Tim Stock on culture mapping, the culture of generative AI, intelligence as a social function, and learning from subcultures (AC Ep44)

“True intelligence is a social function. It’s about social cohesion. Intelligence happens in groups, it does not happen in individuals.”

– Tim Stock

About Tim Stock

Tim Stock is an expert in analyzing how cultural trends and artificial intelligence intersect. He is co-founder of scenarioDNA and the co-inventor of a patented Culture Mapping methodology that analyzes patterns in culture using computational linguistics. He teaches at the Parsons School of Design in New York.

Website: www.scenariodna.com

LinkedIn: Ufuk Tarhan

Faculty Page: Tim Stock 

What you will learn

• Exploring the concept of culture mapping 
• Understanding the subtle signals in cultural trends
• Discussing the impact of generative AI on creativity and work
• Differentiating between human and machine intelligence
• Examining the role of subcultures in societal change
• Analyzing the future of work and the merging of physical and virtual spaces
• Emphasizing the importance of structured analysis and collective intelligence

Episode Resources

• Culture mapping
• Generative AI
• Artificial intelligence (AI)
• Douglas Engelbart
• Intelligence augmentation
• ChatGPT
• Cyberpunk
• Subcultures
• 15-minute cities
• ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance)
• Nihilism

Transcript

Ross Dawson: Tim, it’s awesome to have you on the show.

Tim Stock: Great to be here.

Ross: So I think people need a bit of context for our conversation in understanding the work you do. A lot of its trends are around culture mapping. So, Tim, tell us what is culture mapping.

Tim: It’s a culture mapping, really has its roots in understanding what is going on underneath the surface that people aren’t paying attention to. So I searched essentially when we speak to whoever I need to explain cultural mapping to, it’s to help companies understand how and why culture is changing, and how to use that information to make better design and business decisions. And so a lot of those kinds of real changes in culture are not obvious. They’re not things that we can ask people about. So they’re the weaker signals. And so culture mapping allows us to be able to map the relationship between what is the broader culture and subcultures and understand the relationship between those and how they develop narratives within society and cultural change.

Ross: So where’s the state of today? So what are some of the signals you’re seeing in the Euro cultural mapping work?

Tim: Well, I think that  , we’re in a particular moment where we’re shifting from one kind of age to another in terms of, especially in terms of how people do work, how we understand our relationshi