Innovation In The Era of Non-Human Intelligence

We find ourselves today in an era of zealous enthusiasm or festering resentment as regards our cohabitation amongst non-human intelligences. Some herald this as the dawn of a new symbiosis, a renaissance of cognition where human and artificial minds entwine in mutual augmentation, while others recoil in apprehension, fearing the erosion of autonomy, the specter of obsolescence looming ever larger. What does this mean for the practitioners of what was once the domain of the “innovator?" Are we prepared to mingle our imaginations under the banner of “innovation” with our new, peculiar, bewildering electronic co-intelligences?

About the Speaker

Julian Bleecker, Ph.D., is a researcher, designer, engineer, and entrepreneur. He is synonymous with Near Future Laboratory, the platform he founded originally as a blog in 2005, which has since become his company through which he does commercial work. He is also most often associated with the product company OMATA, which he founded in 2014 and sold in a successful exit in 2022.

He is the author of Design Fiction: A Short Essay on Design, Science, Fact and Fiction, It's Time To Imagine Harder, and an author of The Manual of Design Fiction, the canonical reference for the eponymous practice that has evolved creative practices globally.

In addition to his work as an entrepreneur, Julian is an active researcher with strong ties and stakes to academics, pedagogy, and learning & professional development.

Julian has a PhD in History of Consciousness from UC Santa Cruz where he studied and taught with Professors Donna J. Haraway, and Angela Y. Davis. He has an MSEng from the University of Washington, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

This talk is part of our Humanistic Design Speaker Series.