Lessons from Amy Webb

A leading voice in futurism and strategic foresight, Amy Webb, the founder of the Future Today Institute, offers critical insights into navigating our complex and rapidly evolving technological landscape. Her work provides a roadmap for understanding emerging trends, the profound implications of artificial intelligence, and the strategic imperatives for leaders in all sectors.

On Strategic Foresight and Thinking Like a Futurist

The foundation of Webb's work is the principle that the future is not something to be passively awaited but actively shaped through disciplined foresight.

"Futurists don't actually predict the future. That's not our job. We are really people who work in strategy. So we take signals in the present that help us identify trends... That helps us create what-if scenarios." [1]
"A trend is driven by a basic human need, one that is catalyzed by new technology." [2]
"Futurists are skilled at listening to and interpreting the signals talking. It's a learnable skill, and a process anyone can master." [2]
"Each trend is a looking glass into the future, a way to see over time's horizon. The advantage of forecasting the future in this way is obvious. Organizations that can see trends early enough to take action have first-mover influence." [2]
"The main problem, when an organization wants to map the future of x, is that it too often defines x far too narrowly, using the old market research paradigm." [2]
"It's the future-fallacy trap: when your inflexibility on details causes mistakes in your planning for the future." [2]
"To do that you have to go out more than three years in your planning, but pretty much every business conflates vision and tactic with strategy." [3]
"Goals aren't your vision. You have to think about what allows you to get to that target, and not just what you need to do for the next year." [3]
"Every single leader should also have a foundation of strategic foresight. It is at this point table stakes not a nice thing to have it's it's a must-have." [4]
"I'd love to see a more substantial commitment to strategic foresight, which involves using data to look further ahead." [5]
"The future is not about one technology, but the convergence of multiple technologies and disciplines." [6]
"Stop spending your time on Horizons 1 and 2 (Operations and Strategy). Start thinking further out and then connect that to your day-to-day strategies. Think about the fourth horizon." [7]

On Artificial Intelligence: Its Present and Future

Webb is a crucial voice in the discourse on AI, demystifying its function while highlighting the immense power and responsibility held by those who build it.

"We've made a devil's pact, swapping convenience and efficiency for an ever-increasing tyranny of information and choice." [2][8]
"In order for A.I. systems to work, they need to be trained. And we, we humans, are their mothers and fathers. We are their study buddies. We are the ones these A.I. systems are learning from." [9]
"The Big Nine aren't just building hardware and code. They are building thinking machines that reflect humanity's values." [10]
"Take empathy out of the decision-making process, and you take away our humanity. Sometimes what might make no logical sense at all is the best possible choice for us at a particular moment." [2][11]
"While plenty of smart people advocate AI for the public good, we are not yet discussing artificial intelligence as a public good. This is a mistake." [2][8]
"There would be no way to create a set of commandments for AI. We couldn't write out all of the rules to correctly optimize for humanity, and that's because while thinking machines may be fast and powerful, they lack flexibility." [2][8]
"Building AI means predicting the values of the future. Our values aren't static. So how do we teach machines to reflect our values without influencing them?" [11]
"At the moment, no one, in any country, has the right to interrogate an AI and see clearly how a decision was made." [10]
"AI is not a revolution, it's an evolution." [7]
"AI is the present. This is part of the problem that I see organizations and leaders really struggling with. AI still feels like a frontier technology. AI has been with us for, you know, dozens of years." [1]
"Some big reports are saying that AI will eliminate hundreds of thousands or millions of jobs. I think those numbers are wrong." [1]
"The future we all want to live in won't just show up, fully formed. We need to be courageous. We must take responsibility for our actions." [12]
"AI systems should be safe and secure. We should be able to independently verify their safety and security." [12]
"AI should be explainable. Systems should carry something akin to a nutritional label, detailing the training data used, the processes used for learning, the real-world data being used in applications and the expected outcomes." [12]

On Technology, Society, and Geopolitics

Webb extends her analysis beyond corporate strategy to the societal and geopolitical ramifications of technological advancement, with a particular focus on the U.S. and China.

"Right now, there is no other country on Earth with as much data as China, as many people as China, and as many electronics per capita." [2][8]
"No other country is positioned to have a bigger economy than America's within our lifetimes. No other country has more potential to influence our planet's ecosystem, climate, and weather patterns—leading to survival or catastrophe—than China." [2][11]
"One probable near-term outcome of AI... is the emergence of what I'll call a 'personal data record,' or PDR." [11]
"The greatest threat facing humanity is not technology, but the way we use it." [6]
"I'm talking about a radically different business model for news writ large." [13]
"The convergence of three technologies: Artificial intelligence together with advanced sensors and bioengineering will create what's known as 'living intelligence' that could drive a supercycle of exponential growth and disruption across multiple industries." [14]
"Companies have realized that they need to invent new devices in order to acquire even more data to train AI." [14]

On Leadership, Strategy, and Action

Ultimately, Webb's insights are a call to action for leaders to be more proactive, curious, and responsible in the face of profound change.

"Every company should develop capabilities and strategic foresight and figure out where they want to be and reverse engineer that back to the present." [14]
"Now is a time for every single person in every business to just get a minimal amount of education on what all of these technologies are, what they aren't, what it means when they come together and combine." [14]
"The hard work is to define a vision non-aspirationally." [3]
"Have the vision, but make a lot of small bets along the way." [3]
"Lean into uncertainty with curiosity." [15]
"To me, it seems like a really risky bet to make on the future, and it represents weird decisions that business leaders make when times get tough, when you're dealing with uncertainty, when change happens fast and there's no plan." [15]
"If leaders of organizations have the right understanding and background, and they're not making decisions based on fear, then I think that growth is highly plausible." [1]
"Some companies are going to miss this. They're going to laser focus on AI, forget about everything else that's happening, and find out that they are disrupted again earlier than they thought they would." [14]
"Which is more important for a business: the ability to see the future, or the ability to create and execute the right strategy? The answer is both." [16]
"It's time to reunite strategy and foresight, recognize they operate on the same continuum, and reset expectations for what they can achieve together." [16]
"The Big Nine aren't the villains in this story. In fact, they are our best hope for the future." [10]
"The goal of online dating is to get offline as quickly as possible." [17]
"Success is a lousy teacher." [2]
"We were in a space race to prove our technical and military superiority... Planning for the moonshot shifted Kennedy's goal from possible to probable, turning his idea into reality." [18]
"Too often, leaders ignore the signals, wait too long to take action, or plan for only one scenario." [18]
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it is hitched to everything else in the universe." [2]
"All data should be treated fairly and equally, regardless of nationality, race, religion, sexual identity, gender, political affirmations, or other uniques beliefs." [12]

Learn more:

Lessons from Amy Webb

On Strategic Foresight and Thinking Like a Futurist

On Artificial Intelligence: Its Present and Future

On Technology, Society, and Geopolitics

On Leadership, Strategy, and Action

Written by Antoine Buteau

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