Intel’s Futurist Brian David Johnson: Don’t Let The Future Happen To You!

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“When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened.” [John M. Richardson, Jr.]

Brian David Johnson – Intel’s futurist and principal engineer with 25 patents behind his back, is without any doubt one of those who really do make it happen.

What better guest to invite on Singularity 1 on 1?!

During our conversation with Brian David Johnson, we cover a wide variety of topics such as the personal story of how he got inspired by engineering, technology, and science fiction; how Brian got to have the best job in the world; the tasks and responsibilities of Intel’s futurist; the motivation and goals behind his work; Brian’s personal responsibility, Intel’s corporate one and our public and private obligation to create the future; pragmatic versus non-pragmatic futurism; why getting it right is more important than being right; futurism and future casting; the tomorrow project; science fiction and science fiction prototyping…

My three most favorite quotes that I will take away from this interview with Brian are:

Own the fact that you can build the future.

[…]

I define geek by passion.

[…] and my favorite one:

Don’t let the future happen to you.

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Who is Brian David Johnson?

The future is Brian David Johnson’s business. As a futurist at Intel Corporation, his charter is to develop an actionable vision for computing in 2020. His work is called “future casting”—using ethnographic field studies, technology research, trend data, and even science fiction to provide Intel with a pragmatic vision of consumers and computing. Along with reinventing TV, Johnson has been pioneering development in artificial intelligence, robotics, and using science fiction as a design tool. He speaks and writes extensively about future technologies in articles and scientific papers as well as science fiction short stories and novels (Science Fiction Prototyping: Designing the Future with Science Fiction, Screen Future: The Future of Entertainment Computing and the Devices we Love, Fake Plastic Love, and Nebulous Mechanisms: The Dr. Simon Egerton Stories). He has directed two feature films and is an illustrator and commissioned painter.