essayThe future
Homo crustaceous
‘Everything becomes crab’ is more than an absurd meme. The crab is a deep symbol of our devil’s bargain with technology
Michael Garfield
videoEngineering
Building a prosperous future demands bold ideas. These are some of the boldest
40 minutes
essayDemography and migration
The vanishing of youth
The precipitous decline of birthrates throughout the world poses a serious threat to humanity. What is to be done?
Victor Kumar
essayPhilosophy of science
More-than-human science
When AI takes over the practice of science we will likely find the results strange and incomprehensible. Should we worry?
Brandon Boesch
essayThe future
The disruption nexus
Moments of crisis, such as our own, are great opportunities for historic change, but only under highly specific conditions
Roman Krznaric
essayThe future
Prehistory in the atomic age
To understand the terrifying futures unleashed by nuclear weapons, we urgently need to return to the deep past
Maria Stavrinaki
essayComputing and artificial intelligence
Frontier AI ethics
Generative agents will change our society in weird, wonderful and worrying ways. Can philosophy help us get a grip on them?
Seth Lazar
essayMetaphysics
What awaits us?
Humanity’s future remains as unthinkable as the still-uncolonised galaxy or the enduring mystery of our own births and deaths
Jennifer Banks
essayInformation and communication
Beware climate populism
The most ardent deniers of anthropogenic climate change today will become the climate conspiracy theorists of tomorrow
Ákos Szegőfi
essaySpace exploration
Capturing the cosmos
When self-replicating craft bring life to the far Universe, a religious cult, not science, is likely to be the driving force
Jay Olson
videoSpace exploration
Would children born beyond Earth ever be able to return to humanity’s home planet?
5 minutes
essayEarth science and climate
Deep warming
Even if we ‘solve’ global warming, we face an older, slower problem. Waste heat could radically alter Earth’s future
Mark Buchanan
videoSpace exploration
Burning ice, metal clouds, gemstone rain – tour the strangest known exoplanets
31 minutes
videoThe future
What’s the healthiest way to handle a creeping feeling that the world is ending?
15 minutes
videoStories and literature
Solaris and beyond – Stanisław Lem’s antidotes to the bores of American sci-fi
7 minutes
essayAnimals and humans
Against human exceptionalism
In a tight spot, you’d probably intuit that a human life outweighs an animal’s. There are good arguments why that’s wrong
Jeff Sebo
essayThinkers and theories
Against longtermism
It started as a fringe philosophical theory about humanity’s future. It’s now richly funded and increasingly dangerous
Émile P Torres
essayNeuroscience
Am I my connectome?
Each human brain possesses a unique, intricate pattern of 86 billion neurons. If science can map it, immortality beckons
Phil Jaekl
essayComplexity
Uncertain times
The pandemic is an unprecedented opportunity – seeing human society as a complex system opens a better future for us all
Jessica Flack & Melanie Mitchell
essayThe future
Where did the grandeur go?
Superlative things were done in the past century by marshalling thousands of people in the service of a vision of the future
Martin Parker
essayPhilosophy of science
The good scientist
Science is the one culture that all humans share. What would it mean to create a scientifically literate future together?
Martin Rees
essayHistory
Are there laws of history?
Historians believe that the past is irreducibly complex and the future wildly unpredictable. Scientists disagree. Who’s right?
Amanda Rees
essayThe future
At the limits of thought
Science today stands at a crossroads: will its progress be driven by human minds or by the machines that we’ve created?
David C Krakauer
essayStories and literature
Supermensch
Superman et al were invented amid feverish eugenic speculation: what does the superhero craze say about our own times?
Iwan Rhys Morus