We’ve spent the last 30 years putting ourselves on line and becoming discoverable, it’s now our machines turn.

Just like social media allows us to find each other across time and place, to interact, to discover, to speak, to listen, to inform, to engage, to transact, to query, to learn, to guide, to orchestrate, to announce, to follow and to lead, it’s now time for our machines to be able to do the same.

We are on the cusp of a revolution that will once again change everything we know about being human, having information, searching, communicating and connecting and the term for this is the Internet of Things (IoT) or Internet of Everything (IoE), but for me it’s Social Machines and Machine Mothering.

In the brave new world of today, the sum total of past human data and knowledge which is already discoverable on the internet, and growing exponentially, will be added to with the sum total of your real-time activity and real-time tracking providing “now” data on where you’re travelling to and from, what your current heart rate is, what’s in your fridge, what temperature your home is at, and whatever you else you may have connected to the other 50 billion devices currently monitoring and sending information into the internet.

This flood of information, impossible for any human to fathom or make sense of in real-time, is in fact a mere snack for our  devices and apps. They are primed and eager, like mothers of old, to constantly scour and make sense of all this information for you pulling out all the relevant bits and pieces and joining them together for you and making sense of what is really happening in your world moment by moment and anticipating how this real-time real information may impact on you – mothers always know best.

This anticipatory world that listens to your online searches, delves into your diary, emails and digital archives and blends it dynamically with where you are, where you’re going, what’s around you and important to you, to intuit your needs ahead of you even knowing you need it, is soon to be the new norm in our lives.

Google Now has offered glimpses of this for the past few years. Apple recently announced similar software for their phones. Increasingly search engines, apps, appliances, cars, beds, houses, cities, roads and everything around us will wake up and turn from being passive to active and assist in anticipating what you need and when and sharing that information on your behalf and with your permission to others machines, devices, apps and people so that they can orchestrate their world to best suit your needs, timing and requirements.

In this world your cars on-board navigation system knows where you’re headed and who you’re going to see and when. It is constantly scouring, in real time, the road conditions and traffic flow and rerouting you, all the while keeping those that you are meeting with aware of your arrival time, whilst simultaneously digitally watching and re-working the rest of your day to fit in with your real-time movements.

In this world your curtains open when your feet touch the floor in the morning for the first time. Your bathroom light turns on 34 seconds later, the time it usually takes you to walk from your bedroom to the shower and the kitchen knows your 16 minutes away from needing that perfect morning heart starter whilst your car is waiting to drive itself to your front door in 32 minutes and drive you to work.

In this world the frail, elderly and sick can maintain a quality of life and  live at home longer by being monitored and supported by their home which is guarding them, monitoring their health and well-being, ensuring they are eating and taking their medications on time and seamlessly informing loved ones and carers of any inconsistencies and emergencies.

In today’s world this seems impossible, creepy, unnecessary and perhaps an invasion of privacy, but we said the same thing about the internet, banking on-line, mobile phones, social media, radio, television, electricity and every other invention and innovation we have ever had and when the case is proven that this new fandangled technology brings something to our lives we haven’t had before, didn’t know we needed, but now can’t live without, it usually doesn’t take us long to move from being skeptics and critics, to believers and eager users.

This game changing technology and the changes it will bring to every facet of our lives, society, law and culture was the emerging topic across a number of my regular media conversations this week as we explored whether machine mothers do know best and the good the bad and the possible of social machines, so have a listen in to the various on air radio conversations, talk back callers and interviewer thoughts and then let me know what your thoughts are on this new horizon.

4BC Brisbane – Clare Blake – 16 June (20 mins 44 secs)

Radio 3 Hong Kong – Phil Whelan – 15th June (11 mins 55 secs)

ABC Far North Queensland – Phil Staley – 15 June (14 mins 35 secs)

ABC Wide Bay – David Dowsett – 15th June(7 mins 29 secs)