Aug 5, 2020
Amy Webb is a quantitative
futurist and a bestselling, award-winning author. She is a
professor of strategic foresight at the NYU Stern School of
Business and the Founder of the Future Today Institute. Amy
discusses what leaders need to be doing today to gain valuable
foresight into their industry when faced with regular uncertainty.
She also shares the framework on how we tend to think of future
problems vs. how we should be thinking of future
problems.
Key Takeaways
[3:00] Futurists don’t make
predictions, they make connections.
[7:05] In artificial
intelligence, some of the systems do not work as well as they could
because they suffer from the ‘paradox of the present.’
[9:35] AI has been in
development for hundreds of years now.
[11:25] The best way to think of
AI now is that it’s the 3rd generation of computing.
[15:55] If you want to make
things better, you need to know what to measure. The problem is,
people don’t know how to measure the uncertainty of what’s outside
of their realm of knowledge.
[17:25] The best way to navigate
the unknown is by accepting that there will be a number of things
you simply cannot control.
[18:15] Most people are really
good at measuring the stuff that they can control, but they do not
account for everything else. You have to actively look outside of
your field for trends and other signals.
[20:50] Amy uses a framework
called a time cone. The tip is filled with certainty, but as the
base gets wider and wider, it becomes unclear where to go, yet we
still have to make leadership decisions.
[24:00] Take a look at Nintendo.
Multiple times that company should have been disrupted out of
business.
[26:45] Just like anyone can be
technically proficient at playing piano if they sit down and study
it long enough, the same is true with foresight.
[38:20] What prevents
organizations from moving forward is the attempt to maintain the
status quo in organizations.
[42:15] If you do not comfort
cherished beliefs over and over again, you become
vulnerable.
[45:05] Elon Musk and other
technologists are concerned about AI and its power, which is why we
need incredibly courageous leadership during this time.
Quotable Quotes
- “I
cannot think of an instance wherein an academic discipline or
industry does not really, truly benefit from a cross-functional
team and a diverse team.”
- “This
term artificial intelligence is meaningless because as soon as
something works, we no longer think of it as approaching
human-scale intelligence.”
- “The only way to really solve that doubt is to go forth
knowing that there are unknowable things over which you will have
no control. That is a terrifying prospect.”
- “Machines learn by repeatedly completing tasks
that are in service of the stated goal or purpose.”
- “What preserves the status quo is nobody is willing to
ask difficult questions.”
- “You
can’t chase certainty. Certainty is brittle. So instead of
certainty, you should aim for being confident and instilling
confidence in the people that work with you.”
Resources Mentioned
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