The Future Today Institute states “The sources represent external uncertainties—factors that affect business, government, and society but that are typically outside of any one entity’s control. Future Today Institute’s simple tool – Disruption Wheel – reveals signals of change, how those signals are connected to each other, and where they converge to form long-term trends.”
The Sources of Macro Disruption Wheel for innovations in computing outlines the impacts of disruption in the computing sector on each source of macro change. It starts with trends, branches out into strong and weak signals in computing, the technology that is required to make disruption happen, and finally describes the influence that major disruptions will have on each sector. The major challenge with this foresight tool was to structure it in a way that made sense. This led to defining how “trends” compared to “technology,” which ultimately resulted in the creation of the wheel as it is now. For example, artificial intelligence could be a trend in computing, as it has strong signals and weak signals (explain ability, natural language processing, generative design), and advancements in technology (neuromorphic computing, edge AI, continual learning) could lead to disruptions in almost every sector. Artificial intelligence could have its own disruption wheel altogether. The final draft of the wheel combined all trends and technologies that we research over the source of the semester to create a more well-rounded and versatile analysis.
