| I’m on vacation (if that’s possible while retired), so I have extra time to read and less motivation to write. The result is that you receive reflections from what I have been reading. Today you get a few paragraphs from the concluding chapter of “Leading through Disruption – A Changemaker’s Guide to Twenty-First Century Leadership” (2023) by Andrew N. Liveris. Liveris, an Australian, is the retired CEO of Dow Chemical and a member of multiple corporate BOD’s. He has served on business advisory councils for every US president since the Busch administration. In 2022 he was chosen to lead the organizing committee for the 2032 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Brisbane. He was born May 5, 1954. I think you will be fascinated by his description of our world in January 2050: “You are on your morning commute, a passenger in an accident-free car that drove itself to your workplace and, with no help from you, found its way to its own parking space. (Refueling is unnecessary since whatever power you need is delivered wirelessly while driving.) You board the elevator and get off at your floor. Your colleagues include recent graduates who, when they weren’t studying, were playing videogames that were neither videos nor games., Instead, they leverage hologram technologies synced to artificial intelligence to physically move 3-D Tetris blocks. When they’re not doing that, they are connecting with their friends in real time via virtual worlds, generated from their social networks. “If you live in a city, the buildings around you will generate their own power and return energy to an interconnected (but localized) grid that is 100 percent smart and efficient. At the same time, new devices will have been invented that continuously draw carbon from the air and transform it into feedstocks for advance materials things like self-healing polymers that automatically repair their own tears, cuts, and cracks. Overhead, uncrewed spacecraft will be busy harvesting the earth’s rarest elements from asteroids – creating a universe that has virtually unlimited access to raw materials like platinum and palladium . Where scarcity exists today, technology will create abundance tomorrow, helping us break free even from the leashes of our own Earth. “Back at home, your dishwasher is set to operate at the time of night when electricity costs are lowest. That goes for all your other appliances, too, which have evolved to regulate themselves and give or draw power to and from a localized grid. By the way, your refrigerator knows when you are out of frozen pizza and will automatically order more – frozen pizza, I should add, that, using newly engineered ingredients, is both delicious and good for you. “Most if not all work is automated and driven by artificial intelligence. Humans steer AI machines as they carry out daily tasks and strategic work. Work, at least as we define the word today, no longer exists. With happiness taking its place as the foremost barometer of life, leisure and fulfilment will take their natural places as essential reasons for and drivers of existence. Terminal illnesses are in the past. In my office is a thick packet spelling out how scientists will be able to cure all the various diseases linked to aging. By 2050, you will be able to pop a pill and live until 150, not in a decrepit, lingering condition but in a continuously healthy state. ”… Think about it: if you wed antiaging advances with human biology, and artificial intelligence with biology, you will have dreamed up a completely new human being. It may sound science fiction-like, but it’s not. Accept it as a vision born of the technology revolution that none of us could have imagined even thirty years ago. “Looking wider, by 2050 we will see the advent of new global institutions and stronger regional alliances. More of the world’s population will have access to food, water, and shelter, with the quality of life in advanced nations more equitably distributed. A new cadre of global leaders will be in office, their mandate being to create new values-driven, socially and morally conscious blueprints for humanity to continue living on our planet. Society will drive the economy, not the other way around. Money and its middlemen will be more highly regulated and tightly controlled. An as-yet unimagined successor to the UN’s Sustainability Development Goals will be the only KPI’s by which leaders and enterprises are measured.” (pp.203-204) Though the book in many ways is focused upon business management, I found his insights fascinating and beneficial. Three chapters (besides the three entitled “Leadership Lessons”) I found the most interesting were “The New Role of Government”, “The New Role of Science”, and “The New Role of Boards”. Of course, with a copyright date of 2023, it does not address the most resent “disruptions” in our world. It has been quite a few years since I have read such a utopian view of the future. And, while I believe Liveris is very accurate in his description of trends and needs in our society, his one failure (from my perspective) is to take into account Genesis 1-3! He gives all authority and power to science, government, and humanity without recognizing the creator of them all. Additionally Genesis 3 records the entrance of sin into our world … the introduction of fear, shame, and isolation … the controlling influence of selfishness and greed for power, pleasure, and wealth … and the reality of death (to name just a few things). And, of course, salvation is not found in God’s gifts of government or science (some of today’s idols, along with Liveris’ happiness), but in God’s gift of his only begotten Son, Jesus. Which leaves me wondering what God in love has in mind for us during all of the new disruption in creation since this book was written! |
… through Disruption
By
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