Retrofuturistic
The first time I ever saw a live and spinning zoetropeāa pre-cinematic animation deviceāwas on a visit to the Exploratorium Museum of Science, Art and Human Perception on San Franciscoās Pier 15, in March 2017. Derived from the Greek words zoe, meaning ālifeā, and tropos meaning āturningā, a zoetrope is also known as a āwheel of lifeā.
This was my first āliveā zoetrope experience because as a child I had seen a static zoetrope in a detailed, illustrated entry about how motion pictures were made, in a leather-bound antique encyclopedia volume by Arthur Mee. As Meeās encyclopedias for children were published in mid-twentieth-century Europe, it is likely that I am in the minority of millennials who have ever heard of Meeās encyclopedia. I remember being fascinated by countless entries that naturally unified the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities and arts, spanning across several volumes.
Most school teachers said that the information held in those books was quite archaic, and that I should have consulted the latest Britannica CD-ROM or even the pre-Google search engine AltaVista in the mid-1990s wave of the World Wide Web. But browsing these newer resources felt mechanical and limited. They were devoid of the fusing of ethical and humanist wisdom and wonder, alongside scientific proofs.
Over knowing what we know, these classical texts inspired us to place even higher value in being curious about what we do not know. Arthur Mee was honest about his encyclopedia; although it was very thorough, carefully presented and detailed, he made it clear to learning minds that it was not the fountain of all knowledge once devoured. The real magic was found in the unknown gaps in-between. Like the zoetrope, only through the illuminated gaps in the wheel did the whole story come to life.
If I had been more deliberate and orderly in my early research, I might never have randomly come across the zoetrope, as both an innovative concept and a precursor invention which ultimately led to traditional audiovisual motion picture andāas we know and love it todayādigital multimedia and animation, social media, GIFs, memes, live streaming on redditās Public Access Network, YouTube, cat videos and Pixar.
A zoetrope is also known as a āwheel of lifeā. An illusion. A simulation. Is digital life an illusion? Is reality a simulation? Is simulation a reality?
You realize the sun doesnāt go down itās just an illusion caused by the world spinning roundāThe Flaming Lips āDo You Realize?ā
Also inside the Exploratorium that day, there was a sign in the Tinkering Studio.
A quote from Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget in the early 1970s, when transdisciplinary thinking was just taking flight:
To understand is to invent.
Quotes such as this reflect the assumptions prior to the Artificial Ageāthat the social or environmental impact of any invention was a primary consideration before unleashing it onto the universe. Now it appears to be the opposite. The concept of the Anthropocene is driven by technocratic narrativesāboth utopian and dystopianābut not all of its solutions will be technological ones. Furthermore, tech solutions to tech problems seem paradoxical. We need to make sure that the problem is not compounded by the āsolutionā.
Somewhereāin the mix of watching zoetropes live, thinking about Piagetās thoughts and exploring a very hands-on museum, lighting up our imaginationsācame the first sparks of this book.
To share understanding is to reinvent.
Three Big Questions
How Do We Future Proof Our Digital Lives?
In response to a 2018 newspaper headline ROBOKIDS: a hi-tech syllabus for schools to future proof our young, I tweeted: āIf you teach a child how to be a robot, itās likely an actual robot will be able to do their future job. Teach the child how to be a human who can communicate well with people and technologies. Then they should be future proofā. Rather ironically, the tweet went viral and I turned into an Influencer. Not reallyābut one person did reply with āWell saidā and the tweet was kindly picked up and shared globally through The Conversationās Science and Technology Editor. I hope it made at least some people think and act differently if āhi-techā is now mainstream in our education system. Technology is a tool made to help humankind. Humans are not tools for tech to control. Technology is increasingly becoming dehumanizing and unsustainable. Donāt get me wrongāI believe in the power and magic of technology to make our lives better in some ways, but there is a growing gap between technology and business development, policy and legality, and fully understanding the intentions, processes and outcomes for humansāthose who design and build technologies and those who use them on a daily basis.
In defining the unprecedented and long-term challenges associated with transformative social innovation for sustainability in the Anthropocene, Per Olsson and colleagues highlighted a need for more unifying focus on interactions, experiences and feedbacks for people-planet-technology relationships (Olsson et al. 2017). Transdisciplinary work is production, research or educational design that transcends the boundaries of disciplinary perspectives, involving non-academic and academic participants as equal participants in the process to reach a common goal usually a solution to a problem of society at large. A social-ecological system has two interrelated sides: external interactions between people and things or machines (Informational Waves), and internal experiences within human relationships built on trust and shared understanding (Resonance). Transdisciplinary collaborations and social-ecological systemsā approaches (more on these in Chapters 2 and 3) can help us work towards major global well-being and quality of life outcomes such as the United Nationsā Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, plans for the life-changing contexts of the Anthropoceneāthe current geological age recognizing humans as a force of nature, their influence and impacts on the environmentāand Globalization 4.0, with its emphasis on the collaborative brain, co-creation and talent.
By revealing transdisciplinary invisible work and invisible problems towards social innovation and shared understanding, we can ensure technology makes our lives better by using adaptive approaches and design concepts. One of these adaptive approaches is the focus of this bookāa āresource awarenessā mindset consisting of: informational waves, transdisciplinary resonance and shared understanding. These concepts representing much of the āinvisible workā and āinvisible problemsā involved in producing for shared understanding are explored in Chapters 2, 3 and 4. In light of developing responsible innovations, these emerging concepts introduced in Part I: Concepts are defined from the literature and perspectives in the humanities, arts, social sciences and the natural sciences.
How Do We Produce Shared Understanding?
As identified in sustainability research, there is a need for more unifying focus on interactions, experiences and feedbacks for people-planet-technology relationships. At the same time, a climate of separatist, polarizing or tribal mentalities is increasing as society becomes more judgmental of differences of opinion and values, or refuses to see differences in harmonious coexistence without it being a betrayal. Shared understanding as a concept and practiceāthat is both helped and hindered by technological innovationsāis something we desperately need now and in the future. Digital and social innovations often do not take a holistic look at their potential impacts and outcomes across an ecosystem (Olsson et al. 2017). We need new ways of bridging divides between different stakeholders around a digital innovation. Decisions and actions based on myopic views prompt a need for broader understanding to prepare for long-term impacts. Transdisciplinary mindsets prompt us to think and act beyond our individual personal agendas and be guided by a mindset that encourages less ego-centrism and more humility to make lasting impacts for community and global goals. There is a need for balance of individual and communal considerations through shared understanding. We can produce or co-produce shared understanding in complex adaptive systems, consisting of informational waves and transdisciplinary resonance, through approaches explored in Part II: Methods, such as navigating paradoxes, capturing moments and mapping dialogues.
How Do We Educate for Responsible Innovation?
With a focus on employment, particularly technical skills and training for the science and technology workforce, mainstream education and training for technology is sidestepping the growing need for safeguarding people and their environments and ecologies from potential harmful effects. Social science and information science research into technology are working towards addressing many pressing ethical issues, which can affect our quality of life, but these often theoretical or applied projects are not collaboratively connecting into computer science and artificial intelligence work as much as they could be, especially in industry contexts. We need more recognition of the growing importance of transdisciplinary work cultures and capacities which, by design, take into consideration the effects and potential impacts of science and technology innovation on the environment and society. For example, the book Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI (Daugherty and Wilson 2018) identifies eight new āfusion skillsā that are imperative for success in an AI workplace, drawing on the blending of human and machine talents within a business process to create better outcomes than when each works independently (Accenture 2020; Daugherty and Wilson 2018, pp. 186ā205):
8 Fusion Skills for a Workplace of āCollaborative Intelligenceā:
- 1.Rehumanizing time. As we no longer rely on the concept of āmachine timeā, adopted to keep up with assembly lines and, later, to computers in office environments, thereās a new way to think about time and work. People will have more time to dedicate towards more āhuman activitiesā, such as increasing interpersonal interactions and conducting creative research.
- 2.Responsible normalizing. Itās time to rethink and responsibly shape, or ānormalizeā, the purpose and perception of human-machine interaction as it relates to individuals, businesses and society as a whole.
- 3.Judgment integration. In some instances, a machine may be uncertain about or lack the necessary business or ethical context to make decisions. People must be prepared to sense where, how and when to step into provide input.
- 4.Intelligent interrogation. People simply canāt probe massively complex systems or predict interactions between complex layers of data on their own. Itās imperative to have the ability to ask machines the right āsmartā questions across multiple levels.
- 5.Bot-based empowerment. A variety of bots are available to help people be more productive and become better at their jobs. Prepare to embrace the power of AI agents to extend your capabilities, reinvent business processes and even boost your professional career.
- 6.Holistic (physical and ...