Navigating the Unknowable: Critical Uncertainties for Our Future

The future is not knowable.? Whatever predictions we make or models we develop, and no matter what strategic foresight process we apply, there is precisely zero chance that anyone anywhere will get it exactly right.? However, to paraphrase a quote from Dwight D. Eisenhower about planning, “Predictions are nothing; making predictions is everything.”? Specifically, identifying, understanding, and speculating about the critical uncertainties of the future reveals insights about what the future could hold for us.? Understanding these, sometimes manifold, complex possibilities can separate the successful from the unsuccessful over the long run.

Critical uncertainties are factors or variables that could significantly impact the future if it unfolds in a particular way.? They are “critical” because their outcomes could profoundly shape or shift strategies, industries, policies, or scenarios.? They are “uncertainties” because we don’t know how they will evolve.? To be smart about the future, we must identify as many critical uncertainties as possible and turn them over in our minds in many ways.? We must imagine the future world in terms of the range of possibilities around those uncertainties, and we must identify what we can do today to either drive those critical uncertainties in a positive direction or be prepared for the consequences of an unfavorable evolution of one or more of them.

Today, there are critical uncertainties around social, economic, climatological, political, and legal issues.? Intertwined with all of those is technology.? We live in unprecedented and exponential growth in the amount and impact of technology.? Technology also spreads around the globe faster than ever before, and the capabilities enabled by new technologies engender issues of proper use, ethics, and morals in ways more intense than at any time in history.? One must only look at the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (genAI) in recent years and the worldwide fears related to privacy, jobs, and human domination that have emerged from what is essentially a mathematical technique.? The jury is still out as to whether those fears will slow genAI. Technology is undeniably a driver of critical uncertainty, but so is society’s acceptance of AI.

Technology itself is also a critical uncertainty.? More specifically, the future rate of growth of technology is unknown.? Will we continue a “Moore’s Law” path of doubling digital technology every two years, or will we hit a physical limit?? Will the abundance of clean energy drive us into even faster upward spirals, or will society reach a point where we can no longer adapt and cope with technology?? Will our 70-year-old concepts of mutually assured destruction by nuclear weapons fall apart as weapons of mass destruction technology devolve into the hands of individual terrorists?? These are some apropos questions around the critical uncertainty of technology, specifically the growth rate and distribution of technological advances.

Technology, particularly the progression of AI and the potential emergence of artificial general intelligence (AGI), holds the key to accelerating discovery and knowledge generation in ways that are truly fantastic and unimaginable.? We catch glimpses of this potential today in artificial specific intelligence (ASI) like AlphaFold, which predicts the 3D structures of proteins and hints at a deeper understanding of disease mechanisms and, ultimately, better medicine to treat them.

Another key factor regarding the growth rate of technology is the abundance (or lack thereof) of energy and the density of energy that technology can produce or harness.? Ever since primitive civilizations created technology in the form of rock tools, the density of energy used in technology has increased.? Energy density (the amount of energy stored in a system per unit volume or mass) is critical because it determines how much energy can be harnessed from a particular source relative to its size.? Early human societies relied on muscle power with a relatively low energy density.? The steam engine triggered the Industrial Revolution, which provided much higher energy densities—the 20th Century brought oil and gas, electricity, and nuclear fission.? Today, we look to increase energy density through lithium-ion batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, and nuclear fusion.

The abundance of energy is related directly to the cleanliness and sustainability of that energy.? As we know from the present global climate crisis, energy sources that produce deleterious climate effects or depend on a finite, nonrenewable source lead to a fundamental limit on usable energy.? On the other hand, a hypothetical energy source that is clean and sustainable can lead to high energy density technologies and will not cap the growth rate of technology.

Energy abundance and energy density are critical uncertainties about the future that are worth further exploration.? What the future holds for us depends significantly and undeniably on energy.? By many accounts, today’s drive towards gigantic data centers to process enormous amounts of data is approaching a fundamental energy limitation.? According to the International Energy Agency, data centers consumed 240-340 terawatt-hours of electricity globally in 2022.? While this represents only a little more than 1% of global electricity demand today, some analysts project that data center demand will reach as much as 2,000 terawatt-hours by 2030 and could consume between 3% and 8% of the global electricity supply.? But, as mentioned earlier, the future is unknowable.

The factors driving the growth in data center energy consumption are not isolated; they are deeply interconnected with the evolution of technology. Artificial intelligence and machine learning, cloud computing, computing on the edge, and the Internet of Things are all technologies that are driving this growth.? Whether or not these technologies continue to expand depends on the abundance of energy in the future.? At the same time, energy availability and density will depend on future technologies. This interconnectedness underscores the complexity and depth of the issues we face.

Even though we can’t predict the evolution of technology and energy, we can construct some scenarios around the extremes of this critical uncertainty.? Imagine a world in 2050 where clean energy is abundant and universal; massive advancements have been made in super-efficient, high-density storage, and sustainable energy has become so cheap and abundant that even remote, economically disadvantaged regions have access to plentiful power.? In this scenario, industries. Like agriculture, water desalinization, manufacturing, and transportation will be transformed.? Economies will flourish, and global warming will be reversed, eliminating climate-forced migrations and food shortages.? Geopolitical tensions around energy resources (e.g., oil and gas) will disappear, and, one would hope, the prevalence of conflict worldwide will be reduced.? This is a great future.?

On the more dystopian side, what happens if the availability of clean energy is capped—or even reduced in the future?? The world will be hotter, more conflicted, and generally resourced-constrained.? The rate of technology change will plateau, if not decline.? While I’ll leave the rest of this scenario to the reader's imagination, it is generally a less desirable future.

This is not merely a call for clean energy; it is an urgent plea to all technologists, policymakers, sociologists, doctors, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and countless other specialists. We must envision the future, contemplating both the promising and perilous scenarios surrounding the critical uncertainties of clean energy. By engaging in this critical reflection, we can truly grasp the complexities of our current situation and the decisive actions necessary to propel us toward a brighter future. We must be both proactive in striving for success and prepared for adversity should our initiatives falter. Let us come together to ensure a sustainable and secure tomorrow for everyone.?