In this note, I explore how human-centered systems design can reshape the way we think about future technologies, consumption, and sustainability. As robots, synthetic foods, and transformative innovations enter our daily lives, we need frameworks that go beyond traditional models to imagine—and assess—their real impacts on society and the environment. This piece reflects on that challenge and sketches directions for integrating emerging technologies into integrated assessment modeling and sustainability narratives.

Background:

SSPs are the very initial narratives of the future scenarios.
IAMs describe possible images of the human-earth system based on each scenario.
IAMs include technology improvement but often not transformative techs.
Human-robot collaboration is transforming how we consume and how we produce.
What if there is no traditional crop consumption system after the 2040s?

So:

Besides the technologists developing the tech, there should be systems engineers and analysts who describe plausible images.
There should be more developed narratives responsive to technology transformations.

Ideas:

Develop lifecycle assessments: measuring the functional units of new technologies.
Compare the dynamics of emerging products: contrasting them with conventional systems.
Involve integrated assessment modeling: analyze the compound effect of emerging commodities.

Challenges: - Huge uncertainty. - No supply-demand curve available.

Can’t we see the change? Let’s see it together!

Don’t these technologies change how we produce and consume things?
Let’s put on our computational sustainability lenses!
The economy is impacted by climate change, and it is also impacted by the transformations we lead in adapting to climate change.

Artificial Taste!

Artificial Smell!

Developing the idea of a new paradigm:
Human Embedded Design
Science-based, connecting evolving patterns that reshape traditional consumption.

Theme: Integrated Assessment Modeling

Problem:
Emerging solutions to meet sustainability goals are not even imagined in current integrated assessment models.
Current conventional models:
Forecast to 2100, keeping most system parameters unchanged.
Possible research decisions:
1. Run the model to 2030, then introduce hypothetical new technologies.
2. Design a probabilistic model for emerging technologies.
3. Analyze the impact of synthetic food / taste on the economy → sustainability goals.

Theme (looks like fiction, but kept within science):
Develop an idea, develop a product: Human Centered Systems Design

To be developed…