Technology Futurology
Updated 2026-08-09
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Technology futurology studies the possible directions and consequences of technological change, drawing on methods such as scenario planning, trend extrapolation, and the Delphi survey. It developed within futures studies and technology foresight as practitioners accepted that precise prediction is impossible. The core claim is that the future is a set of branching paths rather than a single outcome, so the useful output is a range of plausible futures and the decisions that remain robust across them. Key qualifications are that it should inform reversible decisions with margin for error, and that confident timetables are a sign of overreach.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Branch the future: build several scenarios instead of committing to one predicted outcome. - Stress the plan: ask which decisions still work in every scenario you consider. - Buy optionality: keep choices reversible and hold margin until the path becomes clearer.
Anchor fast decisions
Technological change is driven by many interacting factors, so small differences early on compound into very different outcomes and no single forecast can capture the range. Building several scenarios makes those branches explicit and lets a decision be tested against each of them. Decisions that survive every branch are worth committing to, while the rest are kept reversible, which is how the method converts irreducible uncertainty into a workable strategy.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_forecastingverified
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