Imagining 2050: a playful new tool
Science-fiction as a tool for making (or avoiding) science-fact
We are all trapped in the present. Imagining a future world feels futile if we try, but usually, we habitually anchor our thinking on the present.
This is a liability. We plan for futures that do not eventuate because we expect them to look much like today. By the time we get there, the world has changed. This is a problem in startup building, and it is a problem when we think about our careers.
So, we made a tool
Earlier this year, we ran a masterclass as part of Tech23 with fifty deep tech founders to imagine some of the forces that will act upon our lives between now and 2050. Out of that, we synthesised these views into a map.
Now, we have loaded up the forces into a GPT-4 prompt to help us imagine stories of people living in a future world.
To use the app, you select different forces to generate a story. Read the story for inspiration. Generate again. Tweak the combinations. Generate again. It will shake your mind out of the present.
The more whacky your combinations, the more likely it is to ‘hallucinate’, and in all cases, you can’t be sure that the scenario is anchored in known science.
But you are not here to accurately predict the future. You are here to explore an option space for the future playfully. What might happen? How can I make the most of it?
Ideas for using the tool
Build a scenario for your company - build plausible forces around your technology and try some stories. Discuss with your team what this would mean for our company.
Look for company ideas - use the tool to imagine the companies that need to exist that don’t yet.
Naming conventions - the tool produces some fun names for companies and products. Perhaps it can help you with your naming?
Imagine a future job - I’m tempted to build a teaching plan around the tool so that schools can use it to help students imagine different futures. Five minutes with this tool shows that there are many jobs that are yet to be created.
How might we improve the tool?
Which forces do you think are missing? Let me know in the comments, and we’ll add them.
Come and see us at SXSW Sydney.
Main Sequence and CSIRO have sponsored a 2050 stream of content. We’ll be busy there and hope that you will come and see us.