, where every week we jump into the future.

We see what’s going on there and work out if it has an impact on us today. I’m in the middle of a series called The End of, and I wonder if we might be near the end of phobias, the end of fears. Because, you see, with modern technologies, maybe even virtual reality, maybe some experimental technologies like neuralink, that can actually get into your brain, we will be able to train our brain to engage with fear and phobia in a different way. For many people, their fears are just related to mental stimulus, and that’s essentially an electrochemical response.

Today, we often help people to get over their fears by exposing them little by little to the things that they are nervous about In the future, we’ll be able to do that in much more dramatic and significant ways. Using technology, connecting virtual reality, possibly with neuroscience, medicine, our understanding of physiological responses, we’ll be able to do a lot more about dealing with fear.

This is going to have real world implications for businesses. For example, I can imagine a construction company that first of all evaluates whether their workers are scared of heights, working on skyscraper construction projects. Using virtual reality, you can evaluate somebody’s fear of heights, and then you can actually give them skills and help them to get over that fear, if that’s what you want to do.

What a world that we live in I’m not actually sure this is much far into the future. I think this is something that’s very near and around the corner. The end of fear and phobia, using technology to help us reprogram our brains and the way that we instinctively respond to the world around us.

As always, you can interact with us here at Throw forward Thursday.

Go to Askaboutthefuture.com. You can ask us any questions, give us some feedback, and even give us some suggestions about what you’d like us to talk about in future episodes. Otherwise, join. Just make sure that you like and subscribe.

And remind yourself to meet me back here next week as we jump into the future again.

I’ll see you then.

Graeme Codrington, is an internationally recognized futurist, specializing in the future of work. He helps organizations understand the forces that will shape our lives in the next ten years, and how we can respond in order to confidently stay ahead of change. Chat to us about booking Graeme to help you Re-Imagine and upgrade your thinking to identify the emerging opportunities in your industry.

For the past two decades, Graeme has worked with some of the world’s most recognized brands, travelling to over 80 countries in total, and speaking to around 100,000 people every year. He is the author of 5 best-selling books, and on faculty at 5 top global business schools.

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