Last week I wrote that data centers may become the next factory towns of the AI age. The point was not that data centers look like the factory towns of the past. It was that they may begin to play a similar structural role. They gather power, water, land, capital, labor, and political attention around themselves. They reshape local decisions. They create dependencies. They force communities to ask what they are giving up, what they are gaining, and who gets to decide.
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Challenging The Structures Of The Current Era
With technological change comes social change and a shift in the organizing systems that oversee how our communities are governed
LYDIA KOSTOPOULOS – Emerging Domains of Conflict in the 21st Century
It has long been my belief that the structures supporting this current era have experienced diminished effectiveness and are reaching end of life. When I would share these thoughts back in 2012, I remember getting strange looks – but fast forward ten years and it’s not so strange anymore. That quote above comes from a recent article that identifies five emerging domains of conflict. Taken together with an exploding number of additional factors, it is easy to see why our organizing system is on the verge of dramatic change.
Continue readingWinning The Right Game
My belief in a shifting organizing system dates back several years. The work of leading think tank RethinkX effectively highlights why. History tells us that a collapse is inevitable when the existing system can no longer adapt fast enough to order-of-magnitude improvement in technological capabilities. When this condition is present, a new organizing system is required. RethinkX defines an organizing system as:
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Reimagining the Future 