Introduction
Editor’s Note: This article is a slightly updated version of the original published internally in 2020. It is published here as a complement to Dennis Gleeson’s article in this issue, “Artificial Intelligence and Analysis.”
My reaction to reading Joseph Gartin’s excellent “The Future of
Analysis” (Studies 62, no. 2, June 2019) was that it described a step on the way to the future of analysis. It envisions human analysts using enhanced computer-based tools to produce finished products and insights for delivery to customers. This sounds familiar to me, as if the future will be just a more idealized version of the present—the same basic job but with better and more reliable tools. One can only hope.
As a follow-on thought experiment, however, it might be useful
to look beyond the future Gartin visualizes to a more distant and very different future. In the spirit of certain structured analysis techniques, we can then step back to see what actions can and should be taken now and in the near future. The intention is not to debate the timeline of this more distant future but instead to assume it is approaching and to outline its implications.