Another one of those buzz words: Design thinking. If you associate it with a group of adults working with Lego and plasticine, you are quite right. Because, design thinking is also about giving creativity free rein. Most of us were full of imagination and good ideas as children. In the course of time we then learned what is possible and what is not. But who actually decides what’s possible and what’s not? Who would have thought 100 years ago that it would actually be possible to fly to the moon?
Without visionaries, progress is not possible. For me, two forms of vision are required, and they are the ones I like to playfully develop in companies: One aspect is what could still be technically possible in the future: Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality….. and a host of other things will certainly be added in the future. The other aspect is to grasp the implications of these innovations by means of creativity and vision.
Design thinking and similar creativity methods are the perfect support for this. This is where questions such as the following come up: How does this innovation change the world? How can it be used successfully? How could it be abused and used to the detriment of people? How could that be avoided?
Personally, I think that everything that can be done is done. If not in Germany, then in other countries. This applies, for example, to genetic engineering. And what is feasible will also evolve. Who would have thought that one day there would be robots that are able to think intuitively with neural networks? Have a look at the despair of the world’s best Go player on YouTube being beaten by a Google computer called DeepMind. By means of artificial intelligence, novels are now even being written and piano pieces being composed. And even in medicine, there are areas of application in which artificial intelligence is used.
We humans would do well to think about what defines us as a species and what impact new discoveries and inventions have. And that includes the early playful exploration of possibilities. If we get involved in this unprejudiced situation and develop ideas, we can really show our human strength. Because robots are ahead of us when it comes to learning routines. Do you want to think about the world of possibilities? Talk to me – I am now also a certified design thinker.
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