And I don't even know if they realize what they're doing, to be honest.
You've got a generation of entrepreneurs who grew up with a vision of the future that was shaped by science fiction. I mean..why else would the man-child billionaire of the 21st century, who grew up watching Star Trek, and feeling the echos of Apollo 11, and the Space Shuttle and dreamed into the speculative futures of Terminator and HAL, and Her — I mean..am I making my point here? They spend their stacks on building rocket ships, and non-human intelligences, and gewgaws that they basically saw while sitting in their suburban Cineplexes. Of all things..that could be a basis for a future we are inhabiting..this is it??
Heading to Mars isn't destiny. It's a childhood dream, and I mean that in the most pedestrian sense of things. That childhood dream could have been entirely different were the context that shapes what is dreamed been different.
Which, like...raises some questions. Some practical questions. Because I'm kinda done with the whole "what if" thing. I mean, I get it. It's a great way to think about the future. But what if we could actually do something with that thinking? What if we could use science fiction as a tool for strategic thinking and decision-making? What if we could be operationally better at using imagination, and foresight, and Design Fiction, and science fiction to help create strategic visions of the future? Futures we'd actually want to inhabit?
Can we become better at building habitable worlds that draw people into them rather than agonizing about the other guys' futures?
Let's discuss! Get your ticket now!
Digital Twins? The Future of Work?
(Digital Twins, AI, and the Future of Work)
2 AVAILABLE TIMES:
Mon, May 5, 2025, 16:00 UTC
Wed, May 7, 2025, 16:00 UTC
👇🏽 TICKETS 👇🏽
What if your career had a shadow version of you — always learning, always optimizing, always on?
Welcome to a world where Digital Twins aren’t just for jet engines and hospitals. They’re becoming the proxy professionals of the AI era — a second self trained on your CV, your habits, your values. They attend interviews. They negotiate gigs. They monitor your skills gaps and suggest micro-credentials. Maybe they even decide what you should be doing — and for whom.
But who owns that twin, anyway? Who operates it? Where does it ‘reside’?
Who gets to decide what it learns? What happens when your digital self is more productive than you are? What if it gets a better job than you do?
What happens when our labor, identity, and potential are modeled, cloned, and deployed on our behalf?
Is this the future of personal agency — or its precise opposite?
In this General Seminar we will discuss such things.
Could Digital Twins become the ultimate freelance agent? A career concierge that tirelessly seeks out your next opportunity?
Or will they become gatekeepers — algorithmic versions of ourselves caught in the same power asymmetries we were hoping to escape?
And who benefits most when the future of hiring, managing, and even being a worker becomes data-driven?
In this 90-minute Seminar:
We'll sketch speculative near-futures where AI doesn’t just support your job hunt — it runs it.
You’ll create artifacts from imagined HR systems, job ads written for AI, and dashboards for managing fleets of professional twins.
We’ll interrogate the possible: Who are the winners? Who’s left out? What’s the new power dynamic when identity and labor are abstracted and delegated?
We’ll use the tools of Design Fiction and Institutional Science Fiction to surface the strange logics that might emerge in the job markets of 2030 and beyond.
Come with questions, leave with prototypes — and maybe a slightly altered sense of what “having a job” even, you know..means.
Your Digital Twin may already be working. The question is: for whom?
What Is General Seminar?
GENERAL SEMINAR IS A 90 MINUTE GENERATIVE DESIGN FICTION SPRINT WHERE WORK GROUPS IDEATE FUTURES THROUGH RAPID ARTIFACT CREATION. IT IS A WORKSHOP PLATFORM DEVELOPED BY NEAR FUTURE LABORATORY, USED IN OUR WORKSHOPS ALL OVER THE WORLD.
EACH GENERAL SEMINAR IS FOCUSED ON ONE TOPIC AT THE VANGUARD OF CULTURAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS. PAST TOPICS INCLUDE AI, BLOCKCHAIN, CRYPTO, DAOs, FUTURE OF WORK, CIRCULAR ECONOMY, METAVERSE, AUGMENTED REALITY, WEB3, SOLARPUNK.
WE CHOSE TOPICS THAT ARE DELIBERATELY AT THE VANGUARD OF CULTURAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND FOR WHICH THERE ARE NO ANSWERS..ONLY DISCUSSIONS, POSSIBILITIES, AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR APPLIED INTELLIGENCE & CREATIVITY.