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00:00:01.306Coming up on today's show.
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00:00:19.669I didn't know what it was good for, but I knew that it was cool, it felt cool, and so I think you know I've just been trying to chase after that cool feeling from when I was in, you know, eighth grade or whatever, for my entire professional life, just trying to find the place, where and how to do that.
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00:00:30.387And I think I, you know, I landed on something maybe when I wrote that essay Design, science, fact and Fiction that kind of led to kind of instantiating, saying out loud, design, fiction.
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00:00:32.868I couldn't describe it in any kind of really thoughtful way.
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00:00:53.429I had to get two engineering degrees and a PhD in history of consciousness to be able to find the way to say, oh wait, that's what I've been doing.
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00:00:56.445Welcome to the Think Forward Show.
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00:00:57.649I'm your host, steve Fisher.
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00:01:03.213Today we're venturing to one of my absolute favorite territories the mesmerizing world of design fiction.
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00:01:16.525You know, there's something magical about holding an artifact from a future that doesn't exist yet A newspaper headline from 2045, or a product manual for technology that hasn't been invented, or a social media post from an entirely different world.
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00:01:18.492These aren't just creative exercises.
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00:01:27.069They're powerful tools for making the abstract future tangible, and there's nobody better to guide us through this than today's guest, julian Bleeker.
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00:01:29.408Julian isn't just a practitioner of design fiction.
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00:01:34.109He's one of the pioneering architects, from Nokia to his groundbreaking super seminars.
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00:01:44.043Julian has transformed design fiction from a niche academic concept into something that shapes real conversations about innovation and the kind of world we want to build Today.
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00:01:48.906We'll explore how creating artifacts from imaginary tomorrows is more powerful than writing reports about them.
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00:01:57.388We'll discover Julian's concept of value circulation in the creative community and why nurturing your imagination isn't just a nice to have.
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00:02:00.609It's absolutely vital for navigating our rapidly changing world.
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00:02:04.331So get ready to spark your imagination with one of the most innovative minds in the field.
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00:02:08.270Welcome to episode 135, the Art of Design Fiction with Julian Bleeker.
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00:02:14.429So welcome, welcome to the show, gosh.
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00:02:20.623It's funny how we've known each other these couple of these years and the field has changed.
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00:02:32.790You know, when I always start these episodes, you know we always kind of do the the background stuff and I think you've had just this, this amazing journey.
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00:02:34.341I mean you're a pioneer in the field.
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00:02:36.586I mean you created really kind of.
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00:02:46.992You talk about design fiction as the moniker, but as a you know, obviously other forms of fiction have existed in terms of that before.
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00:02:52.951But, um, you know you've had this journey through, like art and technology and design.
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00:03:01.764Could you share, like just tell people you know who don't know you, and then your path, um doing this into this field?
00:03:03.448 -->
00:03:04.849yeah, how did I get to where I am?
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00:03:05.790Yeah, pretty much.
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00:03:31.219Yeah, well, I think you know a lot of it kind of started if I were to think back with um, kind of really being into getting getting somehow getting into electronics and computers, like when I was super young, like eight years old or something, and it was just I think it was a time, um, and also the place.
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00:03:31.981So I was.
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00:03:39.403I grew up in princeton, new jersey, which is a university town, so you're kind of for something that was emerging at the time.
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00:03:45.449Like you know, computers were around, but they were still not quite understood as to their potentiality.
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00:03:56.730Or there was like a fictional notion or a particular notion that came from fiction about what they were, what they were good for and that kind of stuff as you might see through, like film, like war games, you know, so everyone's seen war games.
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00:04:00.668That was like, oh yeah, what computers can do and the whole networking thing.
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00:04:12.674So I got, you know, I got into that and um, and it was just like a wonderful kind of imaginative space because there still was a very blank canvas about what they were good for.
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00:04:25.190You remember early days, like I don't know, like you were, your computers were being sold on the premise that they'd be a great, great way to um, keep your, your, uh, your uh, your recipe box.
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00:04:28.903You transfer all your recipes from the index cards into the computer.
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00:04:34.625Isn't that great, and it was just so desperate to try to make sense of what it was from a marketplace.
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00:04:41.321And you're kind of going through that as a kid and and and building computers because you there were enough.
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00:04:45.043Um, this is like early, this isn't like building a PC.
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00:04:52.245This was like I remember going to this hobby fair near town.
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00:04:53.005I think it happened.
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00:05:00.088It was like an amateur radio hobby fair kind of thing and you could get, if you went there, you could get parts to build a Xerox 820.
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00:05:10.913Now the other computers were around but there was a sensibility about building it yourself from the ground up and having it not be just something that was generally commercially understood.
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00:05:13.456So it was different from getting an IBM PC.
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00:05:16.557I don't think no one was really building IBM PCs back then.
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00:05:17.978Maybe they were, I can't remember.
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00:05:23.360No, they were proprietary, like the XTs.
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00:05:24.021Those were all cases, right?
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00:05:27.190Same trs, the radio shack trs 80, you know the.
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00:05:28.463I had a ti 99.
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00:05:29.505My dad had the trs.
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00:05:32.095He had hidden floppy disks with his uh.
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00:05:34.862He was, he's a civil engineer, so he did like a lot.
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00:05:38.870It was um, water and steward, like plotting a lot of math.
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00:05:50.541He thought it was like he discovered fire because like things that would take massive amounts of time on calculators or slide rules, like just the fact that you could plug in coordinates and it would like spit it out, snap of a finger.
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00:05:51.144It was like.
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00:05:53.951But we were.
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00:05:58.365It was like you said, it was like the world's most expensive computer calculator.
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00:06:01.815Right, yeah, but homebrewing was a different.
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00:06:05.706That was a totally different thing and I don't it.
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00:06:09.793Yeah, I mean, ibm tried to keep it, almost like Apple, like their enclosed ecosystem.
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00:06:12.769So, yeah, I mean, did you build, did you finish the Xerox?
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00:06:14.245Is that what your first computer you built?
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00:06:28.985Yeah, xerox A20 with one 8-inch disk drive, 8-inch floppy disk drive, floppy disk drive, and it ran CPM and I got a command prompt and I was like cool and didn't.
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00:06:29.827You know that was.
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00:06:35.305That was part of the exercise, I think, but there was that.
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00:06:40.521There was it just kind of feeling of something going on.
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00:06:45.634And when you're you know, when you're in junior high building a computer, you're not necessarily sure exactly what that is.
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00:06:47.161You're, you know, when you're in junior high building a computer, you're not necessarily sure exactly what that is.
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00:06:50.723You're trying to make sense of it, but it's more the feeling and the vibe and the community.
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00:06:57.709You know the, the group of you know full on, full on, right from central casting computer nerds.
00:06:57.709 -->
00:07:01.461You know the one kid who was always wearing a jacket inside.
00:07:01.461 -->
00:07:03.728You know the one kid his nose, nose was always running.
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00:07:08.125It was a whole thing and doing that and then learning, you know.
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00:07:12.081But with the network computers, like with modems, like that was just.
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00:07:19.762It was just like an exploration with, with the, the sense of what it was and what it meant was.
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00:07:24.952Um was just pure imagination, only imagining what it could, what it was and what it could do.
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00:07:31.512So there was no specific task and sometimes you know you'd be like I'm going to write a game program or something like that.
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00:07:40.574But it was allowing the imagination to fill in that space of possibility implied by the computer culture.
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00:07:43.449So I used to go to the Princeton Public Library and read Byte Magazine.
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00:07:45.701You'd read about what was going on, who was doing what.
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00:08:06.978I didn't know what it was good for, but I knew that it was cool, it felt cool, and so I think I've just been trying to chase after that cool feeling from when I was in eighth grade or whatever, for my entire professional life, just trying to find the place, where and how to do that.
00:08:06.978 -->
00:08:26.113And I think I, you know, I landed on something you know maybe when I wrote that essay Design, science, fact and Fiction that kind of led to, you know, kind of instantiating, saying out loud design fiction, because it felt like it held some sense of that.
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00:08:27.447It was an architecture.
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00:08:31.571It was an architecture around that Woku feeling.
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00:08:34.188It was an explanation of it using.
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00:08:42.072I didn't have the language when I was in eighth grade I couldn't describe in any kind of really thoughtful way.
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00:08:53.330I had to get two engineering degrees and a PhD in history of consciousness to be able to find the way to say, oh know, two engineering degrees and a PhD in history of consciousness, to be able to find the way to say, oh wait, that's what I've been doing, that's, I've been trying to get that, and now I've.
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00:09:02.888Now I've got a, you know, professionally in a position where it's like I can say it out loud enough people will pay attention to it, that I can then say that's what I'm going to do, that's what I do.
00:09:02.888 -->
00:09:14.832I'm still, you know, it's like I got home, like I finally kept back to that thing that I wanted.
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00:09:53.412That I kind of vaguely felt when I was in eighth grade, you know, high school, whatever and I found a way and I was able to ride the, the challenges of not doing that in when, in my commercial you know phase of my life, when I was working a job, I even remember, like my first job, uh at a college, which I was very excited to get, um was at, uh was that was a data general, so there was, this was just, you know, basically when they were becoming irrelevant because PCs and workstations were becoming more prevalent.
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00:10:12.866I mean, I remember, you know, like Sun was on its ascendancy, so there's no more real need or, you know, the opportunity for selling a department-wide computer called the minicomputer was, you know, it was kind of losing its traction and I can remember feeling like this isn't that whoa cool feeling, not an amazing story company?
00:10:12.866 -->
00:10:17.659I mean, there was a Pulitzer Prize winning book written about the company called Soul of a New Machine.
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00:10:43.932So they have an important place in the history of computation and I am proud to have worked there, even though you know I didn't, I wasn't one of the figures in the book, but the um, the point I'm trying to make is, like you know, I, I, I, I got to where I am, I think, by just kind of circling back to what I wanted, what I felt when I was in in, uh, in junior high, and that is to be able to create things that feel like they've come from a possible future.
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00:11:14.812My imagination is tuned up to, like you know, eight on a scale of 10, while I'm doing the work of trying to, you know, make, imagine what the future could be, and I do that, you know, mostly with blend of imagination, probably 80% imagination, 20% engineer, engineer, you know, actual programmer, um, which I think is is uh, somewhat, which is, which is just great approach to doing.
00:11:14.812 -->
00:11:24.250You're doing work, that you're going to do futures work, um, so I'll say, you know to that it's like I'm not I wouldn't necessarily, with no aspersions like I don't consider myself a futurist.
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00:11:35.570I guess in the, in the general way in which it's used in the, in the, you know, the vernacular understanding of like what a futurist is, is probably, I'm probably, I feel less associated with that.
00:11:35.570 -->
00:11:44.933Uh, because I don't feel like I predict or prognosticate so much as create context for wondering and having conversations about what could be.
00:11:45.759 -->
00:11:47.547Well, it's interesting, you said the word predict.
00:11:47.547 -->
00:11:51.547How would you define a futurist?
00:11:56.120 -->
00:12:01.532Well, there are probably a lot of category kind of semantic ways to get into that.
00:12:01.532 -->
00:12:05.004One is like are you a member of the whatever association of feature?
00:12:05.004 -->
00:12:06.628Uh, that's one way.
00:12:06.628 -->
00:12:16.660I mean that's a category, legitimate, and people, um use that to affiliate with um, you know, professionally, but also because it's you know, it's a, it's a badge you can wear.
00:12:16.660 -->
00:12:23.511I don't know if they make embroidered patches, but if they did, you could probably get one and wear it and and put it on your you this is.
00:12:23.511 -->
00:12:27.365I also belong to this affiliation on your LinkedIn page and that kind of thing.
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00:12:28.128So that's one way.
00:12:29.039 -->
00:12:41.530The other way is, I suppose are you, do you orient your activities in your whatever it is that you do professionally in the direction of what could be?
00:12:41.530 -->
00:12:46.253Are you operating in that space, in the direction of what could be?
00:12:46.253 -->
00:12:48.159Are you operating in that space?
00:12:48.159 -->
00:12:59.980And that's a little bit less instrumental in terms of defining it, but it's like are you, you know, I would in that sense, like you might say, and you might object, but you might say like well, I think Cory Doctorow is a futurist.
00:13:00.059 -->
00:13:11.153He operates by thinking about what could be, both through his novels but then also through his kind of more public kind of discourse about how the Internet's just a pile of shit and all that kind of stuff.
00:13:11.153 -->
00:13:14.750So there are a bunch of different ways.
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00:13:37.350I think the ways that are interesting to me are probably less just personally, are probably less oriented towards first, I guess, commercial objectives, like if I can get myself in a position where I can stand in front of people and charismatically hold forth on what they should be doing, I guess that's sort of a little bit less interesting to me.
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00:13:52.091Yeah, um, and I'm more of I enjoy making things that feel like they came from the future as opposed to, uh, starting out from a marketing perspective, I guess.
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00:13:54.664No, no, it's a nice, that's a.
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00:13:55.427That's a great answer.
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00:13:56.249It's an honest answer.
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00:14:00.568You know it's, I think, being a futurist, there's many interpretation.
00:14:00.568 -->
00:14:05.889Like you said, there's affiliation, um, there's practice and you're right, there's different.
00:14:05.889 -->
00:14:19.662You know, you and I are both design futurists and if they want to label these things because it's about communicating the future with like fiction or prototype, it's trying to synthesize the future in a way that people can touch and taste or read.
00:14:19.662 -->
00:14:34.393You know they can experience it right versus I would and I I put a differentiation between I would call it the futures research, the strategic foresight.
00:14:34.393 -->
00:14:39.265There's so many brands, there's some names of it, I think there's also.
00:14:39.826 -->
00:14:48.493For many years, my futures work was really stealthy, covert because a lot of people just couldn't handle it or they weren't.
00:14:48.493 -->
00:14:50.905That's just not the way they operated.
00:14:50.905 -->
00:14:57.346But in terms of doing innovation work or product work, you had to have that lens right.
00:14:57.346 -->
00:15:00.821You just brought the exercises in and you know you bring it in a different way.
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00:15:23.094I think the way the world has really become, uh, the acceleration of change at the exhibit, the visible acceleration of change, combined with the uncertainty caused by things like COVID, all this kind of other thing that people are more open to.
00:15:23.094 -->
00:15:25.476How do I be resilient?
00:15:25.476 -->
00:15:28.610How do I deal with this change that's coming at me?
00:15:28.610 -->
00:15:36.211Some don't want to at me, Some don't want to, but there's many that are looking at this as okay.
00:15:36.211 -->
00:15:38.534This is happening.
00:15:38.534 -->
00:15:44.221How do I address it?
00:15:44.221 -->
00:15:44.722And I always look at it.
00:15:44.743 -->
00:15:45.705As you know, futurists are never predictors.
00:15:45.705 -->
00:15:50.783We look at possible futures Like we look at the possibility of what eventually might become to pass as the present.
00:15:50.783 -->
00:15:52.509And how do you navigate that?
00:15:52.509 -->
00:16:00.919And I think what you do is so important because you try and put whether it's completely, it is completely speculative.
00:16:00.919 -->
00:16:07.111People can connect to it and understand that they're.
00:16:07.111 -->
00:16:08.514You know what does this look like?
00:16:08.533 -->
00:16:23.687I always keep thinking about jake dunnigan's work on and I think Stuart and him did it it was like like a flooding, like if, if Rhode Island was like flooded, like what is the future of like that, and what did the city change?
00:16:23.687 -->
00:16:40.909You know like there are so many different ways to present possibility to people in a way that they can accept that and and understand that, and I think that's one of the awesome things that you do is you're able to also teach people how to do it.
00:16:40.909 -->
00:16:50.693So, yeah, but you know for you what's a good example for you that kind of encapsulates the approach.
00:16:50.693 -->
00:16:55.923Like somebody listening to hear the term design, they might think of science fiction or stories or world-built.
00:16:55.923 -->
00:17:03.210You know, like universes, what's a project you do that you think that really captures this for people.
00:17:04.901 -->
00:17:14.951Yeah, so I would go back to the project that set a trajectory, which was TBD Catalog.
00:17:14.951 -->
00:17:30.116Oh, yes, the thing about that that I think gives a good explanation is that I emphasize the way in which it came into being.
00:17:30.116 -->
00:17:32.828What was the work to actually get there?
00:17:32.828 -->
00:17:51.614So that it's the thing that I don't think you oftentimes see in some context, like there's the catalog itself, the book which you can buy, you know, and then, but then the book itself, without revealing too much about, without, without um, taking down the fourth wall yeah, is it also in there?
00:17:51.614 -->
00:17:56.087It gives you a sense of like, oh, how this came into being, which was in practical terms.
00:17:56.087 -->
00:18:09.965It's like I just sent out an email to get a bunch of friends together to meet in detroit to spend a few days having conversations, but then getting materializing what we thought the future might look like at.
00:18:09.965 -->
00:18:49.273From that I think it was 2008, something like that and we can have conversations, but what we want to do is we want to create a product catalog that feels like it came from the future, that we sort of think, as a mixed group of people artists and designers, grad students, museum curators, all these kinds of people, design, directors of major regional museums to imagine a future, but produce, on the other side of that, a product catalog as if it came from the future.
00:18:49.273 -->
00:18:53.817Can we make the product catalog tell the story of what we imagine this future might be?
00:18:53.817 -->
00:18:59.301And so for me, that's the architecture of a really good design fiction project.
00:18:59.301 -->
00:19:07.800That is to say, you workshop the topic, but the outcome of the workshop is an artifact that has come from that future.
00:19:07.861 -->
00:19:14.023So the output of it isn't primarily a PowerPoint deck or a bunch of pictures of Post-it notes.
00:19:14.023 -->
00:19:22.909It's got to be something that allows people to wander into with their imagination what happened in that room, what people were thinking.
00:19:22.909 -->
00:19:27.230But the explanation of what they were thinking isn't super didactic.
00:19:27.230 -->
00:19:28.531It's just like oh, here's a product.
00:19:28.531 -->
00:19:28.751Didactic.
00:19:28.751 -->
00:19:34.954It's just like oh, here's a product, it's a, it's a, you know it's a, it's a.
00:19:34.954 -->
00:19:37.957I don't know, you know it's.
00:19:37.957 -->
00:19:40.478It's a Bitcoin mining machine, but it's.
00:19:40.478 -->
00:19:41.778It's not an abstraction.
00:19:41.778 -->
00:19:47.080It's like it looks like a piece of it's.
00:19:47.080 -->
00:19:48.123It's, you know, sold at a particular price.
00:19:48.123 -->
00:19:55.282It's described in a particular way, it's got a particular brand associated with it and it's got a little bit of you know kind of product reviews from consumers.
00:19:55.282 -->
00:19:58.971So it starts to feel all of a sudden like, wait a minute, does this thing really exist?
00:19:59.099 -->
00:20:13.068And I think that's the thing you want to get to is you want people to let their guard down and when they're exposed to the artifact whether it's a product catalog or a map or a newspaper, each of those have come from a future you want them to be like oh, this is just a newspaper.
00:20:13.068 -->
00:20:14.491Or each of those have come from a future.
00:20:14.491 -->
00:20:17.798You want them to be like, oh, this is just a newspaper, wait a minute, hold on, wait, what's going on here?
00:20:17.798 -->
00:20:25.484And you want that little bit of a kind of a stumble where they're looking around and then they're looking to the left or right to look at someone and say like, hey, have you seen this?
00:20:25.484 -->
00:20:26.107This is crazy.
00:20:26.107 -->
00:20:39.227And once they're in that mode, now you're back to that whoa, cool feeling, hopefully, where you're like, you know, you're looking at the Xerox A20 with an eight-inch floppy that's a big floppy and you're looking at it and you're kind of like, whoa, what is this thing that you built?
00:20:39.319 -->
00:20:42.801You know, imagine going into a world where computers didn't weren't.
00:20:42.801 -->
00:20:53.826You weren't expecting to find a computer in the family room of an eighth grader on the floor, you know, a bunch of parts and a power supply that's almost bigger than the computer itself.
00:20:53.826 -->
00:20:56.989You're like, what is going on here, what is this about?
00:20:56.989 -->
00:21:00.731And then the kid's trying to explain to the adult.
00:21:00.731 -->
00:21:04.295He's like so how does this?
00:21:04.295 -->
00:21:07.396You got to hook up to the television set Like what the hell's going?
00:21:07.557 -->
00:21:07.696on.
00:21:08.136 -->
00:21:08.718Yeah, I remember.
00:21:09.520 -->
00:21:10.644You just want to get in that.
00:21:10.644 -->
00:21:15.268You want to get in that wondering feeling, and I don't think PowerPoint really does that well.
00:21:15.268 -->
00:21:20.909So that's why I kind of, you know, really emphasize making the thing that feels as if you see a PowerPoint.
00:21:20.909 -->
00:21:21.731You kind of know what it is.
00:21:23.540 -->
00:21:28.140It's that just totally sparked a memory, like when I had a TI, not my text instruments.
00:21:28.140 -->
00:21:30.208This is 1982, 83.
00:21:30.208 -->
00:21:37.404You had a RS two2 peripheral that I eventually bought.
00:21:37.404 -->
00:21:47.122You had floppy drives and all that stuff, but you could record your programming to a cassette tape oh, totally, I had a recorder, that's my father could not wrap his head around that yeah that I could use a tape recorder.
00:21:47.142 -->
00:21:52.144That was usually for like, mixed tapes or recording comedy, like that you could record a computer program on it.
00:21:52.144 -->
00:21:52.421He's like that's on it.
00:21:52.421 -->
00:21:53.494I'm like, yeah, and I played or recording comedy, like that you could record a computer program on it.
00:21:53.494 -->
00:21:54.267He's like that's on it.
00:21:54.267 -->
00:22:02.229I'm like, yeah, and I played it and it was like all the garble and I'm like watch and I loaded it back into the system and it was just like.
00:22:02.229 -->
00:22:03.680I think it's because you put the.
00:22:03.779 -->
00:22:05.742There's almost like this hard construct.
00:22:05.742 -->
00:22:12.373As you get older, that's like it's harder, it's almost like a thicker wall around the believability or the, the flexibility of thought.
00:22:12.373 -->
00:22:14.580And it's funny that you talked about the.
00:22:14.580 -->
00:22:22.384You brought up bitcoin when it's so working in the space for a long time in the digital asset space.
00:22:22.384 -->
00:22:24.532That was actually brought.
00:22:24.532 -->
00:22:28.845It's funny that that sparked actually the reality of somebody came.
00:22:28.964 -->
00:22:39.262You know, miners use a lot energy, so if you're a home for like and it also generates a lot of, it's a lot of heat.
00:22:39.262 -->
00:22:40.846So somebody came up with the idea to create a Bitcoin miner.
00:22:40.846 -->
00:22:41.407That was two things.
00:22:41.407 -->
00:22:50.663One, it was an actual heat space heater for your house, your room, and because of the energy it produced, it would actually eventually pay your entire electric bill and you'd have a little bit.
00:22:50.663 -->
00:22:52.768So your Bitcoin would heat your house but pay your entire electric bill and you'd have a little bit.
00:22:52.768 -->
00:22:56.497So your bitcoin would heat your house but pay your electric bill and maybe have a little bit left over, like.
00:22:56.961 -->
00:23:05.813So it was like it was the leap of the design, fiction to kind of go, oh, and then some of these things, people are like, well, can I do that, can I actually create that?
00:23:05.813 -->
00:23:34.067Like, and that's the beauty of, I think, of this stuff is that it just gets people really connecting between the, the liminal space, between the possible and the like, even the problem, like I could, we could, we could do this, we're with this things, when this comes, we could, and I think that's that's what I love about this so much the space so, um, when you, you, you bring together, you mentioned the super seminars.
00:23:34.067 -->
00:23:36.327Where did that idea come about?
00:23:36.327 -->
00:23:41.051What do you achieve with that?
00:23:41.051 -->
00:23:43.193What do you love about that so much?
00:23:43.193 -->
00:23:47.017If people haven't checked it out, I'll make sure it's in the show notes so people can check them out.
00:24:00.859 -->
00:24:01.099Yeah, cool.
00:24:01.099 -->
00:24:03.022So there was a general seminar which started with the idea, you know, I don't know.
00:24:03.022 -->
00:24:06.105It was like COVID and like there was lots of stuff going on.
00:24:06.105 -->
00:24:25.231I'm not talking necessarily COVID stuff, but just like there was the crypto thing was going on and I was just doing a lot of like whoa, I wasn't kind of expecting this so much and so I was wondering about it and you're just kind of talking to people and during COVID the online thing became kind of hygiene.
00:24:25.231 -->
00:24:35.244It's like everyone not just kind of tech nerds or whatever, or work-from-home people started getting a fluency with doing seminars online and that kind of tech nerds or whatever, or work from home people like started getting a fluency with with doing seminars online and that kind of thing.
00:24:35.681 -->
00:24:36.463And I had this.
00:24:36.463 -->
00:24:37.567I, it was just a.
00:24:37.567 -->
00:24:42.325I just put it out there like hey, with a little bit of framing around it.
00:24:42.325 -->
00:24:47.869Uh, I want to do be able to see if I can host a session where I don't have to.
00:24:47.869 -->
00:24:49.701I'm not the expert in the room.
00:24:49.701 -->
00:24:54.249I'm not the expert in the room, I'm the guy who kind of just got things together.
00:24:54.249 -->
00:24:56.332I like community building.
00:24:56.332 -->
00:25:03.867Maybe to a fault, I don't think I should be doing tons and tons of that, because I like to make stuff.
00:25:03.867 -->
00:25:04.830Community building takes time.
00:25:06.321 -->
00:25:09.164Well, you're making a community, it is making something.
00:25:09.164 -->
00:25:12.631It is in the sense of creating.
00:25:12.631 -->
00:25:13.968You are creating connection.
00:25:14.170 -->
00:25:17.103so yeah, yeah, no, I think that's the point.
00:25:17.103 -->
00:25:40.622It's, I'm not, I'm not opposed to it, it's just like, um, yeah, I wanted to see what would happen if I, if I, um, if I put something up and out there amongst the, the community basically was subscribed to my newsletter and said, hey, uh, with a little bit of you know kind of humor attached around it, uh, could propose something where it's like crypto, what the fuck, like I don't know, like, do you?
00:25:40.622 -->
00:25:41.785You know, do you have any ideas?
00:25:41.785 -->
00:25:47.167And that was the general theme, or the art, this kind of semantic structure around all these things.
00:25:47.167 -->
00:25:48.934It's like I don't know, do you?
00:25:48.934 -->
00:25:53.403But I bet if we get together in a room we can make some sense of it.
00:25:53.403 -->
00:26:00.669You know, maybe inconclusively, but I didn't really have a lot planned for that in particular.
00:26:00.669 -->
00:26:01.750But there were a couple of things.
00:26:01.750 -->
00:26:03.691One thing I was like would people pay for this?
00:26:03.691 -->
00:26:06.012Is there real value here that they'll pay for?
00:26:06.012 -->
00:26:16.127And that was a question for me and I just kind of wanted to know as an experiment, me, and and I, and I just kind of wanted to know as an experiment, um, and then the other thing was could you, could you have a?
00:26:16.147 -->
00:26:20.500It was an experiment with the kind of structure of this, of the seminar itself.
00:26:20.500 -->
00:26:39.741In other words, what would happen if you if you led people and it kind of kind of guided them into the future, told them that they're going to the future, and now I want you to explore and almost like, almost like a Pilates for the imagination, go into that world and I want you to bring back some artifacts.
00:26:39.741 -->
00:26:45.902Imagine that you ended up in someone's you know kitchen and we're talking about crypto.
00:26:45.902 -->
00:26:46.363What?
00:26:46.363 -->
00:26:47.727What do you find in that kitchen?
00:26:47.727 -->
00:27:00.174So I was trying to find a way to get people to not just be very analytic or, even worse, say what they heard in the news directly, you know, like just parroting what they thought was the right answer.
00:27:00.174 -->
00:27:00.955There's no right answer.
00:27:00.955 -->
00:27:14.556It's you who's going there and imagining what you might find using your imagination, not what you know, elon or whoever says about what the future is, and so that was.
00:27:14.556 -->
00:27:14.996You know.
00:27:14.996 -->
00:27:17.519There were whoever says about what the future is, and so that was.
00:27:17.519 -->
00:27:17.819You know.
00:27:19.460 -->
00:27:22.413There were a couple of things going on there, and it was also sort of derived from an experience I had when I was in, when I was doing my PhD.
00:27:22.413 -->
00:27:30.922We had this seminar where it was just like a course number and a general enough description of the course that you could basically come up with your own curriculum.
00:27:30.922 -->
00:27:38.910And that was a kind of wonderful thing because all of a sudden I mean I guess it's also good for people who are getting a PhD.
00:27:38.910 -->
00:27:47.128It's like you got to figure out if you're going to put together a curriculum, if you're going to someday teach how to do that I don't know.
00:27:47.128 -->
00:27:50.522There's just a whole bunch of stuff going on there and I did that.
00:27:50.522 -->
00:27:54.842At least once you get enough people together to say here's a topic and it was always.
00:27:55.723 -->
00:27:58.111My understanding was that it should be something at the vanguard.
00:27:58.111 -->
00:28:04.163In other words, we're not going to sit around and talk about 19th century European art history because that's already sorted.
00:28:04.163 -->
00:28:05.748There's nothing we're not going to.
00:28:05.748 -->
00:28:06.931What are we going to do there?
00:28:06.931 -->
00:28:17.996I mean, you want something where it's like the basis of knowledge, like the epistemology, is under question or it's under development.
00:28:17.996 -->
00:28:29.287There's no consensus about what the particular topic is.
00:28:29.307 -->
00:28:39.673We wanted to look at how space that people occupy, physical space, architecture, urban planning.
00:28:41.494 -->
00:28:49.281People were wondering how can we understand this with a social dimension attached, and there was a lot of social theory attached to it and I was like that sounds really cool.
00:28:49.281 -->
00:28:57.150And my approach, my motivation, I think, was I'd been doing this kind of longitudinal research project.
00:28:57.150 -->
00:29:23.594That became part of my dissertation, which was on video games that represented physical space, simcity I was looking at analytically very closely how does SimCity represent cities and what are the questions we can wonder about the game and how the game's implications of what a city is.
00:29:23.594 -->
00:29:28.891It's kind of curious to explore and ask questions about and wonder and what are the opportunities.
00:29:28.891 -->
00:29:35.599And then there was the early days of first days of of first person point of view games.
00:29:35.599 -->
00:29:48.334So one game was it was a terrible game made by, underwritten by the imprimatur of Daryl Gates, who was the not very cool police commissioner of Los Angeles at the time.
00:29:48.334 -->
00:29:49.240And so he was.
00:29:49.240 -->
00:29:57.644He got himself involved in making the shoe games about cops terrorizing around Los Angeles, you know, and it was.
00:29:57.724 -->
00:30:00.828It was such a wait, he was the chief during like Rodney King, wasn't he?
00:30:00.828 -->
00:30:05.116And like OJ Simpson, that whole like era of the night.
00:30:05.218 -->
00:30:15.884Okay, yeah, that's what I remember on phone Cause he might've been the rampart scandal, I don't know Anyway, but he's, you know, career police guy, but very very clearly law and order.
00:30:15.904 -->
00:30:18.471No, yeah, extreme, and so this is all you know.
00:30:18.471 -->
00:30:24.151So then you're starting to be able to talk about how certain values can be embedded into video games, which isn't a surprise.
00:30:24.151 -->
00:30:30.702But you have a case study and an argument and your grad students like, oh, this is gonna be great, and there weren't a lot of video game studies at the time.
00:30:30.702 -->
00:30:40.750So I was interested in trying to find a theoretical framework to talk about these things, aside from just saying, like, man, this, the action is pretty cool, but the politics are shit.
00:30:40.750 -->
00:30:43.348You know the I have to be a little bit more articulate when you're a grad student.
00:30:43.348 -->
00:30:54.407So that was that was what, something like this seminar that we had in grad school, and I was like, can I do the same thing in a topic where no one's an expert?
00:30:54.407 -->
00:31:12.808But you get in a room with a bunch of clever, bright, insightful people who are articulate and can wonder about it themselves, without coming in saying I'll tell you what this is, just coming and being like oh, here's what I see, here's what I understand, here's what I appreciate.
00:31:12.808 -->
00:31:15.313And I think maybe this is related to this.
00:31:15.313 -->
00:31:25.128You just have a discussion, and so that was the kind of basic architecture for General Seminar, which then later became Super Seminar, because I recognized that the people loved it.
00:31:25.128 -->
00:31:27.204They were like this is great, when are you going to do the next one?
00:31:27.204 -->
00:31:28.465And that kind of thing.
00:31:28.465 -->
00:31:33.920And Super Seminar was just like a little bit of a flip to say of thing.
00:31:33.940 -->
00:31:41.356And super seminar was just like a little bit of a flip to say I instead of I think at one point I was like, uh, my, my, my, my marketing was like ted is dead and he was.
00:31:41.356 -->
00:31:43.340You know, the is the like.
00:31:43.340 -->
00:31:45.526You know, let's, let's, we, we don't.
00:31:45.526 -->
00:31:53.280I don't know, maybe I was playing dangerously with the idea of the decline of the expert, but it's like we have an expert on stage to hold forth like we can.
00:31:53.280 -->
00:31:54.266We're smart people.
00:31:54.266 -->
00:31:56.736We could be on the stage just as much as they could.
00:31:56.736 -->
00:32:02.010So why don't we just kind of get together and and um and wonder about the topic?
00:32:02.030 -->
00:32:10.240And that's when I would sort of I, I would have people I know in my community, who you know maybe, who had a perspective.
00:32:10.240 -->
00:32:14.803Rather than it just being an open discussion, they would kind of like prompt the discussion.
00:32:14.803 -->
00:32:22.824So it wasn't so much a presentation as it was kick us off, which is what we would do in the seminar in grad school.
00:32:22.824 -->
00:33:00.551It's like each week when we met, one person would sort of be taken lead based on you know kind of what we had read for that week, and they would be the based on you know kind of what we had read for that week, and they would be the um uh, interlocutor who would start the discussion almost along, like okay, so here's what I'm saying, here's what I've been might be a good area to focus, and they would kind of they would sort of hold forth or read something or deliver something in to start the conversation and it'd be like maybe like a 15 minute kickoff discussion where everyone would listen and then we would have responses going on around around the seminar table.
00:33:00.920 -->
00:33:09.661And so it was a similar sort of thing with super seminar, which is like let me get, let me get Kevin Bethune, like let me, let me, he's got a bunch of stuff that he could share, let me have him start.
00:33:09.661 -->
00:33:34.137And then we would kind of go around and people would add their contribution and usually ended up, you know, kind of posing a question or pushing back on a point or stretching a point a little bit further, and I found that really, really interesting too, and people wanted it to where they would pay for it, and that to me, it's not so much about the commercial thing as it is to say there's value in this kind of work.
00:33:34.518 -->
00:33:41.394Right, there's validation in that people will compensate because they appreciate your time and people's time.
00:33:42.482 -->
00:33:45.270And they recognize that there's something for them in it.
00:33:45.270 -->
00:33:49.369And all those things I think are really important in this space.
00:33:49.369 -->
00:33:57.722Important in this space.
00:33:57.722 -->
00:34:01.240Again, I'm not primarily, maybe, to a fault, motivated by the commercial opportunities, but I do recognize the importance of value circulation in one form or another.
00:34:01.240 -->
00:34:20.391That means if you want to participate in this, you have to show that, you have to feel for yourself that it has value and, for better or worse, one of the ways, ways which we do that at this point in in the history of value creation, is we give someone folding money, say like thanks for that.
00:34:20.411 -->
00:34:24.646I appreciate it that's good, that's helping me yeah, and it's.
00:34:24.746 -->
00:34:41.331It's also a lot of times as a fellow artist, you almost you just want to share it with the world and it's almost like there's a guilt in like the taking, the, the, the idea of commerce, cause there's almost like I feel like a personally I can't speak for you, but I want to hear your perspective.
00:34:41.331 -->
00:34:44.945There's almost like a guilt, like I don't want to.
00:34:44.945 -->
00:34:45.788You're giving me money.
00:34:45.788 -->
00:34:50.210It's like you're going to cause you want you think I'm a starving artist or he's supporting me, like, or he's supporting me like is there.
00:34:50.210 -->
00:34:53.192But I just want to share it with you and I don't want to feel guilty like I'm.
00:34:53.192 -->
00:35:06.425But at the same time you're right, like I happily, you know, pay to come to your seminar, because one of the things you you kind of offhandedly you know, because you like to create, but I view your community as a creation too.
00:35:06.806 -->
00:35:14.590I mean, for those of you don't know, and I'll put it, I'll also put this in the link in the show notes there's a wonderful discord community and there's a lot of discords out there.
00:35:14.590 -->
00:35:26.469I wish there was a way to like just hide or group, like the discord icons you know, like the ones you're kind of active on because, like you're my one of my top ones, like I love going in and just, and you have what?
00:35:26.469 -->
00:35:28.23310, 15 000 people right now?
00:35:28.233 -->
00:35:28.880I think in that.
00:35:28.880 -->
00:35:29.402How is this like?
00:35:29.422 -->
00:35:31.2441200 what's that?
00:35:31.264 -->
00:35:32.3871200.
00:35:32.427 -->
00:35:33.628I think I thought it was like 10.
00:35:33.628 -->
00:35:34.429I thought it was more than that.
00:35:34.429 -->
00:35:38.644But but the thing about it, okay, well, there's not even a quantity, but there's a vibrancy.
00:35:38.644 -->
00:35:39.527People are always.
00:35:39.527 -->
00:35:42.630There's a lot of conversation in that and there's, you know, you want the.
00:35:42.630 -->
00:35:55.340It's like that long.
00:35:55.340 -->
00:35:58.746They're deeply futures, fluent futures, engaged, future practicing in some way.
00:35:58.806 -->
00:36:03.793And I don't know, I always think of communities like this or just like a super seminars.
00:36:03.793 -->
00:36:09.813I'm a big fan of the kind of gilded age of history.
00:36:09.813 -->
00:36:10.460I really am fascinated.
00:36:10.460 -->
00:36:13.230There's different periods, but I think I live here in Boston and in the West.
00:36:13.230 -->
00:36:16.284There's different periods but I think, uh, we, I live here in Boston and in the West.
00:36:16.304 -->
00:36:18.490There's the Berkshires and they used to have these.
00:36:18.490 -->
00:36:21.027They were called quote unquote cottages where their mansions.
00:36:21.027 -->
00:36:28.719But uh, edith Wharton's cottage still survives, it's called the Mount and you walk into this thing and it's like Downton Abbey.
00:36:28.719 -->
00:36:35.251It's like you walk in and you imagine like they have somebody over for the wealthy to listen and they all have conversations.
00:36:35.251 -->
00:36:44.384But it was such a small group, right, and it's like, now you think about it, you can have like super seminar where people can really be in that kind of environment.
00:36:44.384 -->
00:36:52.068But it's for the world and I think that's just the beauty of of where we are in creating these spaces.
00:36:52.931 -->
00:37:12.628Um, I don't know if you will react to that or how you thought you think about that, but, um, and I just think about your work and people who now do design fiction and do this type of speculative work.
00:37:12.628 -->
00:37:13.427I mean, how do you?
00:37:13.427 -->
00:37:17.009You've seen this journey, how do you see it?
00:37:17.009 -->
00:37:26.411You know, what do you see for the much more common with people?
00:37:26.411 -->
00:37:31.532Do you think GPT will help people write better, synthesize that kind of work?
00:37:31.532 -->
00:37:36.974Where do you see this part of the field and the space growing?
00:37:36.974 -->
00:37:38.193What are you?
00:37:38.213 -->
00:37:54.057seeing Part of me feels like I'm looking forward to its evolution and I'm not sure how much I will be involved in in educational context.
00:37:54.057 -->
00:38:34.786Like I'm going to USC tomorrow I'm doing two separate talks that I had to coordinate to be on the same day so I'd have to do right.
00:38:34.786 -->
00:38:39.811Who are emerging into the practice and very grateful for the you know for for faculty integrating it into their curriculums and that kind of stuff globally.
00:38:39.811 -->
00:38:40.612So it's super fascinating.
00:38:40.612 -->
00:38:48.641So I'm curious how it is adopted and taken up and evolved by the generation or generation or two behind where I am professionally.
00:38:48.641 -->
00:38:49.702Like what will it become?
00:38:49.702 -->
00:38:56.858And I guess maybe that's just like a little bit of an allergic reaction to stasis and fighting.
00:38:56.858 -->
00:38:59.271I want to see what the kids do with it.
00:38:59.271 -->
00:39:11.690I don't mean that in a dismissive way, but it's like, you know, blues became rock and roll, like that's got to happen, and so I want to see what happens.
00:39:11.730 -->
00:39:14.978You know, design fiction becomes what in practice.
00:39:14.978 -->
00:39:27.980So I you know, I guess one little hope is like I feel like it's got exceptional value in lots of different realms that I just haven't been able to focus on.
00:39:27.980 -->
00:39:46.253Me coming from product design, I think about it in commercial context and I think, coming from other realms, I found that people have wanted to figure out how to integrate it into other contexts.
00:39:46.253 -->
00:40:08.208So late last year I worked in a workshop for a couple of days with pretty analytic, pretty serious policy people around the topic of AI, design fiction directly in the context of policy.
00:40:08.208 -->
00:40:24.329But learning about what policy does and how it operates and how an approach like design fiction can be integrated into that has been super fascinating, and occasionally you just find people within that space who are expansive enough in their thinking that they can be like okay, I think we need to.
00:40:24.329 -->
00:40:40.411If we're going to innovate in policy, we have to do more than just communicate what we believe are good structures around things like AI through a policy white paper that not a lot of people are going to read, or maybe the wrong kind of people are going to read.
00:40:40.844 -->
00:40:45.516I don't mean wrong in a bad way, but just kind of people who are ungrounded.
00:40:45.516 -->
00:40:51.730In other words, they're not living in the world that the policy is meant to implicate, but they're not.
00:40:51.730 -->
00:40:57.373They're not normal humans who are just kind of going about their day all of a sudden wondering why is this?
00:40:57.373 -->
00:41:00.496What is this new rule about?
00:41:00.496 -->
00:41:03.057You know what my refrigerator must do.
00:41:03.057 -->
00:41:04.099Where'd that come from?
00:41:04.099 -->
00:41:08.262Whose idea was it to integrate this into you know?
00:41:08.262 -->
00:41:09.503Or or a you know in a?
00:41:09.503 -->
00:41:15.934In a more kind of pedestrian sense, like how come all the traffic lights are being taken down?
00:41:15.934 -->
00:41:30.242I don't get what's going on here, cause some policy said, like you know, this is a waste of time and money and resources because now most vehicles drive themselves and know how to coordinate, uh, negotiating an intersection, don't need the traffic lights.
00:41:30.242 -->
00:41:31.184You know, I mean, this is.
00:41:31.204 -->
00:41:38.931These are extreme examples, but I'm trying to no, but you push the boundaries out and then it makes people go huh and then you can bring them back.
00:41:38.931 -->
00:41:40.755You can back cast into those things.
00:41:40.755 -->
00:41:41.175So that's the.
00:41:41.175 -->
00:41:42.005That's beautiful.
00:41:42.005 -->
00:41:43.349That's beautiful.
00:41:43.349 -->
00:41:51.327Yeah, I love it, I love it uh, when you at usc, is this the film school or is this the?
00:41:52.168 -->
00:42:04.307uh, one talk is at the film school and one one school is at the the dr dre school I can't remember what it's called, like the jimmy ivy, uh, dr dre, I can't remember his real name, they, they.
00:42:04.307 -->
00:42:07.757They started an innovation school at USC.
00:42:07.757 -->
00:42:11.188They wrote a big check, or promised that they would write a big check, and so they're doing.
00:42:11.188 -->
00:42:22.144There's a workshop going on for through the weekend I think it starts Friday and goes through the weekend and then on kind of innovation in the AI space.
00:42:22.144 -->
00:42:30.528So they asked me to come in and just kind of, um, get people excited, uh, to kick off that, that workshop.
00:42:30.528 -->
00:42:32.693And then the other one is with the film school.
00:42:32.693 -->
00:42:37.972So it was with Alex McDowell, total hero, um, designer, minority report played, runner, et cetera.
00:42:37.972 -->
00:42:57.755Um, he, he asked me to come and do a talk at his class.
00:42:57.775 -->
00:42:58.275That's great.
00:42:58.275 -->
00:43:00.536Yeah, alex McDowell is a legend in the world building.
00:43:00.536 -->
00:43:01.456Oh yeah, he's great.
00:43:01.456 -->
00:43:01.956You may not.
00:43:01.956 -->
00:43:10.742Maybe you've heard the term, maybe you know what it is, maybe probably don't know what it is at all Like when you introduce someone to the concept, what are the misconceptions people have?
00:43:10.742 -->
00:43:12.322Because they'll think of design fiction.
00:43:12.322 -->
00:43:19.985Maybe they'll see science fiction Like what are the?
00:43:20.005 -->
00:43:21.347what happens when you first kind of introduce people to this?
00:43:21.347 -->
00:43:22.389Yeah, I think you're right, I think there are.
00:43:22.389 -->
00:43:23.990I'll be generous and say it's not a misconception.
00:43:23.990 -->
00:43:31.500It's like these terms are preloaded with their kind of meaning and sense of what it is to people.
00:43:31.500 -->
00:43:46.231When you say design fiction, it's a little bit of a I guess to a certain degree being provocative to say let's bring these two things together.
00:43:46.231 -->
00:43:47.512They're all kinds of design and all kinds of fiction.
00:43:47.512 -->
00:43:54.221But have we put them together very deliberately and set it out loud design fiction and then wonder what that might actually be and how it might operate?
00:43:54.221 -->
00:44:01.195And so it requires a bit of explanation, usually through.
00:44:01.195 -->
00:44:18.452This is what it is kind of in text and it's like now let me show you some examples of it and I think you can go through enough examples where they're like okay, and so you're saying it's the representation of possible futures in the form of a material cultural artifact.
00:44:18.585 -->
00:44:20.010People are like what's a material cultural artifact?
00:44:20.010 -->
00:44:21.014I was like, okay, good question.
00:44:21.014 -->
00:44:33.313Imagine that you're an archeologist but rather than digging into the past or the ground, you're actually rooting around the future because, check it out, you got a time machine and this time machine you can go into possible futures.
00:44:33.313 -->
00:44:41.974It's not a very good time machine because you're not sure exactly where you're going to end up and you don't have a limited amount of time when you're there.
00:44:41.974 -->
00:45:01.635And one of the things about this kind of quantum entangled time travel is that you can't actually talk to people You're not on their plane but you can see artifacts and see objects, and so what you're able to do like an archaeologist is grab an artifact and that becomes like the traditional, the trad archaeologists.
00:45:01.635 -->
00:45:06.690They have an artifact and their entire career has been puzzling over it.
00:45:06.690 -->
00:45:07.233What is it?
00:45:07.233 -->
00:45:08.628What does it mean?
00:45:08.628 -->
00:45:09.451Where did it come from?
00:45:09.451 -->
00:45:10.954What does it represent about this world?
00:45:10.954 -->
00:45:13.289And they, they have to tell a story about that world.
00:45:13.289 -->
00:45:21.697Now they might not say that they're storytellers, but they are telling a story to help us imagine into what that world could have been and what it was like.
00:45:21.717 -->
00:45:22.907What were his power structures?
00:45:22.907 -->
00:45:23.748What was forms of value exchange?
00:45:23.748 -->
00:45:24.489What were his power structures?
00:45:24.489 -->
00:45:25.351What were its forms of value exchange?
00:45:25.351 -->
00:45:26.434What were its hierarchies?
00:45:26.434 -->
00:45:29.038Did it have something understood as a family unit?
00:45:29.038 -->
00:45:31.492So how did it operate?
00:45:31.492 -->
00:45:32.333Was it extended?
00:45:32.333 -->
00:45:40.809You know, all these kinds of things are what the archeologist is trying to do with the assumption that this will help us understand where we've come from.
00:45:41.324 -->
00:45:44.974What I'm trying to do is the same thing to say wonder into where are we getting to or where do we.
00:45:44.974 -->
00:45:46.565The same thing to say wonder into where are we, where are we getting to?
00:45:46.565 -->
00:45:49.931Or where do we want to get to, what, what is that?
00:45:49.931 -->
00:45:55.731What is our success condition for ourselves as beings in this world in some possible future?
00:45:55.731 -->
00:45:59.177And to doing that less through prose.
00:45:59.277 -->
00:46:06.456So it's not prose fiction, object, that is, that feels like it's not quite.
00:46:06.456 -->
00:46:08.099You know, it's a little bit here and now.
00:46:08.099 -->
00:46:10.148I sort of recognize it, just like you might.
00:46:10.148 -->
00:46:19.376You know, in the trad archaeologists they might come and say this looks like a bowl and maybe this bowl was used to eat out of.
00:46:19.376 -->
00:46:21.405You know, you look at it, it's familiar.
00:46:21.405 -->
00:46:24.092In that sense it's not completely alien.
00:46:24.092 -->
00:46:30.331It's evocative of something that you can sense and feel into as a person existing in the here and now.
00:46:30.913 -->
00:46:42.436Can you do the same thing with objects that feel like they could have come from, that could come from a possible future, and can you make them evocative enough to get someone to say like, okay, I'm sort of getting a sense?
00:46:42.436 -->
00:46:44.070This is kind of interesting here.
00:46:44.070 -->
00:46:48.271It's got a kind of form to it that feels familiar or actually that's crazy.
00:46:48.271 -->
00:46:48.766It's got a.
00:46:48.766 -->
00:46:49.630It's got a.
00:46:49.630 -->
00:46:50.407It's got a.
00:46:50.407 -->
00:46:51.992It's got an Apple logo on it.
00:46:51.992 -->
00:46:53.871Huh, I wonder what's up with that.
00:46:54.865 -->
00:47:01.128And and you start getting it, you know you're connecting it into feelings and the overall goal isn't to predict what it might look like.
00:47:01.128 -->
00:47:05.576It's fun to kind of work these things through and create the artifacts.
00:47:05.576 -->
00:47:22.132I think the thing you're trying to do is kick someone's imagination into gear, is to really kind of give a shock to the system, to be like oh yeah, now we're doing something, we're opening up a conversation about what could be in, about the future.
00:47:22.132 -->
00:47:31.117So my meta goal is to just get people to imagine harder, like, remember that we've got this evolutionary advantage of being able to imagine the world.
00:47:31.117 -->
00:47:31.719Otherwise.
00:47:31.719 -->
00:47:44.817Now I don't know if it's true, but it's fun to think that we are particularly well-suited, as you know, humans with this kind of lump of vascularized meat in our head that we call brain, to be able to do that, to imagine into possibility.
00:47:45.498 -->
00:47:58.574And part of doing design fiction is to do the design fiction but also remind ourselves that we have this existentially vital capacity capability to imagine.
00:47:58.574 -->
00:48:00.679It's kind of remarkable.
00:48:00.679 -->
00:48:05.134We can imagine something and actually create it.
00:48:05.134 -->
00:48:06.844I was talking to some architects the other day.
00:48:06.844 -->
00:48:08.809What you guys do is amazing.
00:48:08.809 -->
00:48:16.264I mean, you have this image in your head of a thing that could be, and then you go through these steps, you articulate it and represent it in different ways.
00:48:16.264 -->
00:48:21.221You might make a model, you might make a 3d render and at some point someone's like I.
00:48:21.221 -->
00:48:25.291I feel your imagination to such a degree that I'm gonna write you a check.
00:48:25.291 -->
00:48:29.650And now can you get your engineers together and start pouring concrete.
00:48:29.650 -->
00:48:34.469I mean, that to me is just like what that's crazy, or same thing with film.
00:48:34.469 -->
00:48:47.853You know all these different ways in which we imagine and and instantiate our imagination, from artists to you know god bless them the people who make financial models, who are as much doing fiction as anyone else.
00:48:48.855 -->
00:48:52.943Oh yeah, yeah, exactly, I was just saying yes, I'm from financial forecast.
00:48:52.943 -->
00:48:57.094Yeah, that's definitely a piece of design fiction, you know, projections.
00:48:57.094 -->
00:49:01.632Well, that leads to, you know, one of the questions I've.
00:49:01.632 -->
00:49:14.235I've also had to deal with a lot as in doing innovation work and product work, dealing with strategists that are more forecasters, I would say, more short-term than not, in terms of that long-term strategy.
00:49:14.235 -->
00:49:20.340Let's just take, for example, how to incorporate, how can people do this is my question to you.
00:49:20.340 -->
00:49:29.431But I'll cite an example Doing your user experience design, you do persona work, you create personas.
00:49:29.451 -->
00:49:29.992So I changed the name.
00:49:29.992 -->
00:49:31.416I called them persona, you know.
00:49:31.416 -->
00:49:47.157You know it was you the the story of a persona, or the persona story, or like a person of the future, like I changed the name of it because a lot of times people almost like they have a reaction to fiction.
00:49:47.157 -->
00:49:48.969The word for design like what is?
00:49:48.969 -->
00:49:58.360You know, it's like stories, persona stories, like just changing the thing so that there's like almost a semantic, easier acceptance.
00:49:58.360 -->
00:50:05.902You know, when you're talking to students and they're going to go out in the world, how do you, when you talk to you know your clients or people are thinking about it?
00:50:05.902 -->
00:50:06.579Just like you talked about the architect.
00:50:06.579 -->
00:50:07.827How do you, when you talk to you, know your clients or people are thinking about it, just like you talked about the architect?
00:50:07.827 -->
00:50:14.869How do you get them to like meaningfully incorporate this stuff like you could do?
00:50:14.869 -->
00:50:17.757How do you work with them to kind of teach to fish?
00:50:21.871 -->
00:50:23.333yeah, I guess I just teach them.
00:50:23.333 -->
00:50:24.856I mean, I usually just teach you.
00:50:24.916 -->
00:50:34.733Yeah, the simple thing is, like they, these kind of go along with like what I sort of refer to as like design fiction 101, which is, you know what is it, how do you do it?
00:50:34.733 -->
00:50:45.384And then actually doing it in a either either, you know, like a case that is relevant to them or actually a problem that they're trying to work through relevant to them, or actually a problem that they're trying to work through.
00:50:45.384 -->
00:50:51.931And if it's a problem that they're trying to so there's a problem that they're trying to work through, it's usually a much more longitudinal engagement.
00:50:51.931 -->
00:51:12.657If it's like they're just like we want a sense of of what this is and how it works, then it's usually like um, you know, they, they just gotta, they just gotta go through, learn about what it is, and then get the, get the workbook and work through a bunch of problems that are more like uh, yeah, remember you like learning, calculus or whatever.
00:51:12.677 -->
00:51:20.498There was the problem sets at the back of each chapter that you just got to work through, and you're not trying to solve a problem in in a, in a instrumental sense.
00:51:20.498 -->
00:51:25.713You're not trying to figure out how are we going to get this rocket booster to separate at the right rate or whatever.
00:51:25.713 -->
00:51:27.657You're just kind of going through hypotheticals.
00:51:27.657 -->
00:51:41.831And I think, doing the hypotheticals, it's like you know if you're, if you, if you run, I mean I don't know, you know if you, if you, if you ride a bike, you're um, you know um, cycling enthusiasts, so you're, you're really into cycling.
00:51:48.626 -->
00:51:54.764There might be something that you're working towards, like a race or whatever, um, but whatever you do, you just gotta you just gotta keep riding your bike and you gotta have a routine with it.
00:51:54.764 -->
00:52:14.311I think doing this kind of work is similar like you just need to do a lot of it, um, but as a daily routine, and at first it hurts, you know, just like when you start riding a bike or running or doing Pilates or lifting weights, whatever it is that you do, at first it hurts, but you know that there's a, that there's a, there's a, there's a fitness goal.
00:52:14.311 -->
00:52:20.856That is just general, like I just want to feel fit, I want to feel better, or whatever, and you start, you sort of start working towards that.
00:52:20.856 -->
00:52:24.429I think you know doing these kinds of things is similar like you should do it.
00:52:24.429 -->
00:52:35.030Yeah, do a little design fiction exercise, like two or three times a week, 20 minutes, yeah, and just as a routine, because that instills that sense of.
00:52:35.130 -->
00:52:36.775I think it bulks up the imagination.
00:52:36.775 -->
00:52:49.893So you got a really, really fit imagination and it gets you thinking beyond the, the you know the constraints of expecting someone else to come up with an idea or just parroting some other idea that you heard.
00:52:49.893 -->
00:52:55.411It moves beyond the kind of hygienic responses to, like, what's the future of AI?
00:52:55.411 -->
00:52:56.246Like no one.
00:52:56.246 -->
00:53:00.434I haven't heard any kind of articulate statement about that.
00:53:00.434 -->
00:53:05.893Really, when it comes down to this, oh, we'll be able to have conversations with Uber's 10K filing.
00:53:05.893 -->
00:53:11.710It's like, okay, now you're really struggling, but we don't know what the answer is.
00:53:11.710 -->
00:53:25.717And we can accept that we don't know what the answer is, but we should be exploring the possibility space expansively, like doing things that don't necessarily imagining, things that don't necessarily make directly make any sense.
00:53:26.077 -->
00:53:57.655That was one thing that I did with the policy group was I came to that workshop with a newspaper that I called Applied Intelligence, tomorrow's News Today, which I thought was fun, and the idea was to create a newspaper, an artifact that had come from an AI future, that really looked around the boundaries of what that future might be like and what might it be like to live in a world where AI is just as normal, ordinary and everyday as, like a Wi-Fi connection at a coffee shop.
00:53:58.686 -->
00:54:00.293What does that world look like and feel like?
00:54:00.293 -->
00:54:16.893And I think that for me, because I did the newspaper, that was like a wonderful like feeling really good about doing like a marathon, like yeah, that was harder, but I enjoyed it.
00:54:16.893 -->
00:54:34.675You know, and I think that's because, like I'm doing these things routinely, I feel like getting to a state where that is possible, where people are as enthusiastic about doing it as they are about jogging or whatever people are doing, rucking then we're in a good place.
00:54:34.675 -->
00:54:42.538And I think, again, that's back to that meta goal of we need to remind ourselves that we have an imagination and we need to use it.
00:54:42.538 -->
00:54:55.751We need to remind ourselves that we have this important capacity and ability that I feel like is maybe diminished a bit I might be overstating it for the purposes of being evangelical, we need to imagine harder.
00:54:56.925 -->
00:55:09.137No, that's a great term to kind of as closing on this conversation, because you're going to talk to all these students tomorrow and it's good advice for them to make that kind of impact.
00:55:09.137 -->
00:55:19.197You look back, you have many more years ahead, but I always like to ask about the legacy question, having your work remembered, the impact.
00:55:19.197 -->
00:55:21.487What would you like that to be?
00:55:21.487 -->
00:55:30.025People look back and think about Julian and the amazing work you've done, and people look back and think about Julian and the amazing work you've done.
00:55:34.804 -->
00:55:49.030So, uh, you know, if, if, if I I getting the feeling that I've I've touched people and shaped their way of thinking and um their, their sense of you know, what they, what, their own possibility, and it was centered around this idea of you know, imagine harder, Like I learned how to imagine from that guy.
00:55:49.030 -->
00:55:53.471That would be, that'd be great, That'd be amazing.
00:55:54.032 -->
00:55:55.556Yeah, that's a.
00:55:55.556 -->
00:55:58.710It's a wonderful way to way to think about it.
00:55:58.710 -->
00:56:10.858So, for those who want to find you cause you have such amazing content out there, like what, what's coming up for you that you'd like people to know about and where can people find you?
00:56:10.878 -->
00:56:19.237yeah, so they can find me at nearfuturelaboratorycom or which is, um, more or less a trimmed down version of that, and we got it.
00:56:19.237 -->
00:56:20.324You know everything's on there.
00:56:20.324 -->
00:56:28.132I got the podcast, uh, which is just the near future laboratory podcast, and we got a newsletter, which is a bit infrequent.
00:56:28.132 -->
00:56:34.637All the usual kind of platforms and stacks, patreon these are all places where you can, where you can find, find me.
00:56:35.157 -->
00:56:37.900And I'll put that all I'll be on the show notes for people listening.
00:56:37.900 -->
00:56:39.762You want to check it out too, so I'll have links for that.
00:56:41.329 -->
00:56:41.449Yeah.
00:56:41.469 -->
00:56:43.144So that's great Thank.
00:56:43.144 -->
00:56:44.570Thank you for the time today, julian.
00:56:44.570 -->
00:56:46.835It's been always a pleasure.
00:56:48.224 -->
00:56:52.329Yeah, I appreciate you asking for me to join you, steve, and it's been wonderful talking to you as well.
00:56:52.911 -->
00:56:53.373Thanks a lot.
00:56:53.373 -->
00:56:56.114Thanks for listening to the Think Forward podcast.
00:56:56.465 -->
00:57:04.831You can find us on all the major podcast platforms and at wwwthinkforwardshowcom, as well as on YouTube under Think Forward Show.
00:57:05.273 -->
00:57:06.036See you next time.
