Into Our Future

During an age of mass economic disruption and customer reorientation, innovative leaders will wrestle not only with the challenges of reskilling existing work forces, but also must filter every initiative through politics, social chaos, and industry axioms if they are to add clarity to the Innovation Predicament.

In an age of innovation and rising artificial intelligence (#AI), are major functions facing commoditization, disintermediation, or automation as synthetic intelligence increases? What will remain after data science advancements improve the efficacy of automation, as consumers increasingly move into a fully digital delivery model?

With limited population growth domestically, the search for advanced technology skills must embrace aging populations and the explosion of megacities beyond our shorelines—new, continuous models of corporate education, training, and partnering must be adopted.

With augmented reality becoming common, virtual reality growing in its sophistication, and the ability to superimpose innovations on top of “common” reality continues to rapidly accelerate. In general, it seems that our innovation advancements in sciences, healthcare, transportation, entertainment, and finance have afforded us the ability to adjust our circumstance to create a world we would like to see. We alter our perceptions intentionally, and sometimes in the process, permanently alter current realities. We seek to control multifaceted categories of our daily lives and replace them with a utopia which we embrace with limited due diligence.

an you imagine waking up without your smart phone, its news feeds, the alerts for topics of interest, or even, texting? Have you unplugged from the growing intelligence and feeds intertwined in your life, home, and work? Do you feel helpless, anxious, or out-of-body when you don’t react to the asynchronous interruptions happening with increased frequency? Are you compelled to change your “status”, take pictures of your surroundings, comment on another person’s comments, post your emotions, and inserting yourself into topics that once held little interest? Is Twitter part of your psyche—an extension of yourself?

After decades of spending our money on distinctive innovations, we are disillusioned with the results, the implications, and the changing realities. Now that there are more mobile phones than there are people in many countries, how is being “always on”, 24 by 7, 365 days a year, impacting the lives of individuals and social groups?  When we spend more time interacting with non-humans than humans, what consequences does this have for our families, interpersonal relationships, economic outlooks, social support systems, and of course society?

Estimates put 40% of the current workforce at risk of being displaced within the next two decades just as governmental educational support post-high school declines. Meaning, just as work forces need a boost, retraining and additional skills, the money spent on citizens to contribute to national GDP is scheduled to decline 45% by 2021. Where will living wage jobs come from if the US government continues to rack up trillion-dollar yearly deficits, while decreasing worker competitiveness and value?

In this inaugural show, we lay the foundation for why future innovations cannot always be benevolent. Historically we have assumed that our innovations will improve our lives. We have assumed that the creators of the innovation are looking out for our personal good and social well-being. Moreover, what is wrong with a dialogue, not steeped reality show delivery, that examines potential outcomes? The time to question our surroundings has come as technological advances continue to blur the realities between synthetic innovations and real humans.