Read literature, not analysis: Valery Fedorov explains who is better at predicting the future

Engineering predictions about new technologies rarely come true, while writers and poets often get the big picture right. Valery Fedorov, Director General of the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VCIOM) Analytical Centre, spoke about this at a meeting of the Literary Club "What to Read?! Meanings", which was held at the National Centre RUSSIA. He was referring to Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan and his book "Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man".

"All scientific and engineering predictions made when a new technology emerges — as is happening now with artificial intelligence — are nonsense. They never come true. They are all very simplistic: things that are temporary are treated as constants, while no one sees the fundamental changes. The only way to understand what awaits humanity when a fundamentally new technology is introduced, whether electricity or, before that, the typewriter, is through creative writing," Valery Fedorov said.

The expert cited Mary Shelley as an example. She was not an engineer and did not set out to build an artificial human; she simply wrote a novella. Yet two hundred years later, "Frankenstein" is still being read and adapted for the screen. In Valery Fedorov's view, it is creative people — artists, writers and, above all, poets — who possess a faculty that engineers, scientists and philosophers lack. It allows them to anticipate what will happen to humanity when a new technology reshapes the world in its own image.

The original project of the National Centre RUSSIA, the Literary Club "What to Read?!", was created for people who see books as a key to personal development and to understanding the past, present and future. The full recording of the meeting is available via the link.