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Good morning,
I'm sending this newsletter from Johannesburg, where I'll based for the next couple of months. I chose this city because of the weather, its booming creative scene, and its location in the 'Global South'—a very imperfect term, but which nonetheless describes a geopolitics / culture which does not place the West at its centre. To spend some time away from Canada and Europe allows me to gain some much-needed perspective on the ambient discourse and be exposed to other ways of thinking and seeing the world.
Since this is the first issue of The Oracle in 2023, I wanted to set some intentions for the year. Last December, I spent some time reading and learning about the intersection of global health and climate change for an article I wrote for Devex. I had a thought-provoking conversation with a frustrated global health expert who lamented that health policies are not designed to take climate change into account, even though warming temperatures, extreme weather events and population displacement are increasingly influencing our physical and mental health. This means we'll soon be stuck with health systems that can't cope with our evolving health needs.
It dawned on me that the way we're currently strategizing and planning for the way we work, live and spend leisure time is not future-proof at all. Until planning for climate change and other urgent societal issues becomes the norm, most new business ideas, government policies and other forms of strategic planning will by default assume that everything will stay the same, thereby rendering themselves obsolete or further damaging from the start.
Shortly after the new year kicked off, my news and social feeds were submerged by stories about ChatGPT and other potentially highly-disruptive large language models (LLMs). Not a day goes by without a hot take on OpenAI or a how-to guide on using ChatGPT for business (whether the technology is threatening or fucking basic depends on whom you ask.) Yet none of those tools were built with long-term societal trends in mind, because that's not how the tech ecosystem works. Tech startups are financially rewarded for their potential to yield short- to medium-term profits, not long-term gains. While large companies are increasingly (and rightly so) turning to strategic foresight and future studies to understand how the future might impact their business, I'm yet to hear about a startup or venture capital firm that said, 'we hired a futurist to stress-test our technology and significantly altered our business model to account for rapid urban growth and changing government regulations'. And so, whatever potential these AI tools may have, they're likely to not have our best interests in mind.
Talking about ChatGPT is absolutely fine—I read the think pieces like anyone else. But I'm worried that it takes time away from more pressing matters, whatever these may be at an individual level. Our time and attention are limited, and any minute we spend discussing some new technology distracts us from everything else. And the tech world, because of its dominant place in the economy and the drama it creates through million-dollar funding rounds, massive hires (then layoffs, as discussed below) and promises of disruption, is very good at being disruptive.
So, my intention for 2023 is for us all is to find focus and stay on course, whatever our priorities may be. To not let ourselves get distracted. To remember that what is most urgent is often very different from what transpires in our news feed. And to plan for, and work every day toward a future we actually want.
Happy 2023 to you all,
Flavie
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