Anyone working with technology knows that innovation is a double-edged sword. For every leap forward powered by AI, there is a sideways stumble in the over-hyped metaverse.
Emerging technology may disrupt your category, an innovation might accelerate your business, but some tech may be a complete waste of time and money. How can you tell the difference when something new comes along?
As companies invest more to future-proof their business, it’s worth taking a step back to consider what happens when innovations go wrong, those cases when technology sends us backward instead of launching us forward.
Not everyone has a crystal ball. George Orwell and his contemporaries didn’t write fantasy but rather speculative fiction, literary warnings against a dystopian future of our own making. The surveillance state he envisioned in 1984 is nothing compared to China’s social credit system today, and if you want to understand the opioid epidemic, try reading Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. You’ll never look at a prescription the same way again.
As C.S. Lewis once observed, “History isn’t just the story of bad people doing bad things. It’s quite as much a story of people trying to do good things. But somehow, something goes wrong. ”
Wouldn’t it be nice if inventors, businesses, and governments knew everything that could go wrong before it did?
Consider that indications the digital revolution might compromise our humanity were plain for anyone to see, even in the innocuous world of marketing. The ease with which our smart devices eavesdrop to provide an “improved customer experience” has led to a comedy of errors. Mention a pair of sneakers during a casual conversation and soon you’re tracked across the internet by banners announcing a shoe sale. Advertisers that once entertained us for attention became predators—stalking their targets instead of beguiling their customers. The death of cookies may bring some decorum back to marketing, but there have been bigger missteps on the path to tomorrow, some with deadly consequences.
The loneliness epidemic caused by social media is worse than originally thought, with record increases in anxiety and depression correlated directly with hours spent doom-scrolling. ‘Death by selfie’ went from a handful of freak accidents in which someone fell off a building to a global epidemic so pervasive that tourist destinations installed warning signs at every vista. And though driving while texting is statistically more dangerous than drinking, it took a decade for Apple to introduce a “Do Not Disturb” feature on the iPhone.
These aren’t cases of corporate malfeasance as much as a fatal flaw in how innovation teams are designed and managed.
Scientists always say that if it can be done, it will be done, because inventors are explorers by nature. Antarctic explorers headed to the South Pole knowing they would lose fingers and toes to frostbite because our instinct to discover is irresistible. Whether leeches applied by medieval doctors, atomic bombs built during wartime, gene-splicing human DNA into monkeys’ brains, or social media algorithms, we never know if it’s a good idea until we try it.
Or do we? That’s the real question for anyone currently in the midst of technological disruption—how to avoid collateral damage while still keeping pace with your competitors.
YOU NEED TO HIRE A TEAM CONTRARIAN
We’re not talking about a naysayer, someone who decries, “This will never work!” Quite the opposite. A contrarian is someone who asks, “What if this works beyond our wildest dreams?”
A contrarian will make sure the next big thing is a good thing.
What if our social media platform becomes so insanely popular that people prefer spending time there than in the real world? What if AI accelerates so quickly that entire industries are disrupted before we’ve figured out how to reskill the labor whose jobs will be eliminated, or major issues remain unresolved, such as guidelines for copyrights on AI-generated artwork?
Corporations and governments would do well to study history, because at every turn are examples of missed opportunities for growth and prosperity, as well as easily avoided mistakes that damaged reputations and cost lives.
When the automobile first appeared, it was considered a novelty, a quaint marvel of ingenuity flaunted at garden parties. Then came the Model T, and cars became so popular, so quickly, that they were sharing the streets with horses, bicycles, and streetcars before any rules were established. No one anticipated signal lights, traffic lanes, or safety features. The initial death toll was catastrophic, accidents horrific, yet every bump on the road could have been avoided.
A team contrarian is both an optimist and skeptic tasked with predicting the future beyond the project at hand. Most innovation teams are fanatically focused on making sure their tech actually works and can scale for commercial viability. It’s their job to keep their heads down, so they need a visionary colleague who’s a bit more neurotic—a partner who imagines a world in which a new product or service becomes so ubiquitous that it changes how we live.
The government’s redoubled efforts to get drivers to embrace electric vehicles is an interesting test case. The source of the electricity in all those cars will come from fossil fuels for the foreseeable future, so accelerated adoption might exacerbate the problem it purports to solve. Not to mention mining rare earth minerals for batteries, or recent studies about extra pollutants emitted by the tires due to the weight of EVs. That doesn’t mean electric cars aren’t the future—flying cars may be next—but “new” isn’t always better until we do the extra work to make sure that it is.
The AI-horse is already out of the barn, so everyone is playing catch-up. Most are looking for new applications, but some of us need to worry about Cyberdyne Systems and the Terminator knocking on our door.
So let’s hire a few contrarians and make the future as bright as it can be. And if you happen to disagree with that suggestion, well, you might just be perfect for the job.
Tim Maleeny is Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer for Havas North America, occasional contrarian, and bestselling author of six novels.