When Speed Breaks Humans

A reading.

*I use AI in all my work.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Futurist, and Lecturer at TCS

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Human Capacity Preservation Will Decide Our Future, #25

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We talk constantly about technology, artificial intelligence, automation, and speed. We argue about tools, ethics, productivity, and disruption. But beneath all of those debates sits a far more consequential issue:

Can humans remain viable inside the systems we are building?

This question will shape the next several decades of business, governance, and society. It determines whether progress continues, stalls, or collapses.

The risk we face is not that machines will become too intelligent. It is that human capacity—judgment, ethics, trust, meaning, and adaptive energy—will be exhausted by systems that no longer fit people.

Understanding this requires clarity about three things:

1. What healthy humans are capable of producing?
2. What humans require in order to remain viable?
3. How modern systems unintentionally degrade those capacities—and how that degradation can be reversed?

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Finland and the Sixth Great Transition, #24

The Sixth Great Transition is not mainly about new technology. It is about new operating conditions.

Artificial intelligence, automation, robotics, and digital platforms now act faster than humans can observe, understand, or intervene. These systems operate continuously, scale globally, and produce effects that are often permanent. Humans do not control the tempo.

Yet humans are still expected to do four things:

1. Notice when something important is happening

2. Decide what should be done

3. Accept responsibility for the outcome

4. Explain those outcomes in ways others accept as legitimate

This expectation remains embedded in our institutions, laws, and organizations. It is rarely stated, but it governs accountability, trust, and authority.

The problem is simple: systems now move faster than the humans they depend on.

This creates exhaustion, errors, loss of trust, and declining legitimacy—not because people are failing, but because the environment has changed.

So the core question of the Sixth Great Transition is not technological.

It is this:

What conditions allow humans to function responsibly and meaningfully inside systems that now operate at machine speed?

Why Finland Matters

Finland offers useful lessons because they also faced big challenges and decisions during their formation.

When Finland became independent, it was small, exposed, and vulnerable. It could not rely on size, wealth, or military power to protect itself. Survival required careful design.

Finland had to decide:

• How to govern itself

• How to protect people physically and economically

• How to maintain social stability during uncertainty

• How to help people adapt without breaking under pressure

These were practical decisions, not philosophical ones.

Finland focused on building conditions that allowed people to remain capable over time.

That approach matters now.

Leadership and Human Viability, #23

The key constraint of the Sixth Great Transition is human viability—the ability of people to remain coherent, responsible, and meaningfully engaged inside systems that operate faster than humans.  

As we all recognize, humans cannot compete against the power and speed of digital platforms, AI, and automation. So what roles and responsibilities do leaders have when speed forces humans to the sidelines?

To answer that question, we must first ask another: What do human leaders owe society—and what does society owe humans.

This question is particularly important when considering how to support your society through times of massive and unrelenting change. It is the implicit social contract of leadership.

For most of history, change was slower. Power was constrained by time, distance, and human limits.  Today, however, acceleration, automation, and autonomous systems have altered leadership. Leaders must now oversee systems that act at machine speed, and scale globally with irreversible consequences. When systems accelerate like this, responsibility concentrates. 

The Future of Automobile Manufacturing with Siemens Expert Kristian Kozole

In this episode of FOBtv — We take a deep dive into how automobile manufacturing is being fundamentally rewritten.  Our guest is Kristian Kozole, Vice President of Automotive at Siemens Digital Industries Software.  Kristian will help us understand what has actually changed over the past decade—and what the next ten years will demand of automobile manufacturers. From software-defined vehicles and AI-driven design to the real state of smart factories, digital twins, robotics, and resilient supply chains, this conversation explains how complex systems now work together on the factory floor. 

*I use AI in all my work.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Futurist, and Lecturer at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on X @krbenedict

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

How Clarity is Maintained in Foresight, #22

Earlier in this series, we examined how foresight erodes and fails—first through moral misalignment, then through cognitive distortion. We saw how:

1. Fear
2. Ego
3. Comfort
4. Denial
5. Status

Quietly drain away Transformational Energy Units (TEUs), and how those inner conditions harden into faulty mental models: 

• linear thinking
• nostalgia bias
• confirmation loops
• fragmented systems logic

These developments corrupt our ability to see clearly into the future.

Just as ecosystems regenerate after disturbance, human systems possess counterforces—disciplines that can help restore clarity, widen perception, and stabilize judgment under uncertainty. These counterforces are functional virtues that improve our ability to see into the future clearly. 

What follows are the nine virtues of foresight—the precise antidotes to the distortions described above. Each expands perception where a vice narrows it. Each replenishes TEUs where misalignment drains them. Together, they form the internal architecture required for polyintelligent leadership.

The Future of Shared Services with Expert Ajay Wadhwa

In this episode of FOBtv, I get the opportunity to sit down, viritually, with Tata Motors Global Services Limited CEO Ajay Wadhwa for a rare, inside look at the invisible engine powering the future of automobile manufacturing. As the industry accelerates toward electrification, AI, autonomy, and sustainability, this conversation reveals why shared services—often overlooked—are becoming a strategic force multiplier. 

*I use AI in all my work.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Futurist, and Lecturer at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on X @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The Human Assumption, #21

As we look toward the future, one fact is already unavoidable: the world is not merely changing faster—it is operating faster and differently. Speed is persistent. Automation is required. Verification is demanded. Consequences are no longer reversible or private.

Yet beneath all of this acceleration, our systems—economic, organizational, legal, and civic—still rest on an ancient and inherited assumption:

• A human will be there.

• A human to notice when something matters.

• A human to judge what to do next.

• A human to accept responsibility when outcomes cause harm.

• A human to explain decisions in a way other humans can accept as legitimate.

This assumption about humans is so deeply embedded that it is rarely named. It does not appear in strategy documents or system diagrams. But it governs how accountability flows, how authority is justified, and how trust is maintained. Over the next decade, this assumption will either be deliberately redesigned—or silently broken.

The Inherited Mind, #20

Every era leaves behind more than buildings, bones, books, or institutions. It leaves behind habits of thought. These habits quietly shape what feels normal, reasonable, and legitimate, and what feels possible long after the original conditions have disappeared. We don't select these habits. We inherit them. And when the world changes faster than our habits can adapt, we're in trouble.

The Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and the Age of Reason together forged the mental architecture of the modern world. That architecture produced extraordinary progress. It also took the human mind down a dead end street.  To a place the mind was never meant to be.

That mismatch is now breaking systems—and exhausting the humans inside them.

A World That Made Sense From the Inside

For thousands of years humans mostly lived inside inherited certainty. Truth was certain and provided by institutions and authorities. One didn't have to work for their own answers, or seek them out.

Life could be brutal, unfair, short and constrained—but it was understood. People knew who they were, where they belonged, and which forces governed their lives and provided answers with certainty. 

The burden of judgment rested largely outside the individual. Life's big questions were all answered by authorities, and shared frameworks of meaning. This did not make societies more just, or more accurate. But it made them cognitively lighter! 

By cognitively lighter, we mean individual humans were not expected to know much, or make many big decisions. People were not required to continually evaluate competing versions of truth, determine which authority was legitimate, or reconcile unresolved disagreement. Those burdens were carried by institutions and authorities.

In the language of this series, earlier societies consumed fewer Transformational Energy Units (TEUs) simply to function. TEUs describe the finite human energy required to absorb change, exercise judgment, regulate emotion, and maintain meaning under uncertainty. 

When ambiguity is structurally and institutionally contained, TEU expenditure for individuals is low and replenishable. 

Life might have been materially harder, but it was mentally simpler for humans.

The Latest in Automobile Manufacturing with TCS Expert Naresh Mehta

The automotive industry is undergoing one of the deepest transformations in its history, and this episode of FOBtv breaks down what’s actually happening behind the headlines. I'm joined by Naresh Mehta, Global Chief Technology & Innovation Officer at TCS, to examine how factories, supply chains, and the vehicles themselves are being fundamentally redesigned. 

*I use AI in all my work.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Futurist, and Lecturer at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on X @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The Future of Automobile Manufacturing with Expert Michael Diettrick

In this episode of the FOBtv podcast, we pull back the curtains on one of the most profound transformations underway in manufacturing: the reinvention of automotive manufacturing in an age defined by AI, automation, and software-defined mobility. I'm able to connect with automobile manufacturing expert Michael Diettrick from TCS’s Future of Business team to explore how the next decade will reshape how cars are designed, built, and experienced.

*I use AI in all my work.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Futurist, and Lecturer at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on X @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Human Viability Under Acceleration, #19

Modern societies rarely collapse because they lack intelligence, technology, or innovation. They collapse because the rate of change exceeds the capacity of humans to remain functional inside the systems they create. This condition—human viability under acceleration—is now the defining constraint of progress.

Acceleration is not merely speed. It is the compounding of speed across domains: science, technology, societal, geopolitical, economic, philosophical and environmental. Decisions that once unfolded over years now compress into minutes. Feedback loops tighten. Errors propagate instantly. Explanation trails action. What once felt like change now feels like perpetual motion.

Human beings did not evolve for this environment.

Human cognition is designed for pattern recognition over time, not continuous disruption. Judgment requires pause. Meaning requires narrative integration. Trust requires stability. Identity requires continuity. Acceleration strips away the time and space in which these capacities operate. The result is not adaptation, but degradation.

This is what “human viability under acceleration” actually means: whether people can continue to think, decide, belong, and care responsibly inside systems that never slow down.

The Fabric of Human Intelligence, #18

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Leadership failures during periods of rapid change are often explained in comforting terms. We are told organizations suffer from talent shortages, skills gaps, cultural resistance, or communication breakdowns. These explanations are reassuring because they suggest fixable defects—new incentives, new hires, better messaging. History tells a harsher story.

When systems fail under acceleration, what breaks first is not competence or information. It is coherence: the integrated human capacity to judge, care, coordinate, and act responsibly when certainty disappears and delay becomes dangerous.

Organizations rarely collapse because their people are incapable. They collapse because the system no longer allows human intelligence to function as it evolved to function. Judgment is squeezed out. Responsibility is diluted. Meaning erodes. Energy is exhausted. What remains may look operational on the surface, but it is hollow underneath.

This article exists to clarify what human intelligence actually is, what it evolved to do, and why it becomes fragile under modern conditions of speed, scale, and compression. Until leaders understand this clearly, every attempt to modernize organizations will unintentionally weaken the very capacities adaptation depends on.

How Intelligence Is Rebuilding the Automotive Industry with TCS Expert Laksh Parthasarathy

In this episode of FOBtv, my guest is Laksh Parthasarathy (PLN), Global Head of Smart Mobility and Automotive Manufacturing at TCS.  We explore how AI and analytics are rewriting the DNA of the automotive industry. Together, we trace the shift from slow, mechanical evolution to a new era where intelligence becomes the core of both vehicles and factories. PLN breaks down how digital twins accelerate innovation, how robots are gaining new collaborative abilities, why software-defined vehicles will transform the driving experience, and how data—from energy flows to accident histories—will reshape design, testing, and mobility itself. This conversation reveals the emerging architecture of automotive manufacturing in 2035, where circular systems, cyber-secure factories, and AI-driven decisions define a new industrial future.

*I use AI in all my work.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Futurist, and Lecturer at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on X @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The Automobile Factory of 2035 with TCS's Subhash Sakorikar

In this episode of FOBtv, host Kevin Benedict sits down with Subhash Sakorikar, Global Head of Industry Excellence at TCS, to unpack the forces reshaping how cars will be designed, built, powered, and connected. Together they explore the rise of smart factories, the real impact of digital twins, the new choreography of robots and AI, the shift to software-defined vehicles, and the emerging reality of circular, cyber-secure, data-driven manufacturing. 

*I use AI in all my work.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Futurist, and Lecturer at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on X @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The 7 Laws of Humanity the Future Cannot Break, #17

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Every generation believes its moment is different. New technologies and tools arrive. Old rules appear obsolete. Leaders look at the speed of change around them and quietly conclude that history is no longer relevant.

They are wrong, again.

What changes from era to era is not human nature, but the pressure placed upon it. Technology accelerates. Systems scale. Institutions stretch. But the human mind—the way people make sense of the world, find meaning, and decide whether to cooperate or resist—evolves slowly.

We are now living through what we call the Sixth Great Transition. Unlike earlier transitions driven by a single force—agriculture, industry, electricity—this one is defined by convergence. Artificial intelligence, automation, digital networks, biotechnology, climate stress, and geopolitical instability are all accelerating at once. Each domain amplifies the others. The result is not simply change, but compression. Decisions arrive faster. Consequences cascade sooner. Errors compound quicker.

In such conditions, many leaders assume the central challenge is speed. It is not. The central challenge is stability under speed.

Empires, companies, and political systems rarely fail because they lack intelligence, capital, or ambition. They fail because they violate a small set of human laws—structural requirements that must be met for people to remain oriented, motivated, and willing to participate in complex systems.

These laws are not moral ideals. They are operating constraints. Technology amplifies capability. It does not negate humanity.

The Nordic North with Futurist Hanna Lakkala

What happens when the most remote region on Earth becomes one of the most strategically important? In this compelling episode of FOBtv futurist and host Kevin Benedict sits down with Nordic North Futurist Hanna Lakkala to explore the rapidly changing reality of the arctic region. From vanishing seasonal rhythms in Lapland to the surge in Arctic tourism, from Finland’s deep sauna culture to the geopolitics of fighter jets, rare earth minerals, icebreakers, NATO expansion, and Greenland’s sudden strategic spotlight, this conversation reveals how climate change, great-power competition, and human resilience are colliding at the top of the world. 

*I use AI in all my work.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Futurist, and Lecturer at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on X @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Speed Beyond Humans, #16

In April 1860, the Pony Express thundered out of St. Joseph, Missouri, with eighty riders, 400 horses, and 190 relay stations stretching nearly 2,000 miles to Sacramento. Stations were placed every 10–15 miles—the distance a horse could run before exhaustion. Riders, mostly wiry teenagers, leapt from one steaming horse onto a fresh mount in less than two minutes and carried on at full gallop. A mochila—leather saddle cover with locked mail pouches—was thrown across the saddle, carrying the nation’s most urgent communications.

The Pony Express cut mail delivery from weeks to ten days. It carried Lincoln’s inaugural address west and California’s gold rush news east. 

It was a marvel of daring and planning: synchronized stations, recovery schedules for horses and riders, and a rhythm of endurance and precision.

And then, in October 1861, the telegraph lines met in Salt Lake City.

Messages now moved at the speed of electricity. In an instant, the Pony Express was obsolete. Not in a generation. Not in a decade. In just eighteen months.

That is the first leadership lesson of speed: no matter how brave your riders or how fine your horses, once the tempo of technology outruns human capability, courage is irrelevant. Only redesign matters.

Helping Today's Youth Use Foresight with Expert Aino Piispanen

To gain a deeper understanding of the future, begin with the people who will inherit it. In this episode of FOBtv, futurist Kevin Benedict sits down with Aino Piispanen—one of Finland’s leading voices on youth futures at the Hopeful Future project—to confront a stunning reality: young people’s belief in tomorrow is now at the lowest level ever recorded. Together, they explore why hope is diminishing, how loneliness and uncertainty distort imagination, and what it really takes to rebuild a sense of agency for the next generation. From the emotional breakthroughs Aino witnesses in futures workshops to the deeper question of whether today’s crisis is one of reality or imagination. If you care about the world we’re leaving to our children—and the one they’re preparing to shape—this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

*I use AI in all my work.

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Futurist, and Lecturer at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on X @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Transformational Energy Units: The Fuel of Change, #15

In 1812 Napoleon marched into Russia with six hundred thousand men, the largest army Europe had ever seen.  His goal was continental dominance.  But dreams do not feed soldiers or warm them through a Russian winter.  As the march dragged on, supplies ran thin, horses starved, and morale cracked.  The farther the army advanced, the weaker it became.  When the survivors limped back across the border, fewer than one-hundred thousand remained.

Napoleon did not lose because he lacked strategy.  He lost because he ran out of energy.  The greatest vision collapses when the fuel runs dry.  That is the essence of Transformational Energy Units (TEUs)—the invisible reserves that power change.  Every transformation burns energy: human, cultural, organizational.  Without replenishment, the march stalls not in one dramatic clash but through slow exhaustion until people cannot carry the mission any farther.

The military strategist John Boyd taught that maneuverability and conserved energy can defeat brute force.  But even the fastest jet stalls without fuel.  TEUs measure whether people can keep learning, unlearning, and relearning when the future pelts them with chaos.  They can be consumed by fear, overload, and uncertainty—or renewed by trust, purpose, and coherence.