投稿者: TOMOHIRO NAKAGAWA

In the era ahead, the ability to design the future will matter far more than merely predicting it.

The future is not something we wait for—it’s something we create.

And yet, many people today remain overly dependent on predictions.

They look to AI and expert opinions to tell them “what’s going to happen.”

But prediction, by its very nature, is simply an extension of the present.

In an age where unexpected change has become the norm, we all know how unreliable predictions can be.

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So what should we do?

The answer is clear:

We must stop trying to be forecasters, and start becoming designers of the future.

And that is the very essence of Structuring Intelligence.

A structure is a blueprint for creating the future—not by chance, but by intention.

It is a flexible strategy that holds both:

• an unshakable core that withstands change, and
  
• the adaptability to respond to it.
  

This is the role of Structuring Intelligence in the future.

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Even the most brilliant business model becomes obsolete if the social context shifts.

Only those who have built with change in mind will endure in an age of evolving technologies and values.

We must not fear the uncertainty of the future—

we must embrace it as a design variable.

Those who can design such adaptive structures will be the true leaders of the AI era.

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To build structures that remain resilient, no matter what happens.

To design systems where every decision leads to meaning.

Those who can do this will not be swayed by the times—

they will shape them.

Not prediction, but design.
Not reaction, but structure.

The starting point for building the future lies in structural design.

In the near future, subscribing to the highest-tier ChatGPT plan may mean that a humanoid robot equipped with AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) arrives at your doorstep.

That future is now within reach.

These machines will flawlessly understand vague instructions and perform everything from household chores, research, and document creation to delivering presentations, negotiating with others, and handling customer service.

It will become completely normal to have a “superhuman right hand” stationed at home and in the workplace.

In such a world, it will no longer be the “talented” people who shine.

You can no longer stand out just by being able to take initiative or act quickly.

So what, then, defines human value in this era?

It is the ability to ask meaningful questions and design structure.

AI and robots excel at optimizing within a given structure.

But the ability to design the structure itself remains a uniquely human domain—because it requires something only humans possess: will and worldview.

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Ask an AGI to “generate new business ideas,” and it may return a hundred or two hundred suggestions in seconds.

But which one should you choose?

Why is that idea needed in society today?

What kind of future does that choice build?

These are not questions AI can truly answer.

They require the human sense of meaning.

Similarly, when ChatGPT can “write” for us, it is our responsibility to ask,

“What should be written?”

When AGI can “make decisions” on our behalf, we must design the structure of intention behind those decisions.

Why do we choose what we choose?

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In other words, intelligence has been democratized.

The next challenge is this: Can we possess a structured will?

Our task is not to resist AI, but to design the structure that drives AI.

That is the human challenge for the future.

In a world where even the act of thinking can be delegated, true leaders will be:

Architects of Questions.

Designers of Futures.

And at the heart of that ability lies Structuring Intelligence.

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The true potential of AI is only unlocked when humans provide it with structured questions and underlying frameworks.

Without them, AI will produce nothing but noise—or at best, generic output.

Thus, Structuring Intelligence becomes the “operating system” and “design language” that makes AI truly intelligent and useful.

This means that in the age of AI, competitive advantage will not lie in simply using AI—

but in how well we can structure its use.

There was a time when execution was one of the most highly valued skills.

How much you could do, how fast you could iterate through PDCA cycles, how persistently you could take action—these were clear indicators of success.

But today, the value of execution is undeniably beginning to shift.

In a world where AI can carry out tasks with speed and precision, many aspects of what was once considered “execution power” are becoming replaceable by machines and algorithms.

Tasks that once required human effort—information gathering, writing, hypothesis-building, analysis, even brainstorming ideas—can now be done in minutes with tools like ChatGPT and other generative AIs.

In other words, “doing” itself is becoming commoditized.

We have entered a world where actions and tasks, once scarce and valuable, are now available in abundance—and often at no cost.

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So, what value remains uniquely human in such an era?

The answer lies in the ability to design what should be done—that is, Structuring Intelligence.

As the value of execution declines, the scarcity and importance of structuring power continues to rise. To design structure requires:

• Insight to perceive purpose and relationships,
  
• Strategic thinking to assemble order and priority, and
  
• A willingness to confront the core question: “Why does this matter?”
  

Only those who can create structure can maximize the execution power of AI and others.

Those who cannot draw structure—no matter how hard they work—will find themselves going nowhere.

This is not merely about efficiency.

Action without structure is just motion without meaning.

That is why, in the era to come, the most valuable skill will not be the ability to execute, but the ability to design structure.

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This shift represents not just a question of productivity, but a fundamental re-evaluation of human economic value.

If AI can execute faster and cheaper, human comparative advantage will fully move to the pre-execution phase—the ability to define what must be done, and how that fits into a broader, meaningful system.

As a result, we are entering an age where the designer, the one who defines the structure, gains disproportionate leverage.

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This change signals not just a shift in labor, but a structural transformation of society.

Traditional execution-focused jobs will decrease, while new roles centered on structure design will emerge.

Educational systems that continue to emphasize producing “executors” may be fundamentally misaligned with the demands of the future, leading to what we might call structural fatigue in society.

The absence of structural thinking is not only an individual problem—it is a systemic one.

Figure 1 visually illustrates this transformation.