What Might Happen?
What do you think might happen?
I was asked this question about the impact of AI on our workplaces.
It’s always fun to explore the ‘future of work’. More often we are really exploring the ‘now of work’ where we consider how changes happening now might impact us into the future.
Either way, we can find ourselves trying to accurately determine how things will be. As we know from things like planning and forecasting, these can be exercises in imagination.
Thinking about the future, we can find ourselves lost in the details and predicting all sorts of wonderful, or doomed, scenarios.
When we look ahead in themes, not specifics, it provides an opportunity to see patterns emerging, and to join the dots in to a broad outline of what might be possible.
Sometimes it helps to look back.
If I consider 3d printers as an example, in the early 00’s, 3d printers were seen as a fad for inventors, architects and designers. Yet years later we read stories about how schools in Africa are being built with 3d printing, not to mention all of the mind-boggling uses in the medical field.
Who could have predicted that, some might ask.
And, the answer is someone.
It wasn’t a prediction that said: on this date, in this precise manner, this will happen.
It was a prediction that said: based on these signs, this is possible, and likely, to happen in the future.
As we consider the future of work, what if we ask: what patterns are emerging to light the way to possibility?
I’m curious, what do you think might happen?