CHAPTER 1
SUMMARY
THE SYSTEMS OF THE FUTURE WILL...
...respond to a growing and diverse spectrum of societal needs in order to create value.
…harness technology innovations while protecting against unintended consequences.
…become smarter, self-organized, sustainable, resource-efficient, robust and safe, but trusted, in order to meet stakeholder demands and expectations.
…align with global trends in industry, the economy and society, which will, in turn, influence systems needs and expectations.
…be engineered by an evolving, diverse workforce which, with increasingly capable tools, can innovate and respond to competitive pressures.
…present enormous engineering challenges due to growing complexity and decreasing predictability with widespread application of artificial intelligence.
“The big challenges of the 21st century will be global in nature. What will happen when climate change triggers ecological catastrophes? What will happen when computers outperform humans in more and more tasks and replace them in an increasing number of jobs? What will happen when biotechnology enables us to upgrade humans and extend lifespans? No doubt we will have huge arguments and bitter conflicts over these questions. But these arguments are unlikely to isolate us from one another. Just the opposite. They will make us ever more interdependent.”
– 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Yuval Noah Harari, (2018)