Friday Farsight

They might only want to play Chinese Checkers. They might want to eat your head. When AIs start associating with each other... which will it be? And, will we really let this happen? Read the full predictions here: - First AI-only Society - First AI-Only Society in the Solar System

George Carlin once said, "A house is just a place to keep your stuff." In the future, the house will *be* the stuff, and when it's time to move, no need to call a moving truck because the new house will morph itself to whatever designs you send it. In a world made of matter that morphs, you'll have just what you want whenever you need it. But will any of these objects feel specia...

Express train to the stars, or pointless megaproject? For decades, nerd wisdom has assured us that a space elevator would be a leap -- or at least a climb -- into the space age. But given the rapid advance of reusable rockets does a highly theoretical megastructure make sense? And how in the world do you build something that is 35,000 kilometers tall? Read the full prediction: First Space Elevator...

Kind of like artificial butter, but for the soul. When these beauties arrive, will they cure the loneliness epidemic or sever the most intimate natural connection between human beings? Will they bring Heaven on Earth or the end of civilization? Also, can I pay by credit card? Read the two predictions that informed this episode: Commercially Available Artificial Romantic Companions Commercially Ava...

Don't tell the tech bros, but The Singularity -- that moment when future shock exceeds our understanding -- may be farther away than we think, or it may not even happen. Why? Well, tune in to hear our own self-improving AI superhosts Biff and Betty pick apart this controversial concept while maybe, just maybe, breaking a few hearts. Read the full prediction: The Technological Singularity

Democracy is in decline, if you believe the statistics, and the headlines. Sounds like fake news, but what do the numbers say? The trends in public opinion, technology, economics? Are Darwinian forces decimating the social machinery of the print age? Read the full trend article here: Neoliberal Democracies (Number of Countries)

Visiting another star system may cost hundreds of billions of dollars and take lifetimes to accomplish. Will we do it? If so, will we be transformed more by the images sent back, or by the civilizational effort to build and launch this first interstellar spacecraft? Read the full prediction: First Interstellar Probe Flyby of an Exoplanet

We know plastic is bad. Great masses float on the oceans, tiny specks lodge in our brains. Why don't we just stop using it? Are we just too lazy? Or are there fundamental limits to what can be replaced, and when? Read the full prediction: Plastic Becoming Obsolete as the Dominant Material

Will humanity choose to outsource the life process? Will that mean a new era of liberation, or of alienation? Does separating gestation from the female body resolve the ethical conflict between the sanctity of life and a woman's right to control her own biology? Or just complicate it? Read the two predictions covered in this episode: Human Artificial Womb (8 wk+ ectogenesis) Complete Human Art...

Humans dominate most of the Earth's surface because our survival depends on it. Or does it? Will biofactories one day produce all the food we need? Does the land then return to wilderness? What is life like in a high-tech civilization that supports rather than exploits the ecosystems it inhabits? Read the two future scenarios covered in this episode: Society Decoupled from Ecological Dominatio...

The dream of flight. It has captivated humanity for millennia. Missing from most of these dreams, though, is taking off your shoes and getting patted down by a TSA agent. Is the mythic vision of flying solo, free as a bird, at last almost upon us? Or will the laws of thermodynamics keep one foot planted firmly on a corner of your cape? Read the three predictions that contribute to this episode: Ma...

This is not a Biblical tale of the Second Flood. Nor is it a tale of our sun phase-shifting into a red giant that swells with the ejecta of helium fusion until it burns all the water off the face of the earth, thus... un-asking the question. Rather, we consider whether the most likely outcome is a thoroughly anti-climactic steady state achieved via green energy innovations, economies of scale, glo...

We feel certain that humanity will settle outer space -- a lifeless, hostile void -- and yet we have made little attempt to build cities under the ocean, where there is wildlife, water, oxygen, and mineral riches that are not hurtling a dozen miles per second far outside Earth's gravity well. Is our excitement about outer space no different than Alvin Toffler's paean, in 1970's Future Shock, for t...

Sounds crazy, but people are working on it. We have cybernetic prosthetic limbs. We have make-believe neural tissue running on servers and chatting with us in the voice of Pee-wee Herman. Can it be too much longer before the machinery of the brain, too, falls prey to our understanding? Read the full prediction: Direct Brain-to-Brain Communication

A purely digital economy would be a purely controlled economy. No one would be playing outside the game, making deals with briefcases full of dollar bills. But do we want people making deals with briefcases full of dollar bills? Aren't most of us sound citizens already perfectly comfortable paying for things with a tap of a card? Cash seems to pass through our hands less every year. Some countries...

Just checked the Doomsday Clock from The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and it reads 85 seconds to midnight, the closest to disaster it has ever been, yet the idea of a nuclear war seems more far-fetched than ever. We've just been waiting too long, maybe. Seen that movie too many times. What if we're wrong? More than once, the steady judgment of one person has prevented retaliation during the...

Extrapolating from today's U.S. government policies, AI has a vision for a changed world order in the 2040s. Who will come out on top? The Kingdom of Denmark? Read the full scenario: Geopolitics in the 2040s V2 - Aug 2025

Faster-than-light spaceships could be coming as early as 2100, or... not? A second prediction in the database says FTL travel is impossible. How can Strategic Farsight publish both predictions? Which should we believe? Read the optimistic prediction: First Faster-Than-Light Spacecraft Read the pessimistic prediction: The Impossibility of Faster-Than-Light Spacecraft

No, not 3D goggles. Not big blocks of glass with 3D images inside. We're talking lifelike 3D images broadcast into the open air. Is this really possible? How? As a sci-fi writer, I have avoided such tech in my stories, presuming it to be pure fantasy, but AI says otherwise. Tune in to hear Biff and Betty set the record straight. Read the full prediction: Mainstream Holographic Televisions

Most people still think that longevity science is a hoax, while scientists in the field claim that we're a decade or two away from tech that could let us rewind the biological clock at will. Who is right, or is the truth somewhere in between? Read the full prediction: Indefinite Life Extension

Wealth inequality is bad and getting worse, a trend that has been clear since the 1980s. Surely society will take corrective action now that the issue is headline news. Right? Or will the stronger force remain wealth's proclivity to perpetuate itself? Read the full trend: Wealth Inequality in the United States (Gini Coefficient)

The robots are coming for our jobs, they say. Maybe so. But when will this include the CEOs and executives? When will companies run all on their own? Is this the inevitable destination of capital's drive for efficiency? Read the full prediction: First wholly AI-managed corporation established

Livestock consumes over 3/4 of agricultural land. A transition to "cultured meat" could open a future where the domination of nature is no longer an existential imperative. Might we live to see planet-wide rewilding? Read the full prediction: Lab-grown meat surpasses traditional livestock

Robotic servants. They've been just around the corner since at least the 1950s. Is today different? Are we about to say goodbye to household chores? What then? What won't robots do for us, and what will that mean for laborers, labor-saving devices, and society at large? Read the full prediction: Fully Capable Home Robotic Servants