Tim Mack's blog http://www.aaiforesight.com/blogs/tim-mack en Robotics and Recovery http://www.aaiforesight.com/blog/robotics-and-recovery <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Robotics has gotten a bad name in some circles from too many screen scenarios and “what if” thinking about manufacturing assembly lines that has often overreached actual development. However, robotics in medicine is seeing breakthroughs in post-stroke physical therapy and post-injury rehabilitation. </p> <p>This has especially been true of spinal injury, when paralysis can preclude the patient’s ability to even begin recovery. In addition, the traditional diagnosis of “never walk again” can diminish the will to recover. The breakthrough concept is <i>re-innervation,</i> where the body creates new neural pathways to compensate for damaged nerves. Robotics-assisted devices such as <a href="https://rewalk.com/" target="_&quot;blank&quot;">ReWalk</a>, now being used by the U.S. Veterans Administration, offer such an opportunity. An exoskeleton is integrated with a treadmill to support damaged areas of the body while increasing the patient’s mobility. This system also addresses a major obstacle to recovery, which is engaging the entire body, since regaining overall mobility also increases cardiovascular health and even bowel function. Weight loss from exercise and increased core strength further enhances self-esteem and the will to improve. </p> <p>The size and cost of exoskeletons currently limit them to in-hospital physical therapy, but some neuron-recovery specialists see them replacing wheelchairs in the future. However, these devices do require significant patient strength, coordination, determination, and endurance to operate the exoskeleton. The process of attaching nerves to new prosthetic limbs and implanting sensors to guide the robotics can also speed recovery in ways never possible before. </p> <p>While spinal injuries are a part of this expanding area of medical development and research, stroke victims are proving another area of application. Neuron-stimulation of paralyzed muscles can assist in their reactivation, and stroke victims have shown improvement over conventional physical therapy. The addition of such devices as <a href="https://www.hocoma.com/us/solutions/lokomat/" taget="_&quot;blank&quot;">Lokomat</a>, which combines a treadmill with projected outdoor pathways while supporting the walker in a harness, have also shown promise. </p> <p>In many cases, spinal injuries are not being healed, but instead brain-controlled neuro-prosthetics allow brain signals to find different paths to follow (which is being illustrated by MRI scans tracking the re-innervation). Often, post-stroke restart of brain functions and pathways can occur within the first three months after their injury. </p> <p>While the focus of exoskeleton development was initially on lower-body mobility, upper-body paralysis is now being explored, with promising results. The newer suits are flexible and more comfortable, and they adapt to individual movement patterns. The Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences is exploring how to further adjust that technology to fit individual patients.</p> <p><b>Reference</b><br /> “<a href="https://www.brainandlife.org/the-magazine/article/app/14/6/22/your-robot-will-see-you-now-high-tech-therapies-are" target="_&quot;blank&quot;">Your Robot Will See You Now</a>” by Robert Firpo-Cappiello, <i>Brain and Life</i> (December 2018/January 2019).</p> <p><b>Timothy C. Mack</b> is managing principal of AAI Foresight Inc. and former president of the World Future Society (2004-2014). Contact him at <a href="mailto:tcmack333@gmail.com">tcmack333@gmail.com</a>.</p> </div></div></div> Sat, 02 Mar 2019 20:39:19 +0000 Tim Mack 130 at http://www.aaiforesight.com Plights of Fancy: Review of Imaginary Cities http://www.aaiforesight.com/blog/plights-fancy-review-imaginary-cities <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Darran Anderson’s <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo26170205.html" target="_&quot;blank&quot;"><i>Imaginary Cities</i></a> (University of Chicago Press, 2015) has an unusual approach for a book on foresight. First, it is actually based in the discipline of architecture and spends a substantial amount of time looking at plans never built due to lack of funding, client change of heart, and catastrophes of all sorts. While the book addresses utopian concepts and their collateral buildings, it also considers dystopian endeavors, both in their outcome and original intent. It considers classical utopian and foresight literature but also ranges into media, such as motion pictures, science fiction, and even graphic novels.</p> <p>Anderson’s central focus on architecture provides a unique perspective. As the lengthy text (600 pages in all) travels across its diverse range of arenas, the author pulls out lessons from examples about both the challenges of building dreams and the appropriateness of these dreams to begin with. This broad scope develops insights across a range of disciplines, including politics, psychology, religion, and materials science, as it considers both whether a proposed structure <i>could</i> be built and whether it <i>should</i> be built, at the time of its imagining or <i>ever.</i></p> <p>Finally, the book pursues in significant depth the relationship of monument, residence, skyscraper, or temple in the context of its contemporary culture and the ideology behind its conception. Accordingly, the range of the book is quite impressive, beginning with the slippery distinction between imagination and lies during the European Age of Discovery, when explorers like Marco Polo mixed memory and exaggeration into their accounts, leading faraway cities to become entities of both myth and yearning.</p> <p>Relative technological advances in those faraway cultures, such as paper and gunpowder, soon became aspirations and perhaps even precursors of the modern scientific utopia, where new capabilities might breed new societies. In doing so, the author also raises the question of the relationship between utopias and dystopias, with the shape of that relationship depending on who is telling the story and who is listening to it, what they value and what they despise or fear. Anderson points out that, while utopias are often openly hailed as revolutionary, dystopias are often incremental and even stealthy in nature.</p> <p>Dreams of utopia arise from the failures and unsatisfied wants of the present. But beneficial scientific learning, in past theocratic ages, was often seen as a threat to vested interests. Some have said that, while progress can be the ongoing realization of utopian thinking, it can also be a catalyst for repression and tyranny. The author quotes Margaret Atwood’s reflection that utopias can become dystopias as they respond to those who “don’t fit into the plan,” adding that in some minds the urge to decide everything for everyone is too much to resist.</p> <p>In his <i>Utopia,</i> Thomas More followed the path of Plato’s Cave to outline the ideal life in quite specific detail, coupled with consequences for not adhering to his blueprints. At times, the thought of an innovative utopia is intolerable for those already benefiting from the status quo, with utopias then sliding toward dystopia. Such inflexibility can lead to an earthly heaven for some and a hell for others.</p> <p>Living in a “perfect” city changes not only its inhabitant’s lives, but often also the inhabitants themselves, sometimes for the worse. One example from the last century was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordlândia" target="_&quot;blank&quot;">Fordlândia,</a> which Henry Ford established in 1928 as a city of 100,000 workers in the Brazilian Amazon, basically as a plantation to supply rubber for Ford automobile tires. The effort was a model of parsimony and ignorance. The land was hilly, rocky, and infertile, and none of Ford’s managers had the sufficient knowledge about the downside of a rubber-tree monoculture. In nature, those trees grow apart from each other, as a protection mechanism against plagues and diseases, and rest up against bigger trees of other species for support. In Fordlândia, however, the trees were planted close together, like American crops, and thus became easy prey for tree blight and native insects.</p> <p>In addition, Henry Ford was determined to create an American-style utopia in his own moral image. Alcohol, women, tobacco, and even soccer were forbidden within the town, including inside the workers’ own homes. Inspectors would go from house to house to enforce all the rules. Brazilian workers also strongly disliked being required work through the middle of the day under the tropical sun, which was quite different from their typical work patterns. One of the first acts in the Fordlândia workers’ rebellion was to smash the company’s time clocks.</p> <p>As time went on, this enforced puritanism led to debauchery. The town’s inhabitants paddled out to merchant riverboats moored beyond town jurisdiction to buy contraband, and they established bars, nightclubs, and brothels on a nearby river island. In 1930, the native workers revolted in the cafeteria over the unpalatable American food, then cut the telegraph wires, chasing the managers and the town’s cook into the jungle. Changes were ultimately made in the food that the workers were served. Ultimately, a new location with better soil was located, and the first town was abandoned. Then in 1945, synthetic rubber was invented, and both towns were sold back to the Brazilian government at a loss of well over $200 million in today’s dollars. In spite of the huge investment and numerous invitations, Henry Ford never visited either town.</p> <p>There is some discussion in the book concerning the necessity for a defined physical or geographic boundary for a successful utopian effort, which Henry Ford was not able to accomplish, even off in the jungle. Anderson notes that the most practical utopias are those that maintain their own sanctuary against outside encroachments, as Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes could do. But the author also believes that, while fortified citadels keep their inhabitants safe, they do not have the available space that a fully functioning city needs to function and expand along with a growing populace. Like rabbits, people tend to breed.</p> <p>The author also opines that religious edifices are often places to confine gods rather than celebrate them (or not to represent God but to replace him). Fear is an ingredient of awe, and gods can be fearful creatures. But missionaries promise better worlds and can always find ready ears among the disadvantaged. For one to be pure, others must be impure. For a group to have a strong identity, they need a demonized other. <a href="https://www.mupress.org/H-L-Mencken-P543.aspx" target="_&quot;blank&quot;">H. L. Mencken</a> once said that Puritanism was based on “the fear that somewhere, someone may be happy.” And as Mark Twain opined, “There is no humor in heaven.” Many of us relish familiarity and security above all other considerations. Measures presented under the guise of protection from evil often end up being used to repress. In the 1921 Russian novel <i>We,</i> free will is outlawed because it brought unhappiness, and what Big Brother asked for in Oceania (<i>1984</i>) was the people’s love.</p> <p>At the Futurama World’s Fair in New York City, the future was treated as one vast, unspoiled advertising space. With so many claimants presenting their “true” future, from the grandiose to the mundane, it is little wonder that the “future” began to be seen as passé. And some have even said that the original French Bureau International des Expositions created world’s fairs to provide as a counter to the widespread dread of change.</p> <p>One of the interesting things about <i>Imaginary Cities</i> is its travels outside the usual boundaries of foresight and classical utopian thought. One example is the Italian Futurists of the early 20th century, who were masters of hyperbole and manifestly urbanite: “We will sing of the stirring of great crowds,” Gino Severini promised, as “workers, pleasure seekers, rioters—and the confused sea of color and sounds of revolution sweeps through a modern metropolis.” And so dynamism, speed, vitality, youth, and passion became their religion (sensation for sensation’s sake) until they were largely lost in the tragedy of World War I. In contrast, it was the belief of the architect Gropius that the avalanche of progress left the individual unhappy, unable to adjust, and lost in a whirlwind of change. Anderson feels that this mirrors our increasingly mobile lives. Verve, speed, dynamism, and change are virtues up to a point. Continuing further along that scale, they become tyrannies, as constant motion becomes an obligation and then a curse.</p> <p>But it’s not only starry-eyed idealists who dream of utopia. Leon Trotsky, a one-time partner in Russia’s revolution, believed that “true people’s parties, the parties of the future for special technology and construction, will agitate passionately, hold meetings and vote. In this struggle, architecture will again be filled with the spirit of mass feelings and moods, only on a much higher plane, and mankind will educate itself plastically, it will become accustomed to look at the world as submissive clay for sculpting the most perfect forms of life.” Unfortunately, Stalin took the country in another direction. And Fritz Lang’s movie <i>Metropolis</i> was seen by Hitler as a utopian film, so he directed Goebbels to unsuccessfully try to hire Lang to make German propaganda movies.</p> <p>The intermingling of imaginary cities and real ones can occur in fiction. The movie about a future island penal colony, <i>Escape from New York,</i> was actually filmed in failing East St. Louis, and the look of the urban fantasy realm of <i>Blade Runner</i> was based on contemporary Hong Kong. <i>Batman</i> is a critique of failed empathy and urban planning. Alleys are dead-end traps, abandoned buildings are criminal warrens, and Gotham is described in a note by director Tim Burton from the first screenplay as a place where “Hell has erupted through the pavement and built a city.” Or it can work the other direction. Roman rule in early Britain produced concrete, sewers, aqueducts, and public baths. These surviving edifices evolved into the myths of Arthur and Camelot, which nurtured the dream of escape into a parallel world of fairness, justice, and comfort.</p> <p>Anderson feels that a number of impediments to the broad social advancement of utopias remain in place, such as poverty, cronyism, inertia, snobbery, mean-spiritedness, and stupidity. The weed of crime in most societies is the absence of money. Due to the variety of ways wealth is actually accumulated, myths are required, including the mirage of meritocracy. The more you own, the more deserving you have been, and those who have nothing <i>are</i> nothing. Ghettos must be products of sin, poor breeding, and savagery, and thus deserving of shame, derision, and condescension. Thus, those who work to make cities run often cannot afford to live there. While sins are often ascribed to the “other,” that designation needs to be adjusted as the old targets are exhausted. Revering mercantile wealth creators often comes at the expense of nurturing science, art, music, or philosophy. Instead, culture needs an equal seat at the table with politics and economics.</p> <p>Anderson closes with a brief review of the visionary literature of off-world architecture and how the future might hold life in scientific utopias made possible on Mars. But it is difficult not to remember that people are still people, with their dark and light sides, and the sliding balances of utopia and dystopia are not likely to resolve themselves in the foreseeable future.</p> <p><b>References</b></p> <p>Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, <i>The Rise and Fall of the City Mahagonny</i> (1929).</p> <p>Vincent Fitzpatrick, <i>H. L. Mencken.</i> Mercer University Press (1989). <a href="https://www.mupress.org/H-L-Mencken-P543.aspx">https://www.mupress.org/H-L-Mencken-P543.aspx</a> </p> <p>“Fordlândia,” Wikipedia. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordl%C3%A2ndia">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordl%C3%A2ndia</a> </p> <p>George Bernard Shaw, <i>Maxims for Revolutionists</i> (1903). </p> <p>Leon Trotsky, <i>Literature and Revolution</i> (1924).</p> <p><b>Timothy C. Mack</b> is managing principal of AAI Foresight Inc. Contact him at <a href="mailto:tcmack333@gmail.com">tcmack333@gmail.com</a>.</p> </div></div></div> Sat, 26 Jan 2019 15:37:27 +0000 Tim Mack 128 at http://www.aaiforesight.com Foresight in the Context of Evolution: Utopian Thought http://www.aaiforesight.com/blog/foresight-context-evolution-utopian-thought <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Evolution and foresight are not usually considered in the same sentence, except in the area of <i>conscious evolution,</i> but both disciplines consider how things change and what forces shape that change. Classical evolution has long been seen as glacial and thus not especially relevant to humanity’s social, economic, or political dynamics. Darwin believed that natural selection was a very slow, almost imperceptible process, proceeding in evolutionary time. However, recent arguments in <a href="https://openlibrary.org/books/OL5949812M/The_ecological_theater_and_the_evolutionary_play" target="_&quot;blank&quot;"><i>The Ecological Theater and the Evolutionary Play</i></a> by G. Evelyn Hutchinson have stimulated some rethinking on this assumption.</p> <p>Accordingly, recent studies of ecological change in urban settings, where shifting forces of change are proving more compelling than in the wild, offer a new perspective on utopian dynamics. And the acceleration of 21st century change across a range of measures lends weight to a review of the nature of the perfect society or community.</p> <p>One long-held assumption in utopian thinking is that, for an ideal social community to be sustainable, it should be isolated from and untouched by broader society. Then strife and uncertainty (the 18th century concept of <i>Sturm und Drang,</i> or storm and stress) did not interrupt the aspiration to perfection that it hoped for. And once that goal is reached, this community remains largely unchanged (even static), as some have depicted the Christian and other heavens.</p> <p>What if, in the highly dynamic 21st century, a more functional utopian ideal was not merely true harmony and social equity, but also a functional and even robust adaptation to a constantly unfolding future? This evolving discipline of postmodern evolutionary biology seems to offer insights into such a discussion. The developing concept of <i>human-induced rapid evolutionary change</i> (HIREC) is a very interesting one here, especially in a 21st century global setting, where urban living is becoming the norm.</p> <p>Accelerated evolutionary (often genetic) adaptation to urban environments can occur through either <i>anagensis</i> (change within a single species) or <i>speciation</i> (the splitting of one linage into more than one). Not many recent speciations have been found, but one interesting example of anagensis, from <i>Darwin Comes to Town</i> by Menno Schilthuizen, is a small bottom fish found on the U.S. Eastern Seaboard that has genetically adapted to survive industrial pollution, including PCBs. Another involves one type of mosquito, which after centuries of broad-based feeding habits, is now found only in the London Underground system, genetically adapted to prey solely on humans. These are changes occurring in human time in response to distinct environmental forces and suggest what functionally adaptive, intentional social groups might need to consider.</p> <p>But to imply that utopian endeavors should also consider adaptability does not mean that their aspirational nature should fall by the wayside. Foresight in general needs to understand system dynamics in order to have practical utility. How change occurs, what factors are involved, how existing conditions shape incoming trends, and, most importantly, how human factors will shape change are all critical questions. While new technologies are part of these incoming trends, the future is largely driven by people dynamics and how they behave in groups, cultures, and nations. Since utopian endeavors are basically about groups of people, their psychology, mores, and beliefs are critical to understanding how (or whether) they will adapt to change.</p> <p>While some scientific utopians, especially those anchored in Silicon Valley and its global culture, have considered moving to Mars or building island nations to avoid non-utopian interference with their aspirational goals, this seems unlikely to offer long-term success. The outside pollution from global communications technology alone would be a factor even on Mars. And if such a community were successfully sealed off, its dynamic health would likely suffer, as would its political stability. In contrast, one promising possibility might be the more flexible digital utopian community, connected by evolving virtual reality and holographic conferencing technologies.</p> <p>Like classic evolution studies, many utopian discussions have proceeded along at a macro level, including many 21st century scientific utopian proposals. These were often aspirational versus pragmatic, unwisely ignoring the dynamics of both internal and external systems. Likewise, evolutionary thinking has long ignored the appearance of apparently accelerated (one hundred years or even one hundred generations) evolutionary transformations.</p> <p>Accordingly, it seems appropriate to look at more episodic data to inform utopian thinking, even outside the urban setting. Almost a decade ago, I spoke to an organization of vice-president-level corporate communications officers in Philadelphia about communications futures. But when the Q&amp;A period arrived, their concerns were not focused on broad professional issues, but instead on an item from my introduction: I had mentioned that I was retiring soon to an island in Puget Sound.</p> <p>In the flurry of questions that arose from the floor, the common theme was what did I know (as a foresight specialist) about the coming “End Times,” since I appeared to be preparing for them. Was an island safer through its isolation? What about West Coast earthquakes? Had industrial pollution taken its toll there as well? And so on, leaving me to feel that I was speaking to a gathering of “Preppers.” I answered those questions in as detailed a manner as possible, including that I was not personally aware of any specific approaching catastrophe (having completely missed the possible Trump election). But now, it seems to me that the audience back then was engaging in a type of utopian thinking.</p> <p>The question, “How can we be safe?” can be seen as a search for communities that would be safer, less stressful, more resilient and humane. It was of a much more immediate scale than “What is the perfect society?” or “What is the ideal life?” and focused more on “What does an individual want their future life to be, and what steps can they take to reach aspirational goals?”</p> <p>Around this time, I was also becoming aware that my personal choice of a future residence did in fact display what I would term utopian thinking. As a result of the community’s relative isolation, a range of proactive nonprofits had arisen over time to fill in safety-net gaps, including food services, farmers markets, transportation, mental-health counseling, and elder support. Accordingly, the presence of communal communities; high social congeniality; graphic, fiber, and dramatic arts; and even lower crime rates indicated a culture that I would term resilient and even robust in nature. And this brings me to another aspect of utopian thinking, that of intentionality.</p> <p>Another aspect of island life here is the unusual number of land trust parcels (now over 9,000 acres) that have been created over the years as a counterforce to development and urbanization. This intentional action, the end result of significant legal battles, lies at the center of what many hope foresight can be: aspirational, forward thinking resulting in effective action for a better future. It should also be noted that an island-scale political and social system works at a level of greater manageability (sometime termed a human scale) than a large urban setting might (bypassing a longer discussion of the “smart city” concept). Also evident in a smaller setting is a significant number of intentional cooperative residential groups that have arisen over the years.</p> <p>While those questions back in Philadelphia expressed individual concerns, these local actions do seem to reflect some degree of the cultural isolation long felt to be essential to the crafting of any utopian undertaking. A history of self-help on a more isolated island community displays the meeting of articulated problems with community-scaled problem solving, outside of conventional political structures, and raises the question of whether utopian undertakings are underway all around us, as part of the human endeavor.</p> <p>While this discussion began with how the enhanced environmental pressures of urban areas may have accelerated the rate of change in evolutionary terms, it appears have come full circle to nonurban settings. However, the most interesting part of this journey may be a shift from “what if” to “what is” and whether social problem solving now underway in nonurban settings may also offer new approaches to urban utopian thinking and what that might mean for forward thinking in general. At this point, I have no answers, but I would welcome any thoughts or observations. In Voltaire’s vision in <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19942/19942-h/19942-h.htm" target="_&quot;blank&quot;"><i>Candide</i></a> of cultivating one’s garden, each garden seeds the one next door.</p> <p>In closing, I would offer the thoughts of W.H. Auden, from the “Vespers” section of his poem <i>Horae Canonicae,</i> where he contrasts the Arcadian, “whose favorite daydream is of Eden,” with the Utopian, “whose favorite daydream is of New Jerusalem.” Eden is a past world in which the contradictions of the present world have not yet arisen, while New Jerusalem is a future world in which they have at last been resolved. While this bipolar model seems simplistic, it also suggests that the modern world is a complex place, and getting more so daily.</p> <p><b>References</b></p> <p>Adam Gopnik, “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/30/what-can-we-learn-from-utopians-of-the-past" target="_&quot;blank&quot;">What Can We Learn from Utopians of the Past?</a>” <i>The New Yorker</i> (July 30, 2018). </p> <p>David Quammen, “<a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/11/08/concrete-urban-jungle-evolution/" target="_&quot;blank&quot;">The Concrete Jungle</a>,” <i>New York Review of Books</i> (November 8, 2018). [review of <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250127822" target="_&quot;blank&quot;"><i>Darwin Comes to Town: How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution</i></a> by Menno Schilthuizen. Picador, 2018.</p> <p>Michael Robertson, <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11275.html" target="_&quot;blank&quot;"><i>The Last Utopians: Four Late Nineteenth-Century Visionaries and Their Legacy</i></a>. Princeton University Press, 2018. </p> <p><b>Timothy C. Mack</b> is managing principal of AAI Foresight Inc. and former president of the World Future Society (2004-2014). Contact him at <a href="mailto:tcmack333@gmail.com">tcmack333@gmail.com</a>.</p> </div></div></div> Sat, 29 Dec 2018 15:06:35 +0000 Tim Mack 126 at http://www.aaiforesight.com Collaborative Visioning in Science Fiction: 2001 and Minority Report http://www.aaiforesight.com/blog/collaborative-visioning-science-fiction-2001-and-minority-report <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><i>[Editor’s note: See also “<a href="http://www.aaiforesight.com/blog/reading-2001-first-time" target="_&quot;blank&quot;">On Reading 2001 for the First Time</a>” by Cindy Wagner]</i></p> <p>In contrast to science fiction novels and short stories, movies have increasingly been a team effort. Accordingly, various futurists have been able to work in partnership with production staff, providing content and design advice for landmarks of science fiction. <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i> had Arthur C. Clarke on board from the beginning, which produced a vision which continues to be quite persuasive 50 years after its release in 1968. The most out-of-sync relationship was with IBM, which in the 1960s was still seeing computers as room-sized objects you walk through versus a desk-sized object you walked around. Ultimately, however, giving a ship-wide presence for the HAL 9000 added another character to the plot: the villain. </p> <p>NASA’s Future Products Division handled the look and feel of the spacecraft and spacesuits, and while MIT’s Marvin Minsky was then exploring computer-generated graphics (now CGI), they were not even in what is now called the beta stage. However, a number of new techniques were created during filming (such as projecting painted screens onto the set), and this produced satisfactory results. An interesting subtext for the production of the movie was a space race with NASA, to see who got to the moon first. Happily for director Stanley Kubrick, the movie won, hitting the theaters in April 1968, 15 months before Apollo 11 landed in July 1969. </p> <p>In later years, the range of foresight talent available to advise movie makers had expanded. For <i>Minority Report</i> (2002) the development of matrix organizations like Global Business Network, the MIT Media Lab, and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) allowed access to ideas that were not even in the conception stage when the details for <i>2001</i> were being developed. And with the accelerating rate of change in the new millennium, the production challenge became not how to look far enough ahead into the future, but how to dial down the imaginations of the advisory teams so that audiences would recognize and believe what they saw on the screen. </p> <p>Although the Phillip K. Dick 1956 short story was set “somewhere” in the future, the film script concept was initially set in 2080, then moved back to 2050 and finally ended up around 2030—far enough ahead to excite with its imaginative innovation but not too far to be unrecognizable. As a result, a balance was reached and the movie was a success. In this case, the translation from written form to film was a substantial improvement, as this commentator has always found Dick rather tedious and difficult to read. And like Star Trek, a number of its conceptual visualizations ultimately ended up as commercial products down the road.</p> <p><b>References</b></p> <p>“<a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/08/amazingly-accurate-futurism-2001-space-odyssey/" target="_&quot;blank&quot;">The Amazingly Accurate Futurism of 2001: A Space Odyssey</a>” by Margaret Rhodes, <i>Wired</i> (August 19, 2015).</p> <p>“<a href="https://www.wired.com/2012/06/minority-report-idea-summit/" target="_&quot;blank&quot;">Inside Minority Report's 'Idea Summit,' Visionaries Saw the Future</a>,” <i>Wired </i>(June 12, 2012).</p> <p><b>Timothy C. Mack</b> is managing principal of AAI Foresight Inc. and former president of the World Future Society (2004-2014). </p> </div></div></div> Sat, 08 Sep 2018 14:26:36 +0000 Tim Mack 118 at http://www.aaiforesight.com Telling Stories with Data http://www.aaiforesight.com/blog/telling-stories-data <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>A Review by Timothy C. Mack </p> <p>“<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2017.03.002" target="_blank">From data analysis to storytelling in scenario building. A semiotic approach to purpose-dependent writing of stories</a>” by Javier Carbonell, Antonio Sánchez-Esguevillas, and Belén Carro. <i>Futures</i> 88 (April 2017). <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001632871630297X">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001632871630297X</a> </p> <p>Published in <i>Futures,</i> the article “From data analysis to storytelling in scenario building” describes scenario building as an important method that companies use to understand and communicate strategies concerning the future. Unfortunately, the authors note, the transition from research and analysis (R&amp;A) to the storytelling used for communication is a wide and deep gap and is very likely to result in “loss of consistency and information” that as a result can “jeopardize the whole process.” Fortunately, the authors note, a range of semiotic concepts and techniques can be brought to bear on the problem, using a structured format of their own design. The article’s authors appear to use the terms <i>storytelling</i> and <i>scenario building</i> interchangeably, and this review will do so as well.</p> <p>Following a short history of the origins of scenario building, the authors determine that there is a lack of consensus about typologies and terminologies and question the utility of that foresight tool in its present state, arising in part because of the “under-theorized” nature of scenarios. Accordingly, they observe a clear difference between the analytic approach of research and the narrative approach of developing persuasive storytelling. In summary, by using two “different types of information,” there will be a resulting “loss of information” between the two stages (called herein a <i>transformational information reduction).</i></p> <p>Noting that a range of techniques and practices exist, where elements may be mixed or interact in varying ways along the process of scenario building, the authors helpfully propose that, in their article, the two phases of research and narrative will be artificially separated in order to “facilitate the analysis.” This seems somewhat of a contrast to a number of scenario-building strategies, where the research, analysis, and scenario design and writing remain interactive throughout the process, from beginning to end.</p> <p>The article considers research and analysis to include both qualitative and quantitative data, and it organizes that data into four categories: scope of the study, objectives, internal aspects of the company (a private-sector client is assumed here), and the external context (also including assumptions and other existing forecasts). The authors note that selection of the information to be analyzed in R&amp;A has previously been done in a wide range of manners and that the choice among approaches depends largely on the scenario’s purpose. The authors summarize this hodgepodge of approaches with an impressive table, outlining the major differences among them. This is followed by the conclusion that, in contrast to storytelling, R&amp;A techniques require “high analytical mindset, mathematical background and high understanding of strategy concepts.”</p> <p>Scenario building, in contrast, captures major stakeholders, basic trends, key uncertainties, themes, consistency and plausibility, quantitative models, and decision scenarios (Schoemaker 1995). The authors then float a deep concern about the ability of text alone to describe complex situations, especially relations between entities, numerical factors, and probabilities.</p> <p>To state the problem that is being solved in this article more clearly, the authors opine, “Moving from the first phase rich in data and analysis-oriented to the second, which is more descriptive and oriented to the communication means that some information vanishes.” This disappearance is termed an Information Reduction and can <i>“lead from good research into mediocre storyline.”</i> [Reviewer’s emphasis.]</p> <p>In fact, it would be difficult for anyone with experience in scenario building to disagree with the authors that the greatest beneficiaries in that process are those organization staff members who actually determine the present situation, future challenges, and likely new trends just over the horizon. And it also seems true that the organizational staff who were not involved in the process are not gifted with this deeper level of insight about the past, present, and future of their organization.</p> <p>In summary, the article’s premise is that, during analysis, hundreds of variables are usually considered, but in storytelling only the most relevant are included. While this may seem like faulting a funnel for performing its function, the authors offer specifics about where losses of data might occur that could harm the final report: </p> <p>* Levels of probability and uncertainty may be winnowed out by storytelling simplification.</p> <p>* The narrowing down reduces the big-picture complexity available at the research stage because of the need to provide scenarios of readable length. </p> <p>* The range of entities (stakeholders) is often reduced in the conversion to storytelling, including the relationships between these entities (system dynamics).</p> <p>To counter these deficiencies, the authors offer a semiotic approach, which aims to link signification, representation, reference, and meaning. For those not familiar with semiotic terms such as <i>sign vehicles, object, ground, effect, contour, interpretant,</i> and <i>representamen,</i> some significant effort is required to understand the nature and usage of these elements, since they are not clarified in the article.</p> <p>This article’s approach is to “help storytelling editors maintain the coherence and traceability the analysis carried out in the first phase, capturing the maximum information from it accordingly to their purpose.” To do so, these storytelling editors must determine what is going to be transmitted and how it is going to be transmitted to the intended audience.</p> <p>The steps here are the analysis of the target audience, the purpose of the story, and the overall mission statement. This includes not only the R&amp;A report, but any attendant charts, graphs diagrams, and tables that can assist in “making a difference” (relevant to the chosen purpose). Ideally, the elements chosen for inclusion should reflect critical uncertainties, entity relationships, and contour facts that have arisen in the R&amp;A stage. The goals of the story can be emotional, logical, or pragmatic in nature, depending on desired effect on the audience. Finally, the purpose is considered in combination with the story format and length.</p> <p>The authors strongly argue that it is mistake to tell the story in text only. They propose use of multimedia and “other resources such as colors, voice tone, images” to “cope with the difficulties to change from a data oriented mindset to a message oriented one.” In conclusion, the authors offer a standardized process, which “reduces subjectivity.”</p> <p>I would contrast this to my understanding of the “early signals” approach, which often uses a wide range of data from a wide range of analysts, then focuses down on those that are most robust—in other words, those that appear the most often across that range of input. Previously, that was the hallmark of good foresight: initially spreading a wide net for relevant data and then narrowing, utilizing experience and expertise to guide that process.</p> <p>In the article’s process model, the Research and Analysis data is provided by third-party consulting firms and the storytelling element is the responsibility of in-house “story editors,” whose focus is on the structure and impact of the message. This approach seems to leave little continuity between the first and second stages in that setting. Another option, where foresight analysts provide their R&amp;A and also work with the storytelling staff to craft the nature of the story told in the scenario process does not appear to be considered here. A third option is that the R&amp;A and the storytelling (scenario building) are all done by the same team. These other options are not mentioned in the article.</p> <p>The authors’ focus is on a more intensive documentation of the process (through taskification and quantification) to allow transparent connecting links between the stages, which then provides greater consistency and traceability in the storytelling process. However, “one size fits all” is not always an ideal approach and suggests a distrust of classic (and time-tested) methods of scenario construction. It is also possible that these highly structured and uniform guidelines for converting R&amp;A to story could, in fact, trim off important findings and trends that fell outside the semiotic structure. Ironically, that outcome sounds quite similar to the problem that the semiotic approach was supposed to solve.</p> <p>In summary, the article’s focus is only on dissecting and restructuring that storytelling process, because of present scenario building’s “lack of maturity in the standardization of methods.” The authors seem to feel the semiotic framework they have designed will offer a greater ability to “set the tone of the story, to create numerous versions, and to ease the traceability between the analytic information of the scenario and the final story.” Accordingly, this “is a first step in order to incorporate a methodology to a process that <i>tends to be artisanal”</i> [reviewer's emphasis], and their next step would be the construction of a manual for teaching this process to foresight professionals. </p> <p>I must admit that this approach brings to mind the “time and motion” studies of the 20th century, where productivity improvement was expected after a more uniform process was put in place. What seems to be missing from this process is any consideration of real-world situation analysis and testing of whether the introduction of semiotics into scenario building will, in fact, produce the results and improvements that have the authors have projected.</p> <p>While this review has proceeded on a somewhat skeptical note, it is difficult to fault the authors for their efforts. They have thoroughly researched scenario building (as viewed by other foresight researchers) and have been tireless advocates of the value of semiotics in this new context. However, as a long-term believer in the artisanal value of experience and expertise in analyzing foresight research and then crafting appropriate scenarios, it will take some additional convincing that quantification methods can clearly transform a process where qualitative input has been valued into a “vastly improved” qualitative product. </p> <p>And finally, in strange contrast to their consistently stated goal are the author’s “afterthought” suggestions that cobbling of additional techniques from science fiction, creative writing, and script writing for television and movies have appeal and could offer valuable cross-fertilization (which this reviewer seconds). As for the value of overlaying the semiotic approach on scenario planning, I would suggest that more research and analysis is needed to make a fully informed judgment.</p> <p><b>Timothy C. Mack</b> is managing principal of AAI Foresight Inc. Contact him at <a href="mailto:tcmack333@gmail.com">tcmack333@gmail.com</a>.</p> </div></div></div> Sat, 28 Jul 2018 13:00:13 +0000 Tim Mack 114 at http://www.aaiforesight.com Book Review: The Future of Learning http://www.aaiforesight.com/blog/book-review-future-learning <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Book review by Timothy C. Mack</p> <p><a href="https://knowledgeworks.org/resources/future-learning-redefining-readiness/" target="_&quot;blank&quot;"><i>The Future of Learning: Redefining Readiness from the Inside Out</i></a> by Katherine Prince, Andrea Saveri, and Jason Swanson. KnowledgeWorks, 2017. </p> <p><i>The Future of Learning</i> from KnowledgeWorks, a nonprofit focused on advancing personalized learning and partnering with schools and communities, is impressive in a number of subtle ways. Subtle because the forecast format is also an effective teaching document, focused on policy persuasion. In contrast to the relatively academic approach taken by most forecasters, it avoids technical language and is aimed at a broad popular audience. </p> <p>The basis of this report is an earlier 2015 forecast, <i>The Future of Learning: Education in the Era of Partners in Code,</i> authored by the same team, which focused on cultural, economic, and institutional shifts that look to the growth of wearable, connected, and smart technologies. These tools will allow users to navigate, make sense of, and contribute to the world around them. </p> <p>As the next step, this present forecast describes how the K-12 sector will be moving away from postsecondary options that have not always adequately prepared students for the world of work. It strongly asserts that education at all levels of life will prepare learners to continuously resell and upskill and to learn how to partner cooperatively with machines. </p> <p>The time horizon for the forecast is 2040, and it combines ethnographic research with short scenarios on the future of educational readiness in the rise of smart machines and the decline of full-time employees. The authors are candid enough to admit, “We do know that the rise of smart machines will impact work. We do not yet know the extent and nature of that impact.” In addition to the displacement of human workers, smart machines may also augment the contributions of people in the workplace, create new jobs, and refigure current work. Another outcome could be making current jobs safer, easier, and more interesting. </p> <p>Economist James Bessen at Boston University points out that automation has historically created or redefined jobs, rather than destroying them, by increasing the demand for new skills. But globalization has increased the project orientation and fluid nature of employment through market-driven environments. Accordingly, work will become increasingly quantified, with quick feedback of performance measurement and requiring quick employee adaptation to changing conditions. Finally, the integration of social-emotional skills and cognitive and metacognitive (thinking about thinking) approaches will increase. </p> <p>Specifically, this will mean the growth of inclusive communities of work, with increased diversity of approaches and problem-solving skills. As well, coaching, sharing responsibility, and building trust will be part of these collaborative approaches, as well as the ability to initiate and self-advocate.</p> <p>As this report unfolds, it becomes clear that it is combining classic forecasting of trends in education and employment while suggesting new models for reaching the positive and desired outcomes. The accompanying scenarios address levels of potential displacement by technology and how society in 2040 might respond to these changes, with the poles being systematic and intentional problem solving versus laissez-faire, market-driven mechanics. </p> <p>These scenarios profile various job situations—from social services to data science to health care to intelligent building design—and are accompanied by specific signals of change already being undertaken by companies, nonprofits, and local governments to underscore the effectiveness of potential adaptations to change. In addition, specific educational and employment trends are taken apart and discussed in detail, to better understand options for response. The report authors perceive the absence of a coordinated response to intensive automation, plus a shrinking tax base in the United States to improve infrastructure and services, and increasing quantification of specific tasks. </p> <p>In contrast are the rise of work-life logs (and personal brands), task/worker matching programs, and application of innovative algorithms to reshape employment worldwide. In addition, the focus on mastering content, thinking, and doing will gradually shift to work around feeling (emotional intelligence) and relating with others. The need for adaptability and resilience as part of the 2040 curriculum is increasingly critical, along with the nurturing of aspirational visioning. As well, the acceptance of ambiguity and uncertainty in one’s personal future, coupled with cognitive diversity and flexible thinking, will be required to renegotiate present definitions and markers of success. </p> <p>Ideally, the result will be the development of reflective thinking in students and the ability to design their own lives (and their learning ecosystems). The report addresses secondary and postsecondary education, as well as listing a range of nonprofits that are already addressing these trends and pursuing the goals of this report. It concludes with outlined exercises for groups to co-design educational opportunities, build their own scenarios, and assess the implications of these forecasts on themselves and their organizations. </p> <p>In summary, I believe this is a very effective approach to foresight. Simple graphics are a welcome change from massive bells and whistles multimedia and complex graphics, allowing readers the time to review and consider the forecast in their own contexts. It all works quite well. </p> <p><b>Timothy C. Mack</b> is managing principal of AAI Foresight Inc. Contact him at <a href="mailto:tcmack333@gmail.com">tcmack333@gmail.com</a>.</p> </div></div></div> Sun, 24 Jun 2018 17:59:54 +0000 Tim Mack 111 at http://www.aaiforesight.com The Challenges of Participatory Futures http://www.aaiforesight.com/blog/challenges-participatory-futures <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>At the request of the Washington state legislature, the William Ruckelshaus Center at the <a href="http://ruckelshauscenter.wsu.edu/" target="_&quot;blank&quot;">University of Washington</a> and <a href="https://wsu.edu/" target="_&quot;blank&quot;">Washington State University</a> have undertaken to create a “<a href="http://ruckelshauscenter.wsu.edu/a-roadmap-to-washingtons-future/" target="_&quot;blank&quot;">Road Map to Washington’s Future</a>” over the course of 2018. Their first external step was to schedule a series of localized half-day workshops at the county level around the state. The process was to articulate a vision of the state’s desired future as expressed by local stakeholders. And the collateral goal was to take a detailed look at the state’s present planning network and growth management mechanisms, with the hope of identifying potential additions, revisions, or clarifications to state laws and policies. </p> <p>The following discussion is based on my opportunity to attend one such workshop in Island County, held at the end of April 2018. It was attended by about two dozen representatives of local nonprofits and government entities with a role or interest in, or relevant knowledge about, the strengths and weaknesses of the statewide planning process. Accordingly, issues, challenges, and needed improvements to Washington’s planning framework at both the state and local levels were articulated, discussed, and captured.</p> <p>Questions raised there include whether evoking the phrase “Washington’s Future” suggested that foresight tools (beyond visioning) would be utilized in the final report. But while the visioning process used was reminiscent of many foresight exercises, the workshop was largely planning focused, with a significant percentage of attendees representing planning departments at the county or city level. This suggested a conviction that a planning approach would provide the best path for reaching the desired future that was articulated in the workshop visioning process.</p> <p>However, an issue arising in this road-map process was whether traditional planning approaches—i.e., existing state guidance in this area, largely the Growth Management Act (1990)—provided the best tools for implementing the results of this visioning process. The vision of “the state’s desired future” appeared to be conceived as a single desired future, and it was unclear whose future was to be visioned. In addition, an energetic discussion arose concerning how other issues that were not formally a part of the state and local planning process—such as education, environmental degradation, and climate change—could be included into the final Road Map report.</p> <p>A related issue was whether the unique character of each individual county would be diluted or lost in a one-size-fits-all statewide report. While the initial workshop guidelines stated that recommendations to the legislature should be “grounded in and reflect local realities, experiences, interests and aspirations,” it was not clear how this was going to be managed. This concern was compounded by the ongoing divisions of interest within the state, such as developers versus conservationists, rural versus urban, and county versus state interests. That discussion was further complicated by questions of whether financial resources to implement the recommendations would be available. And finally, Washington state’s coastal mountain range divides the state into two distinct eastern and western regions, with significant differences in culture, ecology, and political outlook. </p> <p>Some workshop attendees also felt that, while a number of areas of responsibility, such as shoreline management, were already integrated into statewide planning, others, such as forest management, were not. As well, the simplified division into urban and rural regions ignored the special needs of exurban areas (known as rural areas of intense development, or RAIDs), where residential and commercial development is soaring, resulting in “unplanned planning” in those areas. This is especially true concerning services to the growing retirement-age population, when urban housing shortages had made fixed-income households unviable and rural areas attractive. While developers have seen scenic vistas and wildlife diversity in areas such as Island County as a draw for retirees, development activities often diminish the qualities they had used as customer sales points. And some attendees also felt that little attention was being paid to local health care or transportation systems in these developing areas, with fixes usually beyond the resources of both local government and nonprofit or volunteer organizations. </p> <p>As in most top-down systems, the state appears to require program support and regulation enforcement from counties without offering resources to implement these efforts. A common failing of a normative approach in both planning and foresight is a lack of attention to the strengths and weakness of critical implementation systems and obstacles facing the realization of desired futures. The focus instead is on the desired goals, with no understanding of how they might be reached. </p> <p>The distinction between planning and foresight is decades old. People often understand planning more easily than foresight, with one reason being the complexity of foresight’s vision. The manageable narrowness of classical planning can be a reassuring one, where the guidelines of the Washington State Growth Management Act clearly lay out planners’ responsibilities. But the trouble is that seemingly unrelated issues are often the ones that prove the most troublesome—i.e., unplanned for. It is a classic catch-22, in that the narrower planning process can make an impact on policy making and policy makers, while broader foresight is often “outside the box,” relying on persuasion to make its arguments.</p> <p>In summary, while participatory foresight tools such as brainstorming can assist in the visioning of desirable futures at local workshops, this is less helpful when crafting macro solutions within silo-restricted systems, such as state and local planning. The Washington Growth Management Act is nearly 30 years old and is showing its age. Much has changed across the state over that period, but legal and regulatory systems are often much slower to respond to change than they ought to be. </p> <p>The input in the Road Map workshops from those outside the planning world offers planners the opportunity to hear other views and voices as the Road Map process moves forward, and the very fact that such a project exists to solicit input on improving the state’s growth management process is encouraging, What will be interesting to see is if this effort can capture the local variables and then interweave them with statewide trends and attitudes in a way that effectively incorporates the growth strategies of Washington state’s range of stakeholders.</p> <p>It should not be implied that attaining desired futures is without tools, at least in the Puget Sound region. The 2017 completion of the Washington Department of Commerce’s Puget Sound Mapping Project covers a dozen Washington counties, and it provides a wide range of historic growth data across many economic and social sectors in a detailed visual format, offering assistance to government, private sector, and public interest groups. As well, other policy tools are in development and will hopefully be refined by the Road Map process. </p> <p>Clearly, the past of Washington state planning will not necessarily be its future. This ongoing effort to integrate an expanded community into decision making and strategic planning for the state enhances confidence that desired futures within the state will be increasingly likely to include a more comprehensive community of local stakeholders from outside the planning community as time goes on.</p> <p><strong>Timothy C. Mack</strong> is managing principal of AAI Foresight Inc. Contact him at <a href="mailto:tcmack333@gmail.com">tcmack333@gmail.com</a>.</p> </div></div></div> Sat, 12 May 2018 11:59:22 +0000 Tim Mack 106 at http://www.aaiforesight.com Book Review: The Future http://www.aaiforesight.com/blog/book-review-future <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Book Review by Timothy C. Mack</p> <p><strong><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/future" target="_blank">The Future</a></strong> by Nick Montfort. (MIT Press Essential Knowledge, 2017.)</p> <p>Written by an outsider to the foresight community, an MIT Professor of Digital Media, <i>The Future</i> takes a very interesting approach to its subject. While author <a href="https://nickm.com/" target="_blank">Nick Montfort</a> considers the works of futurists, he also examines the works of artists, inventors, and designers and how they have imagined the future. Montfort takes a broad view of the future, but one skeptical of the forecasting mode as the only pathway to visioning. Instead, he examines an increasingly popular approach to social, economic, and political change—i.e., what he (and others) have called <i>future making.</i> The contrast he draws is between “predictions and reaction to them” and “the development of goals and progress toward them.” In short, he is focused on “an understanding of how the future has been constructed in the past and how we, today, can continue constructing it.”</p> <p>However, seeking a future that seems plausible does not exclude those visions that are exaggerated beyond belief or even those that move into the region of absurdity. In fact, Montfort applauds the highly creative side of future making, making the assumption that merely thinking incrementally and plausibly does not always hit the future mark. One example he gives is the work done over the past half century or more on the “kitchen of the future,” showcasing technologies for gadget makers as if the kitchen were still stuck in the social milieu of the 1950s and thus ignoring change in areas such as economic classes, gender roles, and urban political life.</p> <p>One discussion here outlines how food preparation requirements could be imagined across a wide range of possible users, such as locavores, raw food enthusiasts, macrobiotic eaters, and those in communal living arrangements. The point made here is, whose future is being considered? For example, is it just the forecasters’ paying clients or even the analysts themselves? Another way of expressing this is that, when the full range of stakeholders haven’t been represented in the futures scenarios being developed, they may have to loudly make themselves heard when the policy makers make and implement choices from that foresight analysis.</p> <p>Montfort’s approach is thus a social one, but he veers occasionally into other related areas, such as cognitive development. Citing Julian Jaynes’s 1976 book, <i><a href="http://www.julianjaynes.org/bicameralmind.php" target="_blank">Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind</a>,</i> he suggests that humans thought and behaved in a different manner prior to the beginning of the Christian era. Instead of considering options and making decisions individually, cognitive action in that earlier time was mostly unselfconscious stimulus response, where the voice of intuition and imagination was largely viewed as a voice of God. As a result, prophets and oracles were much respected and valued, as were the reading of omens, divination from nature, augury, and the casting of lots (the latter of which were seen as being guided by divine powers).</p> <p>The belief was that a much more stable society ensured that the past was always the best guide to the future, which would most likely resemble the present. It was only in the 18th century that the idea of progress began to make an appearance. Assumptions such as that science will improve our lives, that revolutions will change economic and political structures, and that a free market society will enhance our well-being have in part been replaced by a newer realization that the future will not always be more of the same, nor will it function in a familiar manner. </p> <p>When looking at utopian writing, the author is sympathetic to discussions of potential ways people can live together, especially when that utopia is described in plausible and sensible terms. However, Montfort is just as drawn to extreme and even absurd imagination, with the full range of human nature kept in mind. One of the more extreme side trips of futures that he examines is the Italian Futurist movement prior to the Second World War, admired by Mussolini for its focus on speed, power, and violence as a way of cleansing the world of “stagnant and outmoded ideals and structures” (which unfortunately has a familiar ring today). </p> <p>Another historical profile is a look at World’s Fairs as a means to bringing awareness of the future to the general public. London’s Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations and its Crystal Palace in 1851 drew exhibitors from around the world, but it was the 1939 New York World’s Fair that sharpened the focus to the future itself. This event, devoted to Building the World of Tomorrow actually hosted the first World Science Fiction Convention. Montfort especially admires the work of Norman Bel Geddes and his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama_(New_York_World%27s_Fair)" target="_blank">Futurama exhibit</a> as a way to visually acquaint a general population with visions for tomorrow. </p> <p>Among the litany of <i>probable, possible,</i> and <i>preferable</i> futures, first proposed by Alvin Toffler, probable futures are the closest to the foresight approach of options and their relative weighting, while preferable ones relate more closely to future making. The author sees the mandate of World’s Fairs as one successful example of bringing the future to life; the creation and development of the World Wide Web (WWW) is another. </p> <p>The World’s Fairs can be seen as a form of globalism, where exposure to wider ranges of cultures and beliefs (as well as to an almost religious belief in technology) expanded trade and international relations. But the WWW took that process down to the individual and the local community, engaging with society and enhancing personal experience. In 1989, when Tim Berners-Lee dedicated the concept (and working foundation) of the Web to the world by taking no intellectual property rights for himself, he was building on a series of developments such as NLS (oNLine System) and the Memex project, which had been under way since World War II. The result was a powerful example of effective group visioning, one that could be scaled up to more widespread use and new types of applications by combining the contributions of groups of collaborators. </p> <p>This produced a shared conceptual framework, which could address both technology challenges and social ones, including economic disparities and injustices. While the successes of social transformation have been slower and less far-reaching than initially hoped, the transformative power of the WWW is undeniable. In essence, the success of a foresight vision requires sufficient simplicity to be understood and accepted by both professional and lay communities and the openness to study and improve it, then share it freely, allowing it to spread worldwide more quickly and easily.</p> <p>Returning to the contrast between foresight and future making, the former is seen as an amalgam of technology trends and organizational and cultural analysis, while future making is more human-centered, with new technologies built around perceived human needs and activity patterns, ideally with specific goals in mind. One example in <i>The Future</i> is computer notebook development, which had both educational and professional goals. Alan Kay’s <a href="https://youtu.be/GMDphyKrAE8" target="_blank">Dynabook</a> prototype was conceived in the 1970s with revolutionary concepts in mind: Computers would be tools owned by private individuals—in time, even by children. The most critical part of that project was the influence it had on commercial development and nonprofit educational endeavors over the following 40 years. </p> <p>When examining the influence of science-fiction writing on visions of the future, Montfort focuses on what he calls design futures, which are connected to the social world and the known realities of the world we currently inhabit. These understandings are focused on ways to live better in society and culture in the future, using future tools shared in effective ways. As an example, he holds up Corning’s <i><a href="https://youtu.be/6Cf7IL_eZ38" target="_blank">Day Made of Glass</a></i> video, produced in 2011, which projects how glass surfaces will be used in tomorrow’s world. Montfort approves of the wide range of professions and ages shown and compares it with the still-older movie, <i>Minority Report.</i> As well, he contrasts the upbeat tone of the Corning video to the cable series <i>Black Mirror,</i> which takes present trends and follows them into often negative futures. His point is that showing humans reacting to future technologies and developments (whether utopian or dystopian) can provide useful insights into present trends and their implications. </p> <p>In closing, Montfort considers how art and media tools can be used with writing to further clarify and discuss visions of the future. He also reminds readers that, when using macro analysis, you risk losing your audience by leaving human concerns behind, thus failing to embed new technologies in the social world. Accordingly, a balance of principles, high-level goals, and systematic thinking is critical to producing work of value. Finally, the belief that enlarging our imagination through the use of exaggerated or even absurd images can help in imagining the future and sharing that imagination. </p> <p><strong>Timothy C. Mack</strong> is managing principal of AAI Foresight Inc. Contact him at <a href="mailto:tcmack333@gmail.com">tcmack333@gmail.com</a>.</p> </div></div></div> Sat, 21 Apr 2018 15:23:08 +0000 Tim Mack 105 at http://www.aaiforesight.com Utopia Revisited http://www.aaiforesight.com/blog/utopia-revisited <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Book review by Timothy C. Mack</p> <p><a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2250-utopia " _blank="">Utopia</a> by Thomas More. Supplement by Ursula K. Le Guin, introduction by China Miéville (Verso Books, November 2016). </p> <p>When Verso Books in London released a new edition of More’s <i>Utopia</i> nearly 500 years after its first publication, it produced a bit of cultural shock. For many, the term <i>utopia</i> has come into some disrepute as a reactionary or even a delusional social goal, while among others, especially the technocracy of Silicon Valley, it is viewed as just another easily achieved social building project—all it would take is their unlimited funds. </p> <p>This latter approach, the <i>techno utopia,</i> has been quite popular over the last decade, driven in part by the aura of success in all endeavors that surrounds the “boy kings” whose disposable income often exceeds their experience in effective social engineering. This leaves the question of whether a cultural or technological strategy is most effective to pursue when contemplating a “brave new world.”</p> <p>This new edition of More’s classic avoids the opt-out of the middle course, which can be summarized as “Let’s do both!” The more radical path is that taken by China Miéville, a highly lauded science-fiction writer and essayist. A professed Marxist, he is also an advocate of aggressive social change—what might be called a bare-knuckle futurist. In contrast, Ursula K. Le Guin, an even more highly lauded science-fiction author and essayist, takes a broader and more nuanced approach to the obstacles and opportunities facing making the world a better place.</p> <p>As for More himself, his 1516 vision of an isolated and previously unknown island of peace and harmony, communal property, and fully educated women has remained a standard among utopian writers to this very day. Living on an island myself, I confess a special fondness for this concept, and it is hard not to view my own island (Whidbey in Washington state) as exhibiting a few of those very qualities. </p> <p>But to the book in question: I assume that many readers of this review have read some or all of <i>Utopia</i> and there is little to be said concerning the quality of the translation from the original Latin into English. In spite of its dated style, it remains quite readable, and a rereading is never wasted time. However, the new introduction and companion essays are what provide the new edition its added value.</p> <p>Miéville is skeptical of the possibility of successful utopias for a number of reasons. One major concern is the perennial siloing of contradictory concerns, such as environmental issues versus urban poverty issues, or economic issues. For a cheerful example, he quotes the then-leader of Earth First, who said that the best response to the 1984 Ethiopian famine would be to “let nature seek its own balance and let the people there just starve” (as in the Voluntary Human Extinction concept). In the same year, the Union Carbide disaster at Bhopal was proceeded by the penalizing of plant workers for refusing to break safety routines and company neglect of failed safety systems. In these cases, one factor (environment or economics) dominated other considerations. </p> <p>Miéville believes that much of the public talk of utopias is for the purpose of social pressure release, to mollify opposition advocacy or political resistance, and that utopia often contains apocalypse, because “there is massive profit in injustice.” In other words, the urge toward a better world will nearly always be offset by the urge toward a greater bottom line.</p> <p>Le Guin turns her focus away from the popular Silicon Valley impulse to build a distant but perfect society—on Mars, on artificial islands (or abandoned oil rigs), or even in our own homes with 3-D printers supplying all we will ever need at little expense. She call this approach the “quick techno fix,” or a rationalist utopia. That approach often leads to “a monotheocracy, created by executive decree and maintained by willpower; as its premise is progress, not process, it has no habitable present, and speaks only in future tense.”</p> <p>In contrast to the activities of a machine-like state, which are determined by its structure, a more organic approach to utopia would operate in the other direction, its structure determined by its processes. Meanwhile, she feels that most techno utopias to date have been “bright, clear, strong, firm, active, aggressive, lineal, progressive, creative, expanding, advancing and hot.”</p> <p>Le Guin supports the contrasting choice taken in More’s book by the utopian society of Islandia, which she terms a “warm” society with a definite but flexible class structure, chosen elements of industrial technology, and an unwillingness to play its part in world history. Of course, in a work of literature it could do so, in contrast to the Native American cultures of Old California or Japan, who were brought to globalism by political and cultural force. Le Guin characterizes this as the choice between freedom without happiness or happiness without freedom; in other words, a no-win situation.</p> <p>Le Guin agrees that every utopia also contains its dystopia, but that this is a sign of the transformational nature of a living society, in the spirit of the yin/yang symbol on the flag of South Korea. Both the bright and booming city and the dark and quiet forest have their value when they interact and live in harmony. The alternative is a non-dynamic stasis that allows for no change; the “perfect” society, but one without balance or stability. She characterizes this as a contrast between humanity’s domination of the globe through technology and unlimited growth and a focus on human adaptability and thus our long-term survival. This requires an “acceptance of impermanence and imperfection, a patience with uncertainty and the makeshift, a friendship with water, darkness and the earth.” </p> <p>Accordingly, Le Guin’s essays do not dictate a blueprint for the ideal society, but address how to “enlarge the field of social possibility and moral understanding.” It is her belief that “the imagination is the single most useful tool that humankind possesses. … All of us have to learn how to invent our lives. … If we don’t, our lives get made up by other people.”</p> <p>Le Guin argues that “human beings have always joined in groups to imagine how best to live and help one another carry out the plan. The essential function of human community is to arrive at some agreement of what we need, what life ought to be, what we want our children to learn, and then collaborate in learning and teaching so that they will go on in the way we think is the right way. … Larger communities, such as cities, open up room for people to imagine alternatives, learn from people of different traditions and invent their own ways to live.”</p> <p>Perhaps one of the appeals of the techno utopia is its “paint by numbers” quality, where the parts are assembled with the aid of the instructions (or by the technocrats) and thus all will be well. But the suggestion in these discussions of More’s <i>Utopia</i> is that all is often not well and that the business of building the future is a lot more complicated than it is often presented to be. In this view, the most complicated elements of the future are the people in it, and that is where the primary focus should be. </p> <p><strong>Timothy C. Mack</strong> is managing principal of AAI Foresight Inc. Contact him at <a href="mailto:tcmack333@gmail.com">tcmack333@gmail.com</a>.</p> </div></div></div> Mon, 15 Jan 2018 15:34:24 +0000 Tim Mack 100 at http://www.aaiforesight.com VR and AI Development http://www.aaiforesight.com/blog/vr-and-ai-development <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><style> <!--/*--><![CDATA[/* ><!--*/ .img-tbl-right { float: right; text-align: right; background: #fff none repeat scroll 0 0; border-collapse: separate; box-shadow: 1px 1px 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); padding: 8px; max-width: 325px; } /*--><!]]>*/ </style><p> The trouble with virtual reality (VR) is that science fiction and other popular media have so raised expectations that people are always disappointed, because they all think that fully functional VR is already here. But what VR is really good at is storytelling, simulator games, and training of all sorts.</p> <p>This is to distinguished virtual from augmented reality (AR), which is also in development. However, nobody has unrealistic expectations about AR, which strongly challenges present assumptions that it will be very disruptive. There continues to be a dichotomy between physically visiting a place or event and virtually doing so. There are so many physical aspects to actual presence—smell, taste, touch—that only very limited opportunities to simulate them are now possible (such as haptic gloves). One of the most appealing aspects of real presence is serendipity: the unexpected event or outcome.</p> <p>Deep human impulses are released in gaming. Many experienced players even provoke their opponents to play more emotionally and thus make mistakes. While fun can be transformational—physically, emotionally, and cognitively—there is seldom complete transfer of skills in gaming or simulations. A good example is a firefighter simulation in a burning building, which does not adequately prepare one for the heat, choking gases, and real danger. And so outcomes and success levels are different for each person.</p> <table class="img-tbl-right"><tbody><tr><td><img src="/sites/default/files/users/1/blog8_22_16/firefighters.jpg" /></td> </tr><tr><td><i>VR simulations for training still may not prepare firefighters for the real thing. Credit: Skeeze/Pixabay</i></td> </tr></tbody></table><p>Clinical depression simulations have been developed to help social workers and therapists understand clients. While not always successful, these simulations do help build a community of learning between “us and them.” Different approaches to teaching work skills to a mixed group of students affect them in different ways and are successful on only a certain percentage of participants, even if the game or simulation has been well designed. It is all too easy to build bad games that work for no one, and there are lots of them around. The ideal game may be one that creates the opportunity for discussion and decision making among players during the game. And again, there is quite a wide range in cognitive/rational responses and understandings taken away from a single game by a diverse group of players.</p> <p>One of the challenges in VR game design is determing what assumptions the designer can make about players' prior knowledge. Also, in the United States, there is less independent game playing; rather, gaming is usually on multiplayer online settings with a single screen for each player.</p> <p>Online gaming (streaming) is becoming more of a spectator sport, but live spectator sports will endure—even broadcast spectator sports that offer no audience controls. Holographic technology is improving rapidly, however, moving toward completely immersive experiences. And this holographic view is unsually unique to each viewer, depending on where they are standing in the available viewing space, enabling multiple players/viewers to share different viewpoints and values.</p> <p>Will new technologies allow for virtual visits to national parks and experiences of events that allow for greater levels of participation and observation detail? Interactive playing rather than participating in live games and events could lead to changes in attitude and even in thinking about a subject. Many games are actually on a continuum between gaming and reality.</p> <p>Gaming in the workplace is growing, but it is not always digital. Games such as Escape Route (Locked Room Puzzles) now popular in employee development are often more exercises for observation, analysis, and team building. It consists of half a dozen people in a physically confined space, given clues for escape with the goal of developing a successful team approach to solve the problem. But one outcome can be a “trough of despair” where people stop responding to the game structure and innovative behavior declines. Because no one game works for everyone, it raises the questions of why people play any specific game at all. This requires understanding your community of players.</p> <p>It is clear that games can communicate complex ideas to their players in ways that seem intuitive. Games can communicate meaning. New York University's Game Center and University of Southern California's Annenberg Innovation Lab are working in this arena. One important thing that games offer to their players is engagement. In order for this engagement to develop, the game must invite iteration—repetition builds engagement over time. But it is very difficult to anticipate how all players will respond to any specific game, and not everyone seeks empowerment. That lack of control can be the novel and intriguing experience. And role playing can provide all sorts of new experiences</p> <p>At Google, researchers are working on natural language solutions, leading to new machine learning frameworks, including deep learning projects such as Tensorflow. The whole deep learning area is moving ahead quite quickly, as computing power advances. Besides Google, Facebook and Microsoft are committing large resources, and a number of smaller companies are also involved.</p> <p>Machine-learning tools drive advances in robotic movement controls and energy management, which are two of the most difficult challenges at present. Virtual models developed to build robotic systems often were poorly conceived or even wrong—they did not work in practice. There was not enough real-world input into building those systems, and the outputs were often full of digital noise. For example, task-training data is often too scarce to inform task design.</p> <p>Another real challenge is crafting strategies for interpreting emotional interaction—and reading opponents in game playing. This research is being led by Google Deep Mind (renamed after Deep Mind Technologies in UK was acquired by Google). Graphic processing units are often more effective than CPUs to communicate problem solving strategies, and the majority of present AI work relates to assisting humans rather than beating humans at games. This is not artificial but augmented intelligence.</p> <p>Many are concerned about black box intelligence with full agency and independence—so some are designing and bulding attention-tracking tools allowing us to see what was incorporated in an AI decision. This will help us better understand the decision steps involved and replicate them—and help us understand mistakes, as well.</p> <p>It is nearly impossible to look out 20 years in AI research because change is happening so fast. Even 10 years out is too far ahead to be accurate. But one thing that will happen is that the Internet of Things will continue to improve its understanding of users through enabled devices, as well as their desires and patterns of behavior. And deep-learning tools will inform research in areas such as biology, medicine, and energy development.</p> <p><b>Timothy C. Mack</b> is managing principal of AAI Foresight.</p> <p>Image credit: <a href="https://pixabay.com/en/firefighters-training-586831/">Skeeze/Pixabay</a></p> </div></div></div> Mon, 22 Aug 2016 22:52:31 +0000 Tim Mack 79 at http://www.aaiforesight.com