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TheImagination Age is a theorized period following theInformation Age wherecreativity andimagination become the primary creators ofeconomic value (in contrast, the main activities of the Information Age wereanalysis andrational thought).[1][2] It has been proposed that new technologies likevirtual reality anduser created content will change the way humans interact with each other and create economic andsocial structures.
TheAI boom of the 2020s has increased the ubiquity of information. The relevant neologism is theFourth Industrial Revolution, popularized in 2016 based on transformative developments shifting the nature ofindustrial capitalism.
One conception is that the rise of animmersive virtual reality (themetaverse or thecyberspace) will raise the value of "imagination work" done by designers, artists, et cetera, overrational thinking as a foundation of culture and economics.
The termsImagination Age as well asAge of Imagination were first introduced in an essay by designer and writer Charlie Magee in 1993. His essay,[3] "The Age of Imagination: Coming Soon to a Civilization Near You" proposes the idea that the best way to assess the evolution ofhuman civilization is through the lens ofcommunication.
The most successful groups throughout human history have had one thing in common: when compared to their competition they had the best system of communication. The fittest communicators—whether tribe, citystate, kingdom, corporation, or nation—had (1) a larger percentage of people with (2) access to (3) higher qualityinformation, (4) a greater ability to transform that information intoknowledge and action, (5) and more freedom to communicate that new knowledge to the other members of their group.
Imagination Age, as aphilosophical tenet heralding a new wave of cultural andeconomicinnovation, appears to have been first introduced by artist, writer and cultural critic Rita J. King in November 2007[citation needed] essay for theBritish Council entitled, "The Emergence of a New Global Culture in the Imagination Age",[4] where she began using the phrase, "Toward a New Global Culture and Economy in the Imagination Age":
Rather than exist as an unwitting victim of circumstance, all too often unaware of the impact of having been born in a certain place at a certain time, to parents firmly nestled within particular values and socioeconomic brackets, millions of people are creating new virtual identities and meaningful relationships with others who would have remained strangers, each isolated within their respective realities.[4]
King further refined the development of her thinking in a 2008 Paris essay entitled, "Our Vision for Sustainable Culture in the Imagination Age"[5] in which she states,
Active participants in the Imagination Age are becoming cultural ambassadors by introducing virtual strangers to unfamiliar customs, costumes, traditions, rituals and beliefs, which humanizes foreign cultures, contributes to a sense of belonging to one's own culture and fosters an interdependent perspective on sharing the riches of all systems. Cultural transformation is a constant process, and the challenges of modernization can threaten identity, which leads to unrest and eventually, if left unchecked, to violent conflict. Under such conditions it is tempting to impose homogeneity, which undermines the highly specific systems that encompass the myriad luminosity of the human experience.[5]
King has expanded her interpretation of the Imagination Age concept through speeches at theO'Reilly Media,TED,Cusp, and Business Innovation Factory conferences.[6][7][8][9]
The termImagination Age was subsequently popularized in techno-cultural discourse by other writers,futurists and technologists, who attributed the term to King, includingJason Silva.[10][11]
Earlier, one-time, references to the Imagination Age can be found attributed to Carl W. Olson in his 2001 book"The Boss is Dead...: Leadership Breakthroughs for the Imagination Age,[12] and virtual worlds developer Howard Stearns in 2005.[13][14]
The ideas of the Imagination Age depend in large part upon an idea ofprogress through history because oftechnology, notably outlined byKarl Marx.
That cultural progress has been categorized into a number of major stages of development. According to this idea civilization has progressed through the following ages, orepochs:
Following this is a newparadigm created by virtual technology,high speed internet, massive data storage, and other technologies. This new paradigm, the argument goes, will create a new kind of global culture and economy called theImagination Age. The next and current age might have started recently:
The Imagination Age includes a society and culture dominated by theimagination economy. The idea relies on a keyMarxist concept that culture is a superstructure fully conditioned by the economic substructure. According to Marxist thinking certain kinds of culture and art were made possible by the adoption of farming technology. Then with the rise of industry new forms of political organization (democracy, militarism, fascism, communism) were made possible along with new forms of culture (mass media, news papers, films). These resulted in people changing. In the case of industrialization people were trained to become more literate, to follow time routines, to live in urban communities.
The concept of the Imagination Age extends this to a new order emerging presently.
An imagination economy is defined by some thinkers as an economy whereintuitive andcreativethinking create economic value, after logical and rational thinking has been outsourced to other economies.[15]
Michael Cox Chief Economist atFederal Reserve Bank of Dallas argues thateconomic trends show a shift away from information sector employment and job growth towards creative jobs. Jobs in publishing, he has pointed out are declining while jobs for designers, architects, actors & directors, software engineers and photographers are all growing. This shift in job creation is a sign of the beginning of the Imagination Age.[citation needed] The 21st century has seen a growth ingames andinteractivemediajobs.[16]
Cox argues that the skills can be viewed as a "hierarchy of human talents",[17] with raw physical effort as the lowest form of value creation, above this skilled labor and information entry to creative reasoning andemotional intelligence. Each layer provides more value creation than the skills below it, and the outcome ofglobalization andautomation is that labor is made available for higher level skills that create more value. Presently these skills tend to be around imagination, social and emotional intelligence.
Key to theidea that imagination is becoming the key commodity of our time is a confidence thatvirtual realitytechnology likeOculus Rift andHoloLens will emerge to take much of the place of the current text-and-graphic dominated internet. This will provide a3D internet whereimagination andcreativity (over information and search) will be key to creatinguser experience andvalue.
Theconcept is not limited to just virtual reality. Charlie Magee states that the technology that will develop during the Imagination Age would include:
The best bet is on a hybrid breakthrough created by the meshing ofnanotechnology,computer science (includingartificial intelligence),biotechnology (includingbiochemistry,biopsychology, etc.), and virtual reality.[3]
InThe Singularity is Near,Raymond Kurzweil states that future combination of AI, nano-technology, and biotechnology will create a world where anything that can be imagined will be possible, raising the importance of imagination as the key mode of human thinking.[18]
Rita J. King has been the single major advocate of the Imagination Age concept and its implications on cultural relations, identity and the transformation of the global economy and culture. King has expounded on the concept through speeches at theO'Reilly Media andTED conferences[6][7][8] and has argued thatvirtual world technology and changes in people's ability to imagine other lives could promote world understanding and reducecultural conflict.[19] Somepublic policy experts have argued the emergence of the Imagination Age out of the Information Age will have a major impact on overall public policy.[20] All are concepts discussed in The Purpose Economy[21] by Aaron Hurst,[22] and in the creation of The Purpose Revolution discussed in the Golden Age Companion Textbook.[23][24]