“I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know?” – Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
I recently graduated with my master’s degree in cybersecurity policy and risk management. Three months were spent writing my capstone on how strategic foresight should be applied to cybersecurity policy to lessen the impact of black swans. With ten gallons of coffee[1], several bottles of wine[2], and many screams at the computer of “I don’t know what I’m doing!” I learned one very important lesson:
I don’t know everything.
I know; crazy, right? How could I possibly come to this absurd conclusion that I am not the master of the universe and every minute piece of data is not found within the confines of my brain? How could I possibly be so humble as to realize that I make generalizations that I try to pass off as ultimate fact? What is wrong with me?
Let’s wade through my obvious sarcasm here to get to the kernel of truth: futurists don’t know everything. We know we don’t know everything. That’s the beauty of foresight – we get to learn about everything. We learn something new every day, like kids in school[3]. We are like little sponges, soaking up all the knowledge we can find, then lathering that knowledge into our creative thoughts and scenarios. We talk to multiple experts, read multiple sources, and continue to challenge our own biases and feelings regarding certain trends and uncertainties.
In my experience, there are four types of people when it comes to the field of strategic foresight: those who are naturally drawn to the field[4], those who consider it another field they can conquer, those who dismiss it as another flash in the pan, and those who ask me why do I care so much because they have better things to do and shouldn’t you be working[5].
Today, we’ll focus on the second group. Mostly because they’re growing like a fungus. And they’re just as much fun[6].
Everyone knows someone – at their job, in their family, in school, even on the Metro[7] – who knows everything, and they don’t hesitate to tell you how they know everything and you will never know everything like they do. And to some degree, they’re right. You know that you don’t know everything. But here’s the thing – they don’t either, and this attitude is the antithesis of what foresight is all about. Foresight is about being open about knowing nothing, and learning as we go. We never go in with any pretention, because we know the future isn’t a solid thing, like an island we can sail toward. We can create a future state, but it will never be 100% what we would like it to be, because life is largely unpredictable.
This disparity in knowing everything or nothing is most apparent in the discussion regarding artificial intelligence, or AI. I have heard so many conversations from people with the claims of “AI will solve every problem! AI is the answer for everything[8]! AI is everything!” as though they were trying to sell you some made-for-TV product. Those people believe with absolute certainty that AI will take over the world, and though you present them with articles, graphs, and even an expert in the field who wants them to take it down a notch, they will still scream in your face “AI is the answer for EVERYTHING” and then put their fingers in their ears and run down the hallway singing Camptown Races[9].
The truth of the matter is that AI is still fairly young in the grand scheme of its apparent world takeover, and we don’t know all the answers about it yet. We do know, however, it is not infallible, and is only as good as the person who programmed it – meaning if the person who programmed it is, say, racist, then that will ultimately show up in the program[10]. Even if that bias is unconscious, it may ultimately make its way in somewhere. Also, AI cannot make nuanced decisions the same way people can[11], with machine learning acting on decisions of the past rather than understanding the change in social morays that somehow seem to take us by surprise[12]. If we have two women – same age, height, build, race – accused of murder, do we give them the same sentence? No, because it depends on the details of the case. If woman one killed for life insurance, she would get a harsher sentence than woman two, who killed her abusive husband after years of physical and emotional torture[13].
Yet we have people who come into the field of foresight with this idea that they know everything and must spread it around, because they have the answers, as though they own some mystical force that we should wish to covet. If they did know everything, why the heck are they still working and not using their vast knowledge to play the lottery and win? If they knew all the answers, then we would have no need for–well, anything. We wouldn’t need strategic planning, we wouldn’t need risk management, we wouldn’t need anything of a hypothetical nature, unless they wanted to give us lowly unintelligent morons something to keep us entertained[14].
The point is: to effectively do foresight, you have to assume you know nothing. Because foresight practitioners know enough to be dangerous, but we also know that what we know changes every single day. Yesterday I didn’t know Amazon’s facial recognition system was an unmitigated failure. Last year, I didn’t know I’d spend a lot of time playing a rhythm game on my phone to help me focus in the mornings. Tomorrow, I will learn something new that either I didn’t know at all or challenges my understanding of the world. And I look forward to that as much as some people wait for food – hungry for more. Claiming to know everything, and bringing that attitude toward strategic foresight, is like bringing your own food to someone else’s planned dinner party: it’s rude, it’s abhorrent, and it implies that you have no trust in the people you’re working with[15].
So in this world, choose to know nothing. Come in to the discussion with empty minds and walk away full, knowing you’ll learn something new tomorrow that will change you in some way, and be all the more grateful for it.
[1] You would think this is hyperbole, but trust me…it’s not.
[2] I don’t want to know the full number. I’ve already taken out the recycling, so I don’t have to know.
[3] Well, kids in a good school. I may not have gone to one.
[4] *raises hand and waves it wildly*
[5] These people I leave alone for the most part.
[6] Insert “fun guy” joke here. You’re welcome.
[7] That was an awkward conversation. I never forget my headphones anymore.
[8] Which in some respects, if you know Japanese, is kind of a funny pun (as “ai” means love).
[9] I wish this were hyperbole. I really do.
[10] https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/01/21/137783/algorithms-criminal-justice-ai/
[11] https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/11/17/103781/what-is-machine-learning-we-drew-you-another-flowchart/
[12] Personally, I don’t know how not being a complete and utter wanker to people is a surprising notion to people, but there you go.
[13] This would be the case in a perfect world – sadly, the real world is not always this ideal.
[14] How nice of them.
[15] Bringing your own food is only good if you have severe allergies or food intolerances AND you’ve cleared it with the host first.
formthefuture.org 