I also point out how the best source for imagining the future has been the arts/entertainment with special reference to science fiction. This suggests the absolute necessity of imagination, creativity, and playfulness in anticipating the future whether your an amateur or a professional foresight strategist.

Photograph by Max Aguilera-Hellweg
Nick Mayer, of the LifeNaut project in Vermont, sits down for a chat with the robotic head Bina48. Hanson Robotics created the talkative humanoid in the image of Bina Rothblatt, the co-founder of LifeNaut, which is exploring robot-human fusion as a technological path to immortality.

TWO EMERGING DEVELOPMENTS

FIRST…The Sense of “feeling”

Let’s think about two emerging developments and where they might lead us. First, The development of technology that will mimic human skin. This could be a wonderful technology for those with artificial limbs. Imagine adding an artificial limb that “feels” through nanoscale sensors that send messages to the brain. On the other side, imagine adding this “skin” to androids. Will it come to pass that future robots, garbed in human-like skin, will be able to feel?

Here’s the relevant link: Human Skin

SECOND…Emotional Attachments

Second, We’ve all heard of those people that fall in love with objects, like Erika La Tour Eiffel who married the Eiffel Tower. But that’s just the odd person here and there, right?

A new study suggests that humans “can and will form emotional attachments to robots.” Because one of the anticipated uses of these machines will be to assist the elderly, future robots may be designed to look and feel more like organic beings than metal objects. What other kinds of emotional attachments might we anticipate?

Here’s the relevant link: Emotional Attachment

As I’ve stated before, when thinking about the future, it isn’t enough to ask “What will happen”? We must ask, “What will happen because of what happens”?

Click the image to tweet the text. Thanks!

PROCESSING QUESTIONS

Here are some questions to provoke your thinking.

• What if an elderly person, who has grown emotionally attached to her/his android, wants to leave their fortune to the preservation, sustaining, and upgrading of their personal robot?
• If a future robot inherited a fortune and could thereby maintain itself and upgrade itself, will we have robots that “live” independently for thousands of years?
• What would happen to the sex trafficing industry, if androids and gynoids “peopled” future “red light” districts?
• What if future humans want to “marry” and form families with future androids because of love? On what basis could we object?

Give these questions a shot. Remember, loosen up and have fun. Only the future is at stake.

What do you think?

We’ll be printing houses and organs. If and when we learn to print at the cellular level, What will become possible? Printed humans?

Just think of the massive changes we have experienced from

• Societal changes* (attitudes towards same-sex marriage, aging populations of the Western Nations, Japan, and China)* to
• Technological advances (the mobile internet, UAV’s (think flying robots)*, to the new
• Economic realities of the last 5 years, to
• Environmental issues (think the damage of ecosystems like the Amazon), to the constantly changing
• Political landscapes of the middle east.

As leaders are often in the midst of the fray and focused on keeping operations going, they can often times lose sight of the bigger picture, or the macro-environment. And so, change comes at them without warning.

RULE OF THUMB
In white water rafting, there is a rule of thumb we follow when we are unsure of what lies down river. We say, “When in doubt, scout.” One of the tools that we use to help leaders develop greater mental agility for decision-making is called environmental or “horizon” scanning. It’s a way of looking down river, a way of “scouting the future”.

A lot of you will feel lost at about this point. You have so much going on in the present. For guidance you look to the past for precedents or for successful models that have worked. Who has time for the future?

Well, if you work in an industry in which nothing changes, then what worked in the past may work for you now. But in this universe, what worked in the past is no guarantee of success in the present much less the future, because change is coming. In fact, one of the greatest obstacles you will face as you encounter tomorrow’s questions will be yesterday’s answers.

Take a look at the “changes” described in the first paragraph above. They conform to an acronym, STEEP, often used by futurists. The domains of Society, Technology, Environment, Economics, and Politics give the scanner the starting points for scouting the future. For a quick visual on scouting the future, here’s a short Prezi on the steps we take in using the “Horizon” Scanning tool.

By scanning the STEEP domains for signals of change, a leader readies himself for change through enhancing an alertness to change. The changes at this macro-level may be years in coming, if they come at all. And this is the point: to be aware that change is coming, even if we are not sure which change, is a superpower developed by those with a “futures orientation” (plural intended). It can help create pliability and cultivate mental agility in the face of complexity and uncertainty.

Let’s say this another way. The reason to scout the future is not to predict the future. In fact, it is proverbial among futurists that “the future cannot be predicted”. The reason to scout the future for signals of change is to enhance one’s ability to make decisions in light of the fact that the future cannot be predicted.

Horizon Scanning can happen in at least 3 layers:

Layer 1: inside my company) Layer 2: inside my industry ) Layer 3: outside in the macro-environment)

Layer 3 contains the changes that are happening that will, sooner or later, be impacting you and your business. Lift up your eyes and scan the horizon.

What do you think?

Processing Questions:
How are you and your team “scouting the future” in layers 1, 2, and 3?
What are you doing to create a “future-orientation” among your team?
What tools and/or practices would help you increase you future readiness?

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* Thanks to those of you who attended M2011 and M2012 who saw how the topics we covered (UAV’s, Sex with Robots, How to Create Culture and Social Change) have been all over the news in 2013.

Because some things are so beautiful….

We tread the earth a little more cautiously. Just over a Decade ago you didn’t have to remove these…to get through these…

The Muslim poet Rumi wrote, “You are not just a drop in the ocean. You are the mighty ocean in a drop.” Will we now begin to pour the ocean (of digital data) into the drop (DNA)?