Building the Future of Innovation on Millions of Years of Natural Intelligence


Book Description

Despite endless change and disruption, massive upheaval and cosmic collisions, nature has survived the worst of times and thrived in the best of them for 3.8 billion years. She knows what works, what lasts and what contributes to the future of life on Earth. She is the undisputed master of continuous innovation, adaptation and, ultimately, regeneration. What if we humans could tap into the power of the Natural Intelligence that stood the test of time and model our businesses after the proven success stories of nature? What if we could fast track innovation and develop responsible products and agile organisations? We might learn to become life-friendly and self-renewing right where we are and transform our current degenerative value system into a regenerative one. This may sound like science fiction, but is already happening. In this book, Leen Gorissen, PhD in Biology, covers breakthrough insights from the life sciences and how these change the way we look at change and innovation. She shares some of the most advanced thinking and novelties in bio-inspired innovation - covering disciplines like biomimicry, biophilia, permaculture, living systems thinking, nature-based solutions and regenerative design - and clusters these nature-inspired disciplines under the umbrella of NI. Because nature is the largest R&D project in history. Millions of years of field tests have led to designs that outclass any man-made design in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, adaptability, resiliency and endurance. By tapping into the potential of NI, the business world can become an important engine of planetary regeneration and a beacon of creativity and meaningful work spreading hope and ingenuity, not despair and burn-out.




Thriving


Book Description

An innovation agenda for tackling our biggest global societal challenges, including the climate emergency Written by a top thinker in sustainability and responsible business, Thriving promotes change through innovation and transformation in nature, society, and the economy. It showcases new approaches in economics, business, and leadership to address a wide range of topics, including ecosystem destruction, species extinction, plastic waste, air pollution, gender equality, social justice, physical health, mental well-being, access to technology, job automation, pandemics, and climate change, among others. Thriving strives to: • Inform about why change is necessary and how it happens in society, as well as counter prevailing despair and pessimism about the state of the world with hope and optimism • Inspire with what change is possible and where it is already happening, showing how we can go from problems of breakdown to breakthrough solutions • Impel by creating a desire to turn information and inspiration into action, adding momentum to the growing regeneration movement ​Thriving is not an exercise in blind optimism in technology or other miracle-cure solutions; rather, it is an accessible approach to systems thinking and an offer of pragmatic hope based on purpose-driven creativity and innovation. Whether you’re a professional in the sustainability field or someone who simply wants to be better informed about ways to take positive action, this thorough guide is for you.




Framing the Economy of the Future


Book Description

This book explores fundamental socio-economic trends that are radically changing perspectives on the relationship between people and the world around them. Focusing on the principles of sustainability, circularity and inclusivity, it illustrates how these trends form the breeding ground for a new economy embodying a logic of collectiveness.




Radically Human


Book Description

Technology advances are making tech more . . . human. This changes everything you thought you knew about innovation and strategy. In their groundbreaking book, Human + Machine, Accenture technology leaders Paul R. Daugherty and H. James Wilson showed how leading organizations use the power of human-machine collaboration to transform their processes and their bottom lines. Now, as new AI powered technologies like the metaverse, natural language processing, and digital twins begin to rapidly impact both life and work, those companies and other pioneers across industries are tipping the balance even more strikingly toward the human side with technology-led strategy that is reshaping the very nature of innovation. In Radically Human, Daugherty and Wilson show this profound shift, fast-forwarded by the pandemic, toward more human—and more humane—technology. Artificial intelligence is becoming less artificial and more intelligent. Instead of data-hungry approaches to AI, innovators are pursuing data-efficient approaches that enable machines to learn as humans do. Instead of replacing workers with machines, they're unleashing human expertise to create human-centered AI. In place of lumbering legacy IT systems, they're building cloud-first IT architectures able to continuously adapt to a world of billions of connected devices. And they're pursuing strategies that will take their place alongside classic, winning business formulas like disruptive innovation. These against-the-grain approaches to the basic building blocks of business—Intelligence, Data, Expertise, Architecture, and Strategy (IDEAS)—are transforming competition. Industrial giants and startups alike are drawing on this radically human IDEAS framework to create new business models, optimize post-pandemic approaches to work and talent, rebuild trust with their stakeholders, and show the way toward a sustainable future. With compelling insights and fresh examples from a variety of industries, Radically Human will forever change the way you think about, practice, and win with innovation.




Our Final Invention


Book Description

Elon Musk named Our Final Invention one of five books everyone should read about the future—a Huffington Post Definitive Tech Book of 2013. Artificial Intelligence helps choose what books you buy, what movies you see, and even who you date. It puts the “smart” in your smartphone and soon it will drive your car. It makes most of the trades on Wall Street, and controls vital energy, water, and transportation infrastructure. But Artificial Intelligence can also threaten our existence. In as little as a decade, AI could match and then surpass human intelligence. Corporations and government agencies are pouring billions into achieving AI’s Holy Grail—human-level intelligence. Once AI has attained it, scientists argue, it will have survival drives much like our own. We may be forced to compete with a rival more cunning, more powerful, and more alien than we can imagine. Through profiles of tech visionaries, industry watchdogs, and groundbreaking AI systems, Our Final Invention explores the perils of the heedless pursuit of advanced AI. Until now, human intelligence has had no rival. Can we coexist with beings whose intelligence dwarfs our own? And will they allow us to? “If you read just one book that makes you confront scary high-tech realities that we’ll soon have no choice but to address, make it this one.” —The Washington Post “Science fiction has long explored the implications of humanlike machines (think of Asimov’s I, Robot), but Barrat’s thoughtful treatment adds a dose of reality.” —Science News “A dark new book . . . lays out a strong case for why we should be at least a little worried.” —The New Yorker




Reinventing Fire


Book Description

Imagine fuel without fear. No climate change. No oil spills, no dead coalminers, no dirty air, no devastated lands, no lost wildlife. No energy poverty. No oil-fed wars, tyrannies, or terrorists. No leaking nuclear wastes or spreading nuclear weapons. Nothing to run out. Nothing to cut off. Nothing to worry about. Just energy abundance, benign and affordable, for all, forever. That richer, fairer, cooler, safer world is possible, practical, even profitable-because saving and replacing fossil fuels now works better and costs no more than buying and burning them. Reinventing Fire shows how business-motivated by profit, supported by civil society, sped by smart policy-can get the US completely off oil and coal by 2050, and later beyond natural gas as well. Authored by a world leader on energy and innovation, the book maps a robust path for integrating real, here-and-now, comprehensive energy solutions in four industries-transportation, buildings, electricity, and manufacturing-melding radically efficient energy use with reliable, secure, renewable energy supplies.Popular in tone and rooted in applied hope, Reinventing Fire shows how smart businesses are creating a potent, global, market-driven, and explosively growing movement to defossilize fuels. It points readers to trillions in savings over the next 40 years, and trillions more in new business opportunities.Whether you care most about national security, or jobs and competitive advantage, or climate and environment, this major contribution by world leaders in energy innovation offers startling innovations will support your values, inspire your support, and transform your sense of possibility.Pragmatic citizens today are more interested in outcomes than motives. Reinventing Fire answers this trans-ideological call. Whether you care most about national security, or jobs and competitive advantage, or climate and environment, its startling innovations will support your values, inspire your support, and transform your sense of possibility.




Superhuman Innovation


Book Description

DISTINGUISHED FAVOURITE: Independent Press Award 2020 - Business General Category WINNER: CES 2020 Gary's Book Club Top Technology Book of the Year Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the new electricity of our times. It is revolutionizing industries the world over, and changing how we fundamentally view and understand work. Superhuman Innovation argues that AI will supercharge the workforce and the world of work, can be harnessed to deliver powerful change to how companies innovate and gain competitive advantage. It is a practical guide to how AI and Machine Learning are impacting not only how businesses, brands, and agencies innovate, but also what they innovate: products, services and content. In a world of product and pricing parity, the delivery of superior service experience has become the new marketing, and the new real competitive edge. With AI companies can harness the power of data, personalization and on-demand availability, at the touch of an intelligent button. Superhuman Innovation discusses how AI will serve the superstar innovators of tomorrow, by enabling them to see deeper insights and set sail for higher goals. It unearths a powerful five-pronged model which describes how AI enables innovation through the offerings of Speed (facilitating work processes), Understanding (revealing and mastering deep insights), Performance (customization of delivery to customers), Experimentation (the iterative process of reinvention and feedback) and Results (tangible, measurable and optimizable results). The book is supported by varied and innovative case studies from a variety of industries.




AI 2041


Book Description

How will AI change our world within twenty years? A pioneering technologist and acclaimed writer team up for a “dazzling” (The New York Times) look at the future that “brims with intriguing insights” (Financial Times). This edition includes a new foreword by Kai-Fu Lee. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Financial Times Long before the advent of ChatGPT, Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan understood the enormous potential of artificial intelligence to transform our daily lives. But even as the world wakes up to the power of AI, many of us still fail to grasp the big picture. Chatbots and large language models are only the beginning. In this “inspired collaboration” (The Wall Street Journal), Lee and Chen join forces to imagine our world in 2041 and how it will be shaped by AI. In ten gripping, globe-spanning short stories and accompanying commentary, their book introduces readers to an array of eye-opening settings and characters grappling with the new abundance and potential harms of AI technologies like deep learning, mixed reality, robotics, artificial general intelligence, and autonomous weapons.




A Century of Innovation


Book Description

A compilation of 3M voices, memories, facts and experiences from the company's first 100 years.




What We Owe the Future


Book Description

An Instant New York Times Bestseller “This book will change your sense of how grand the sweep of human history could be, where you fit into it, and how much you could do to change it for the better. It's as simple, and as ambitious, as that.” —Ezra Klein An Oxford philosopher makes the case for “longtermism” — that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time. The fate of the world is in our hands. Humanity’s written history spans only five thousand years. Our yet-unwritten future could last for millions more — or it could end tomorrow. Astonishing numbers of people could lead lives of great happiness or unimaginable suffering, or never live at all, depending on what we choose to do today. In What We Owe The Future, philosopher William MacAskill argues for longtermism, that idea that positively influencing the distant future is a key moral priority of our time. From this perspective, it’s not enough to reverse climate change or avert the next pandemic. We must ensure that civilization would rebound if it collapsed; counter the end of moral progress; and prepare for a planet where the smartest beings are digital, not human. If we make wise choices today, our grandchildren’s grandchildren will thrive, knowing we did everything we could to give them a world full of justice, hope and beauty.