Some Future Day: How AI is Going to Change Everything

The advent of novel technologies has always caused ripple effects, at times heralding a fundamental and profound shift, whilst at other times quietly making the lives of its users better. One such disruptive technology that has become ubiquitous, with its fair share of sceptics and enthusiasts, is Artificial Intelligence (AI). Some Future Day: How AI is Going to Change Everything, penned by Marc Beckman, is an impassioned exploration of AI ushering in a revolutionary new era, what the author has frequently referenced throughout the book as the Age of Imagination.

Marc Beckman, as the CEO of an award-winning advertising agency, DMA United, has embraced and leveraged emerging technologies such as blockchain, AI, and the metaverse for his clients. He also authored The Comprehensive Guide: NFTs, Digital Artwork, Blockchain Technology, which received multiple accolades. Currently, he serves as an Adjunct Professor of Marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business and a guest lecturer at Columbia University, with an academic background of law (Juris Doctor) and Liberal Arts.

Published in 2025, in the wake of Large Language Models (LLMs) and mainstreamed Generative AI such as ChatGPT, the book’s overarching theme is that AI will spearhead a new age wherein imagination will become tangible and anything envisioned will be realised. Beckman’s core idea is that the integration of AI into already existing technologies – digital technology, the metaverse, blockchain and cryptocurrency – will reshape practically every aspect of human life, ranging from medicine to social media.

In all of his chapters, the idea of acceleration pervades. Accordingly, everything will be done at a faster pace and speed with greater accuracy. This means an accelerated field of medicine where a physician assisted by AI would increasingly make diagnoses with precision and speed in the examining room.

The imaginations of creatives will not remain in their minds, but can be visualised through virtual renderings with unforeseen immediacy. In an office setting, the menial and repetitive tasks, such as data entry, note-taking, document retrieval, and information gathering, will be done by AI while freeing up employees to focus on strategy and efficiency to keep the company competitive, while resulting in the happiness of the workers.

Moreover, human-to-human connections will also become quicker and more effective via AI’s ability to successfully pair individuals as per their preferences by noticing trends by drawing on larger datasets. Yet, it does risk generalisability. What works for others, according to datasets, does not necessarily mean it would work for every individual.

Beckman is enthused over another idea: the levelling effect. He suggested greater inclusiveness and competition in virtually every field all over the world. This is because AI will democratise access to tools and opportunities for small-scale creators and entrepreneurs, allowing them to compete with established creative giants. Yet, AI-generated art, copying his signature style, has been received poorly by existing artists such as Rob Biddulph because it has reduced art to cold calculation rather than an expression of the lived experience of beauty that propels its creation and dissemination.

In the field of journalism, according to Beckman, the levelled playing field would give rise to citizen journalists and small-town newspapers that would chip away at the monopoly held by a few media institutions. Here, Beckman invokes the use of blockchain that would help popularise news integrity by helping check the originating point of pictures, videos, and pieces of news, either confirming or rejecting their veracity. Other than this, he also makes reference to warfare becoming a level playing field because of AI’s integration in technologies such as drones.

AI-based drones have already been deployed in the Russia-Ukraine theatre, where they can find targets, drop payloads, and assess damage before returning to base with the press of a button on a smartphone app. Interestingly, despite the levelling effect, Beckman admits disparities in AI development between countries as he boasts the “good guys” – the US and NATO-allied members – are ahead of the game because of their ability to retain top talent and having top-ranked global universities. Conversely, in reality, China is producing and retaining top-tier AI talent, leaving the US behind.

In a sporadic fashion, Beckman does acknowledge the challenges that may arise in a world augmented by AI, particularly climate change, scammers, privacy, and copyright. However, the author appears dismissive about them, calling them “some yellow flags”, and continues to emphasise that we have to be unapologetically and aggressively pro-technology. He categorically rejects calls for deceleration as a slower pace can give hostile nations, Russia and China, an edge over the US. Such binary categorisation of “good”, framed as the US and its allies, while “bad” and “hostile” being limited to Iran, China, and Russia, tinges the book with an ethnocentric bias and, at times, reads as a reductive Western-centric perspective.

Nonetheless, climate change is one of the most pressing issues plaguing the contemporary era. The advent of AI and its increasing user demand warrant a deeper look to understand the voraciousness of data centres to consume electricity and water, which has the potential to put a strain on municipal water supplies and disrupt local ecosystems.

The United Nations Environment Programme has estimated that AI-related infrastructure will soon consume six times more water than Denmark. In a world where a quarter of humanity does not have access to clean water and sanitation, this will exacerbate existing inequalities, where machines might be privileged over humans.

Throughout the book, Beckman has relied more on conjecture to build his arguments, where he, for example, “thinks” metahumans in the workplace will ‘augment’ jobs – and not outrightly take over the jobs of employees. His example includes that of store clerks helped by virtual assistants, the latter already aware of the preferences of the customers to effectively guide them through their shopping experience.

This makes one question the utility of a store clerk, as the laborious work is done by the virtual assistant. Elsewhere, he “believes” that sighted AI will be deeply appreciated by individuals due to its ability to recognise text, objects, and even people. Thus, his book is glaringly devoid of references to back up his claims, making it read not as researched prose, but rather as predicated on Beckman’s speculative imagination and personal convictions.

Though overly optimistic and enthusiastic about AI, Beckman has full confidence in the good faith of humans that they would find ways to educate themselves on the dangers posed by AI, mitigate any negative side effects that accompany the rise of AI, and navigate the challenges through collective demands of accountability. His faith in human resilience is a product of history as well.

A parallel can be drawn with the Industrial Revolution, which brought anxieties about job automation. Yet those who acclimatised to the shift in the job market were better positioned to thrive. A similar scenario is unfolding in the age of AI, where those adept in it will have an advantage over those who remain hesitant in its adoption.

In the book, an Age of Dumb is acknowledged where doomscrolling has become prevalent, humans are amusing themselves to death, and it was precisely this demographic addicted to shallow entertainment that elected leaders like Donald Trump. However, Beckman left this string of thought at a simplistic end: we need to retrain ourselves on how to consume media, without putting forth a roadmap.

The present reality is not short of distressing. A study has shown that our minds have begun to literally atrophy because of overreliance on LLMs such as ChatGPT. This is because brain cells are shrinking, causing a decline in cognition and intellect. Yet, amid this harrowing reality, the optimism expressed by Beckman that humans will fight dumbing down tactics feels lurid.

In an educational setting, as advocated by Beckman, it is necessary to give students access to tools they would use in contemporary workplaces. Although it augments traditional teaching, the use of AI by students and educators alike, where students write essays using AI and professors use AI to check them, has sparked debates surrounding the value of a university degree and the goal of education, with concerns that reading, thinking, evaluating, and writing skills that a university degree ought to develop within students will not get developed.

The negatives stemming from the direct use of AI upon users, such as the mental health crises and emerging concerns about adverse psychological effects – murder-suicide, suicidality, psychosis – following intense chatbot interactions are not touched upon by Beckman. Moreover, it has been further revealed that OpenAI is involved in practising censorship by suppressing studies that put AI in an unflattering light, and the focus is maintained on self-promotion and glorification.

Beckman’s Some Future Day presents AI as a promising emerging technology that has the potential to bridge the gap between imagination and execution by bringing in an accelerated world with a level playing field. However, Beckman’s utopian presentation of AI needs to be taken with a grain of salt, especially when multiple questions have reared their head that require further examination, and the repercussions of living in a world dominated by AI use have not been fully explored.