Complexity, Optimism and the Sixth Great Transition, #2

“You can’t manage your way through a great transition with a spreadsheet.”

Yet that’s exactly what many leaders are trying to do—optimize their way through systemic collapse using 20th-century tools and yesterday’s assumptions. What we’re facing isn’t just disruption. It’s a full-blown operating system upgrade for civilization. And it requires a whole new kind of leadership.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, disoriented, and vaguely betrayed by the promises of progress, congratulations—you’re alive during a Great Transition. Not a blip. Not a market correction. A full-system transformation of how humans live, work, relate, think, and survive.

The last few times this happened, it gave us steam engines, global supply chains, electric lights, indoor plumbing, and middle-class dreams. This time, the outcome is still undecided.

For thousands of years, humanity has lived in the shadow of a wall. It was the wall of complexity—the place where our imagination outpaced our ability to calculate, predict, or control. We could see just high enough to glimpse possibilities, but not high enough to map them. Sailors hugged the shoreline because oceans were too complex to navigate. Doctors bled patients because the body’s mysteries remained opaque. Economies rose and collapsed because no one could model the system they were part of.

Even games reminded us of our limits. For millennia, the board game Go was considered unassailable by machines. Its possibilities may even outnumber the atoms in the universe. Human players mastered it not through brute force, but by intuition, creativity, and pattern recognition. Complexity was our fortress.

Then, in 2016, a machine climbed the wall. Google’s AlphaGo didn’t just defeat the best human Go player—it overwhelmed him by seeing thousands of futures in advance. Not by being cleverer, but by being able to contemplate what we could not. The wall of complexity cracked.

The Exciting Future in Complexity

Remember a time in your life when you faced a challenge and had no idea how to solve it? A time when complexity seemed less like a captivating puzzle to solve and more like an impenetrable wall? We have all had such moments. I remember myself as a 12-year-old, hunched over an old Suzuki 90 motorcycle, its mechanical labyrinth a confusing pile of parts, an enigma I couldn't decipher. I also remember the frustration of troubleshooting a lineup of ancient lawnmowers, each one refusing to start, their non-compliance a mystery as intriguing as it was infuriating. I must admit, that again this week I am taking an old lawnmower to a repair shop to reveal its mysteries.

But what if we reframe this narrative? What if, instead of seeing complexity as a hurdle, we choose to perceive it as an opportunity, a frontier ripe for exploration? Throughout history, humanity has done just that.

Think back to our ancestors, the early sailors who dared to venture beyond sight of land, guided only by primitive charts and celestial bodies. It took the Phoenicians, nearly 4,000 years ago, to devise that rudimentary form of navigation, and an additional 3,200 years for the magnetic compass - humanity's first man-made navigational tool - to aid European sailors. Complexity, in these instances, wasn't a wall. It was a doorway to discovery - an invitation to innovation.

And here we are today, facing a new set of complex mysteries. From the depths of consciousness and the elusive dark matter and dark energy, to the origin of life and the multifaceted problem of climate change, our world is teeming with unanswered questions. The challenges of curing cancer, decoding the biology of human aging, achieving Artificial General Intelligence, managing global plastic pollution and antibiotic resistance, and addressing economic inequality, are undeniably complex. But they are also opportunities for groundbreaking advancements, pushing us to expand our horizons and enrich our understanding of the world and ourselves.

Imagine if these complexities were not barriers, but invitations to dive into a deep pool of uncharted mystery. What if we, as individuals, could have an AI assistant to help navigate this vast ocean of complexity? These digital companions could guide us, provide tools to tackle each challenge, and transform complexity from an insurmountable wall into a thrilling landscape to explore that even people like us could understand.

The future is a wide-open expanse, filled with the exciting potential of complexity. Just as the early sailors charted new courses and expanded our understanding of the world, we too have the opportunity to pioneer new territories of knowledge and innovation within complexity.

How would our lives change if we embraced complexity, not as a mystery to shy away from, but as a frontier to navigate, to explore, and to conquer? How would the lives of our children and grandchildren be shaped by this bold attitude? The answers lie ahead, on the exciting frontier of complexity. Let us find our courage, our curiosity, and our thirst for knowledge, and set sail for this brave new world. Together, we can transform complexity from an obstacle into an opportunity, turning today's mysteries into tomorrow's breakthroughs.

*I use generative AI in all my work.

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

Kevin Benedict

Futurist at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @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.

Emerging Complexities with COVID-19 Variants

In this short video we examine the increasing complexity that COVID-19 variants will introduce to our ecosystems.  Multiple variants of COVID-19 introduce different infection rates, different vaccine efficacies and different vaccine supply chains, logistics, storage requirements, schedules, recommendations and advice.  

It's important that we recognize these additional and emerging complexities as early as possible so we can begin thinking through their implications and impacts and taking the necessary steps to be prepared.

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

Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist | Leadership Strategies at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @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.