economics, ethics, forecasting, history

Speculation, invention and making new worlds

https://hefp.substack.com/p/speculation-invention-and-making

Speculation is a word with a history. Originally from a root meaning ‘to observe’, it has moved from Latin through Old French to English, and along the way its meaning has been enlarged, from indicating the use of thought to pursue the truth, to describing conjecture and unsupported assertion by the sixteenth century, to risky gambling in the stock market by the eighteenth. Together, these meanings point to a general sense of intellectual experiment, of asking ‘what if..?’ and trying things out. This experimentation is what leads to the production of new ideas, departures from how we thought before the experiment. Speculative design, speculative fiction, speculative philosophy and research are not all trying to do the same thing, but they all have a common interest in trying out new ways of being in the world. They suggest that speculation about the future is less about simply moving our present further along the timeline, and more about finding new ways to imagine relating to the world and each other.

artificial intelligence, cities, ethics, innovation, internet of things, society, virtual reality, work

Microsoft’s Satya Nadella on Flexible Work, the Metaverse, and the Power of Empathy

https://hbr-org.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/hbr.org/amp/2021/10/microsofts-satya-nadella-on-flexible-work-the-metaverse-and-the-power-of-empathy

SATYA NADELLA: I think that this entire idea of metaverse is fundamentally this: increasingly, as we embed computing in the real world, you can even embed the real world in computing. That’s kind of how I think about it. Both because in some sense, one of the metaphors that I always use which is helpful is that as both an outside-in and inside-out. For example, you can have a space in which there are lots of cameras and microphones. And you can digitize the space. You don’t need to wear anything on your head.

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