The Rise Of The Artist, You Are The Future

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Forward by techgnotic






Picasso seeing a seven as an upside down nose?


Right brain warriors in the new age will be the coveted candidates ordained to lead and guide us; lifting the torch to light the way forward into a brave new beautiful world.


Artists have always feared that they are unappreciated and that the march of progress comes only from business, science and their machines. 1984 was imagined by an artist projecting these exact fears. Our guest essayist suggests the computer will never be our master, but only the super high speed counting machine it was meant to be leaving humans with only one pure task— being creative.














The Right Brain Revolutionby Auren Hoffman


Over the next 100 years, the importance of creativity will trump systems thinking due to the rapidly escalating power of computers.


No, I’m not talking about an apocalyptic “Rise of the Machines,” but rather about the future ascent of people who excel in creativity, intuition, and the marshaling of original solutions, things that computers won’t be able to do for a long time. Tomorrow’s rewards will be won by creative people who contribute new ideas. Call it the Right Brain Revolution.








For the past few centuries, society has richly rewarded strong systems thinkers, logical, analytical, objective people such as computer programmers who build software, engineers who build bridges, lawyers who write contracts, and MBAs who crunch numbers. But as computers take over more of the pure systems thinking, people with only this skill set will find their importance decline. There are about 4 to 5 million engineers and computer scientists employed today in the US and few will be automated out of existence. But in the next 50 years, those that excel in creativity-- big picture thinkers, artists, inventors, designers -- will rise to the top. It could be as big a paradigm shift in labor market history as when tools made physical strength irrelevant, or assembly lines replaced the cottage industry. The illiterates of the future will not be those who cannot read and write or code, but those who cannot connect the dots and imagine a constellation.


From 1975 to 1994 only 0.5% of psychological studies concerned creativity, but now it’s a flourishing field complemented by an entire industry of self-help books on how to become more creative. A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs from 60 countries and 33 industries identified creativity as the No. 1 “leadership competency” of the future (more than rigor, management discipline, integrity and even vision).










1




Instead of making a resolution to learn how to code in 2013, you might make a resolution to learn how to draw.


Auren Hoffman



2




Computers are no match for the average fourth-grader when it comes to creativity.


Auren Hoffman



3




Instead of encouraging your child to major in engineering, you might encourage her to study philosophy.


Auren Hoffman















In the United States, the key predictive score to spot a good systems thinker-- our future leaders-- has been the SAT and IQ tests. Our universities have, for the most part, outsourced their admissions decisions to these tests. And that was probably a good thing. In the last few hundred years, systems thinking trumped all other talents. We needed to build bridges and understand complex matters. While creativity, emotional intelligence, and other talents have been important, they were relegated to second place in predicting a person’s success. But while high IQ is important, it isn’t very correlated to creativity.


That is going to change.


Over the next 30 years, we are going to see a big societal shift that will give outsized rewards to creativity. Systems thinking, while still important, will move to second-fiddle in the talent hierarchy.







So What To Do?






1

Education and parenting should aim to provide the conventional skills (math, problem solving, and test taking skills) while also encouraging creative, out-of-the-box type thinking. Computers are no match for the average fourth-grader when it comes to creativity.




2

Instead of making a resolution to learn how to code in 2013, you might make a resolution to learn how to draw. After a few months of lessons you might begin to observe the world differently seeing details, light and shadows, shapes, proportions, perspective and negative space.




3

Instead of encouraging your child to major in engineering, you might encourage her to study philosophy, ask smart unsettling questions and practice making unusual and unexpected mental associations.



Albert Einstein said;


“I have no special gift. I am only passionately curious.”






About Auren Hoffman


Auren Hoffman is an industry visionary with a global battlefield view of emerging business, commerce, technology, and social realities that is truly second to none. His analysis of current trends, unique in a revolutionary perspective, makes him sought after as an advisor to a multitude of divergent companies and business professionals. In a recent essay Auren sounded the alarm alerting his colleagues across multiple industries to the radical shift in direction necessary to ensure success by sharing his thoughts on what will be of most value in the coming decades of this new emerging reality - - you, the artist.












Auren’s writing in future-speak. But the future may be now. The gigantic proletarian participation in the arts all over the Internet from deviantART to YouTube to Vimeo or smaller influential places such as Behance or 500 Pixels or the millions of Wordpress blogs and the complete wonder of a genuinely crowd-sourced and peer-reviewed Wikipedia— all of this is a massive popular takeover of the arts— not a revolution but an inconspicuous re-engineering enabled by technology.


makepictures








Questions For the Reader


  1. Do you believe your art advances the human condition?

  2. Do you believe that those with more creative rather than systems-oriented thought processes are destined to assume the leadership role at this point in human history?  Do you see evidence of this happening already?

  3. Have you ever experienced a knee-jerk fear of advancing, accelerating technology "taking over" all human relevancy? Or have you always felt secure in technology remaining a tool serving a human master no matter how advanced the A.I. becomes?

  4. Are we at the apex of what is achievable technologically and now, as Auren Hoffman suggests, about to enter a Next Phase of human society beyond sheer survival emphasizing the arts?
















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razevortex's avatar
nice its kind of... inspiring... n1