bene hoc de futuro dixit, et congrue

This week was one of those weeks where I twice heard about a concept I otherwise never hear about. At the start of the week, my daughter talked about her class assignment to design the primary school of the future. Through drawings and maquettes, they are exploring what a primary school 50 years from now could look like, considering the implications of melting icecaps and various other big changes they can foresee. Later on in the week, I heard a colleague data analytics leader, Van Zyl, talk about design fiction in the context of trying to imagine what artificial intelligence (AI) might be able to help us achieve.

I believe the approach might bring a crucial element for those companies trying to set an AI strategy. Creating a strategy for your business around a tool or capability probably feels like the wrong thing to do for many that have been in the analytics domain for a while, and have been advocating to focus on the value analytics brings to an organisation rather than the techniques used. Given the immense attention AI has received over the last 2 years, it is no surprise though many company boards have tasked their management team to do just that and include a view on AI in their strategies.

Often these strategies focus on enabling AI to work - ensure data is accessible, factual and unbiased, train people on new skills, have an ethics framework ready to ensure AI decision are responsible and defensible, put in place a framework to prioritise use-cases and so forth. As such, they differ little from the best practice applied in any organisation serious about competing on analytics (as coined by Davenport in 2007). What seems very hard to answer often is the question - what is the goal we are trying to achieve with this new technology? Of course, it isn't incorrect to answer that question with 'our strategic objectives', and many do exactly that. That approach results in a hierarchical concept - the AI strategy is there to help achieve the original corporate strategy.

What would happen however if we applied some futurism to the question? That's where design fiction comes in. It brings a framework to explore and criticise scenarios for the future. Given the extremely high expectations society has for AI, it seems reasonable to believe that truly successful AI strategies will result in remarkable transforming advances. Clearly not all companies will be able to accomplish that, and the majority of companies might be best of keeping abreast of the latest technologies to operate their business, like any other resource they manage. For those few that are serious about becoming a leapfrogging winner thanks to AI however, starting with the question where they see the business in 5 or 10 years should be a great starting point. The key point in this technique is to actually have a story through objects. The objects are not props to tell the story - they are the future we think about, create story around. discuss through questions and problems and ultimately maybe agree to pursue.

If that sounds interesting, a starting point for further reading could be these 4 notes rectifying some of the most common confusion on design fiction.