Introduction
Respondents Reflect on the Future
Predictions Inspire Lively Discussion About the Future and Allow Stakeholders to Prepare Everyone for Expected Adjustments Associated With Technological Change
Those who think about the future are best poised to influence it. The visionary 20th-century engineer, mathematician, and architect R. Buckminster Fuller said, “We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.”
Those sentiments guide this effort. Many futurists, scientists, and long-term thinkers today argue that the acceleration of technological change over the past decade has greatly increased the importance of strategic vision. Technology innovations will continue to impact us. The question is whether this process will reflect thoughtful planning or wash over us like an unstoppable wave. If the developmental record of 20th-century computing continues for only another 30 years, we will rapidly and permanently move to a different world. Are we prepared to act and react in ways that will make that world a good one