Future Studies and Counterfactual Analysis

Gordon, Theodore J.; Todorova, Mariana

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-18437-7

Cited by 4 publications

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“…Included in such technologies is the process of machine learning (ML), which seeks to emulate human learning through the acquisition of knowledge but by using an algorithm to make decisions (The Royal Society, 2017). An extension of ML is deep learning as the capability to work through concepts within data to build new higher-level concepts (Goodfellow et al, 2016). The advancement of ML has been associated with the displacement of humans in work situation to be replaced by robots, with estimates that many occupations would change or be replaced (Deloitte, 2018).…”

Section: Meanings Of Human Resource Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Futures and foresight learning in HRD

Gold

Jolliffe²,

Stewart³

et al. 2022

EJTD

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to argue that human resource development (HRD) needs to embrace and include futures and foresight learning (FFL) as a new addition to its field of theorising and practice. The question to consider is: How can FFL become a new feature of HRD? A key part of the authors’ argument is that the inclusion of FFL will enable HRD to add to the success of any organisation and make a vital contribution to the management of people at work. Design/methodology/approach This paper firstly considers some of the debates surrounding the meaning of HRD. The authors suggest that instability of the time serves to disturb any comforts that have been created in HRD and that there is a need to consider how there might be different futures for what we still call HRD in research, practice and praxis. This paper then considers how FFL might become one possibility for expanding the existing boundaries of HRD. The authors characterise futures and foresight as a learning process, which provides new but complementary features to what is already considered as HRD. This paper will show how FFL can lead to organisation's success and the way this can be achieved. Findings There is a wide variety of meanings of the term HRD; however, HRD is still cast as a “weakened profession” which has to play a subservient role to others in the workplace. Over the last 15 years, the expansion of the meaning of HRD has been seen as evidence of its evolving and emerging nature and development based on a co-creation with other disciplines. This creates a space for FFL, defined as an ongoing learning process to find predictable, probable, possible and/or a variety of long-term futures. FFL embraces three key processes of scanning, futuring and reconfiguring, all of which contain a high potential for participants and others to learn as they proceed, providing outcomes at each stage. FFL has been shown to enhance organisation performance and success and HRD interventions can play a key part in implementation. This represents a significant opportunity for the HRD profession to move from weakness towards strength. Research limitations/implications For HRD researchers, while FFL is not yet on its radar, the authors would argue that the uncertainties of the future require that more attention be given to what might lie ahead. Indeed, HRD researchers need to ask the question: What is the future of HRD research? In addition, if the authors’ call for FFL to be included in the practice of HRD, such practice will itself provide new pathways for HRD research. Further research questions might include: To what extent is FFL practiced in organisations and what role do HRD practitioners play in delivery? How does FFL impact on organisation behaviour and outcomes? What new products and services emerge from FFL? What new skills are required to deliver FFL? Can FFL enhance the status of HRD practitioners in the work place and its role in decision-making? and How can the HRD profession develop as a hybrid profession with respect to machine learning (ML)/artificial intelligence (AI)? Practical implications FFL produces outcomes that have importance for strategy, HRD practitioner can learn to facilitate FFL by action learning and in leadership development programmes. FFL offers a significant opportunity to enhance the importance of HRD in organisations and beyond. FFL offers those involved in HRD a significant opportunity to transfer ideas into practice that have an impact on organisation sustainability. HRD can play a significant role in the design and delivery of ML and AI projects. Originality/value This paper concludes with a call for embracing FFL as a challenging but important addition to how we talk about learning at work. The authors argue that FFL offers a significant opportunity to enhance the importance of HRD in organisations and beyond. At its centre, FFL involves learning by people, groups, organisations and machines and this has to be of concern to HRD.

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Section: Meanings Of Human Resource Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Futures and foresight learning in HRD

Gold

Jolliffe²,

Stewart³

et al. 2022

EJTD

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…More recently, Pargman et al's fascinating "Coalworld" project, still apparently underway, envisions an alternative present in which only half of the world's oil ever existed, and consequently, "the global peak in oil production ("peak oil") is a historical fact that happened decades ago" (2017, p. 170). 3 The intention here is not so survey this literature but to explore Todorova and Gordon's specific take on it (Gordon & Todorova, 2019;Todorova, 2015;Todorova & Gordon, 2017), as the basis for considering the potential of "counterfactual futures" as a form of effective animal advocacy. Whilst imagining "probable, plausible, possible and preferable futures" might be a component of counterfactual historical narratives, Todorova offers "counterfactual construction" specifically as "a methodology for exploring the future" (Todorova, 2015, p. 30).…”

Section: Counterfactual Future Narrativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Communicating Vegan Utopias: The Counterfactual Construction of Human-animal Futures

Adams

2021

Environmental Communication

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Industrialized animal agriculture reveals human-animal relations defined by routinized, institutionalized violence on a staggering scale. Despite greater public recognition of these issues, consumption of meat and other products from industrially processed animals continues to rise globally. This article responds to an ongoing need to consider unexplored sites in research addressing challenges to "meat culture" and the promotion of alternatives. To this end, it examines the film Carnage, about a future vegan utopia, as a distinctive artistic intervention. It is analyzed as a unique example of the construction of counterfactual futuresthe practice of imagining the potential impact of hypothetical events on future scenarios. It is claimed that Carnage reflects potential advances in effective animal advocacy, and further innovation in artistic, cultural and methodological interventions that can enliven campaigning repertoires of rhetorical strategies, discursive and narrative frames.

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“…As such, part of the reason for this lack of speculating about the future in futures studies is that the field seems preoccupied not with the future but with the presentsignificantly, the present as it is informed by the past. An example of this comes from Gordon and Todorova (2019), where they offer future scenarios working through a dozen different examples of contemporary issues, such as politics, technology, health, and religion (interestingly, education is not one of their selected topics). Yet their frame is counterfactual analysis, which is rooted in a psychological concept that asks one to consider different outcomes had some decision or event in the past been different.…”

Section: Futures Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet I think that it is problematic for futures studies theorists to hew so closely to counterfactuals, the way that Gordon and Todorova (2019) do, in that they are still beholden to historical thinking. Attention to grammar seems important here.…”

Section: Futures Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite my earlier skepticism about Gordon and Todorova's (2019) use of counterfactual thinking in futures studies, they do offer a nice conceit by way of what they call 'point scenarios' -'a day in the life of … ' vignettes with which to consider the future (p. 8). Each of their chapters is structured around a series of short possible scenarios that then offer an opportunity for them to examine how 'today's unresolved issues might be resolved in the future' (p. 8).…”

Section: I Robot Teachermentioning

confidence: 99%

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I, robot teacher

Kupferman

2020

Educational Philosophy and Theory

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'I know the future is scary at times, sweetheart. But there's just no escaping it'. Ernest Cline, Armada As I sit here on Planet Zoom during the global COVID-19 pandemic and try to figure out how to make my online educational foundations courses as interesting, compelling, and fun as their face to face versions, it has dawned on me that perhaps the most cogent analysis of our current moment, from a pedagogical perspective, was written in 1951 by Isaac Asimov (1951/1957). Titled 'The Fun They Had', this very short story (it fits on a one-page PDF) demonstrates precisely why I couldn't simply import my face-to-face courses as they looked and ran in the first two months of 2020 onto an online platform for the last two months of the semester and beyond. Asimov's story takes place in 2157, two centuries out from when Asimov wrote it. There, an 11-year old girl named Margie and her neighbor, a 13-year old boy named Tommy, have a conversation about a book that Tommy found the day before. Physical books are rare in the future, as everything has been digitized, including learning. What is even more compelling for Margie is that the book is about school. In Asimov's 2157, every student has an individualized 'mechanical' teacher, a robot that is engineered to ostensibly fit each child's learning abilities. 'School' takes place at home and has been atomized, so that children only interact outside of learning. When children are six, presumably at the start of their 'school' years, they learn how to take tests by learning how to fill out a punch card. On the day the story takes place, Margie's robot teacher is on the blink, and is being repaired by a mechanic. She is hopeful that the problem will necessitate the removal of the robot teacher for some time, as Tommy's was once when it lost its history content. Unfortunately for her, her robot teacher is repaired in short order, at which point she and Tommy part so that they can each go to 'school'. During the time when her 'teacher' is being overhauled, Margie and Tommy engage in a heated discussion about Tommy's book. A few details seem to startle Margie. First, there is the idea that teachers were people, not robots. This is confusing to Margie as she does not see how a person could know as much as her mechanical 'teacher', nor would she want a strange person to live with her family. Tommy explains that teachers didn't live with childreninstead they met in a designated building called a 'school'. On top of that, Tommy thinks a human could probably know almost as much as a robot teacher. The second feature of the book, the notion that children would gather together at a school to learn, fascinates Margie. She hates what she knows as 'school', and is wistful as her mother calls her into the house once her teacher is back up and running. The story ends with her daydreaming about 'the fun they had' in the school described in Tommy's book as her robot teacher CONTACT David W. Kupferman

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Future Studies and Counterfactual Analysis

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Futures and foresight learning in HRD

Futures and foresight learning in HRD

Communicating Vegan Utopias: The Counterfactual Construction of Human-animal Futures

I, robot teacher

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