ABSTRACT
Criticality and efficiency are trade-offs. Any system that is built to increase efficiency puts performance at risk. Competition and market systems may increase efficiency. However, they are the least suitable choices when it comes to meet the challenges of critical infrastructure. Futures scenarios that address the challenges of the Anthropocene in the 21st century need to understand and rethink their systemic propositions and venture an epistemological turn. Anthropocene Thinking suggests such a paradigm shift that enables us to rethink governance and explore more desirable futures scenarios for integrated resource efficiency and critical infrastructure. The dominance of competition shall be challenged, and the conditions for the possibility of commons will be explored. At this moment in time when artificial intelligence (AI) rules the technological agenda, we need to understand that a curious and self-learning AI will only support those paradigmatic propositions that went into it. When we do, distributed autonomous systems come into sight as a desirable solution.
