- Chapter 1
- The Knowledge Age: Peering
into the Future
- Paul T Kidd
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- The Dawning of a New Era -
The Knowledge Age
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- As society moves from the
industrial era into the new knowledge age, old concerns, and
some new ones, stand ready to challenge humanity as it strives
to make sense of a rapidly changing and often confusing world.
The knowledge age offers the prospect of creating wealth through
brain power rather than muscle power. Using human intelligence,
circumstances have been already been created where there is a
stream of new ideas emerging from research laboratories, and
as a result, technologies, products and services seem to be in
a continual state of flux. There is always something new to buy,
to use, to apply, and there is more to come. Novelty and innovation
have become imperatives for business success and the drivers
for economic growth and unprecedented widespread prosperity in
the industrial world. People in the industrialised countries,
have never had it so good, at least in material terms.
However there are dark clouds on the horizon: global warming,
terrorism, environmental damage, cyber crime, schisms in society,
and threats to privacy, are but a few. In material terms the
citizens of the industrialised countries, and increasingly those
in the developing nations, may be riding high, but is society
heading in the right direction? What type of society will emerge
as the knowledge age begins to mature, and will it be a society
that people will really want to be part of?
These are broad questions, and there are several factors at play
that will influence how the knowledge era develops and how it
will impact upon society and peoples' lives. This book aims to
address one of these factors, that of information and communication
technologies, and then only modestly, for in itself, the subject
is a vast one.
Information and communication technologies are one of the key
enablers of the new knowledge age. But where are these technologies
leading? What will be the result of their continuing development
and even wider adoption in all aspects of life? Who will control
these technologies, big business or citizens? What information
and communication technologies will be shaping society further
into the future? Will these technologies be threatening and alien
to the human sprit or is it possible to produce a more human-centred
technology? What new opportunities in work, leisure, healthcare,
government, etc. will arise?
There are many questions, more than can be posed, and surely
more than can be answered given the uncertainties that any effort
to envision the future must involve. However, it is necessary
at least to try to consider some of the questions and to find
possible answers.
Why bother to think about the future? Surely there are enough
existing problems in the world that need attention, without considering
more, which may or may not, eventually materialise. No-one can
predict the future, so surely in the end it must all just be
speculation? To some extent this is of course true, but some
people have insights and intuitions that provide a glimpse into
the foggy and uncertain world that is the future. These insights
and intuitions about the future are valuable.
Visions of the future are not crystal clear; they are inherently
fuzzy notions that combine knowledge in a particular domain with
a sense of what could develop, blended with a sense of what should
be, or perhaps should not be. Visions encompass rational knowledge
as well as intuitive elements, and their purpose is to light
the paths to follow to the future. The process of vision building
is clearly not the same as trying to predict the future analytically,
or to analyse trends and statistics. These are all important
tools for planning, but vision building is a complementary activity:
visions for the future do not try to predict exactly what will
happen, but rather offer options and explore ways that could
be followed.
Thinking actively about the future can also help to provide a
better understanding of the present, to envisage options that
might otherwise not be considered, to reflect on these, and to
map out and better set the compass for future steps forward.
Humankind is gifted because it can use its intelligence to foresee
difficulties that might perhaps be avoided. So without attempting
to at least imagine some of the possible landscapes of the future,
decisions may end up being made based on a limited and narrow
view of the present, ultimately creating problems that future
generations will have to deal with.
Visions also play a role in the innovation processes by fostering
new ideas and concepts and stimulating new thinking. Visions
of the future provide an opportunity for out-of-the-box thinking.
Thus this book provides a fresh set of perspectives on the future,
ones that can help you the reader, to think outside the box of
the present. In this spirit, this book provides a diversity of
views about technologies relating to human knowledge and communication
and their role and influence in the world.
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