UK preparing for 'improbable' or 'unforeseen' future disruption

The UK government has published a new framework for discussing the implications of future disruptors to "stimulate awareness that the commonly recognised drivers and trajectories of urban development over the next half-century may be disrupted by processes and events that are conventionally disregarded as too improbable to worry about or are entirely unforeseen".

It said "disruptors may also be disregarded, despite being recognised, if their consequences are judged to be insignificant".

The framework sets out a non-exhaustive set of illustrative scenarios that might cause future disruption and seeks to prompt discussion on a variety of issues that could arise as a result of those disruptors, including how each situation might affect the economy, infrastructure, living standards and conditions and matters of governance.

The list of disruptors identified in the framework include the rise of the sharing economy and 3D printing, mass connectivity, improved energy storage capacity, a major global attack on IT infrastructure and the age of driverless cars.

The framework also seeks to prompt debate on the potential impacts that would arise should robots become more heavily involved in home and work life, if "radical life-extension technology" became widely available, if environmental problems stemming from climate change or natural disasters struck, or if UK or global politics fundamentally changed.

"Readers are encouraged to consider further items under these headings or to add new ones," the government said. "However, we are clear that the purpose of doing so is not the impossible pursuit of completeness, but to develop sensitivity to the potential of disruption and ideas for developing resilience across a wide range of possible sources of disruption."