Unintended consequences, Type 2 growth and choices in deploying GenAI

A weekly round-up—3 discoveries, 1 reflection and a quote worth remembering in the innovation & design space—for leaders invested in digital transformation.

By Maish Nichani

External happenings

Once celebrated, an inventor’s breakthroughs are now viewed as disasters — and the world is still recovering

Thomas Midgley Jr. invented tetraethyl lead (Ethyl) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and won awards for his invention till he died in 1944. The world is still reeling from his inventions. This reminds me of the work of J. Robert Oppenheimer in inventing the atomic bomb. A movie is also in the works for Midgley. Talk about unintended consequences. But how can one know if their inventions will destroy the world? Design can help.

While design thinking is focused on the short term, futures thinking is focused on the long term. Combining the two can be a powerful approach to combating today's climate crisis. Futures thinking tools such as the Theory of Change, Backcasting, and Provotypes (provocation prototypes) can offer a lens to discuss unintended consequences.

Type 2 growth

Kevin Kelly beautifully distinguishes the two types of growth and why we should embrace Type 2 growth. Type 1 growth, Kelly describes, is all about ‘more’. More sales, more products, more revenue, etc. If this type of growth continues, as it has been doing, we can expect a degradation of life and resources, as we have seen. However, there is another type of growth that is beneficial, one is more evolutionary and developmental. Kelly calls this type of growth Type 2 growth.

“Standard economic growth aims to get consumers to drink more wine. Type 2 growth aims to get them to not drink more wine, but better wine.”

Kelly elaborates that ‘better wine’ is produced in alignment with nature. He argues against ‘degrowth’ and suggests instead that we should focus on aligning with biological conditions.

“We continue to create new technologies that are more aligned with our biosphere. We know how to make things with less materials. We know how to run things with less energy. We’ve invented energy sources that reduce warming. So far we’ve not invented any technology that we could not successfully make more green.”

I agree with Kelly that we should focus on aligning with nature instead of the ‘degrowth’ of essentials. Instead of asking, “If we design this, how will it improve the user experience?” we should add, “If we design this, how will it improve the user experience and planetary health?”

AI is already changing management — companies must decide how

Update from AI use in enterprises: employees are already using AI from their personal accounts if the organisation does not support it. What does the management do now that we have reached a stage where AI is everywhere? Ethan Mollick suggests two actions:

• Let the AI do the boring tasks that the employees don't want to do (or better still, eliminate the tasks if they are not adding value)
• Use AI to augment thought and discussion by mentoring and coaching (e.g. navigating complex situations, giving personalised feedback, etc.)

As Ethan ends, “Organisations that fail to do this will still be AI-powered, but without the human guidance that will help them thrive.” Amen.

Internal reflections

Last week, we published another article in the Business x Design series: Understanding business growth. As designers, we need an in-depth understanding of how the business intends to grow. As explored in the article, a business can grow in many ways, and each chosen path has tradeoffs - essential knowledge when designing new products and services. Furthermore, as Kevin Kelly describes it, we need to champion Type 2 growth, which is more aligned with nature and the planet. Please read the article and let us know if the idea resonates.

Quote worth remembering

“The future isn’t just unwritten, it’s unsearched.”

— Bruce Sterling on the opportunity that lies ahead if we explore the future.