The Futurists

This week The Futurists examine the much-ballyhooed claims that extreme weather events are growing more intense and more frequent. Surprise! It’s not what you think. Brett and Rob unpack the economic impact of extreme weather, the growing perception of risk, and the political gridlock that thwarts practical proactive measures. Topics include: FEMA, Hurricane Milton, Hurricane Helene, how the insurance companies cope with the increase in damages and losses, and the broader societal and political impact of extreme weather events.

In this week's episode of The Futurists, David Orban joins Brett King in the hosting chair and we get to talk Quantum with Roberto Siagri, a theoretical physcist working on putting quantum processors in orbit. We talk about the advances in photonic quantum multi-dimensional cubits (yes you heard that right), the likelihood of Q-Day (Quantum Day), and of course, what secrets of the universe quantum just might unlock. We discuss Roberto's new startup Rotonium, working on exactly these questions. What happens when a physicist becomes a futurist engineer? Let's find out.

Jerome Glenn is the CEO and co-founder of the Millennium Project, a global consortium of hundreds of experts in 70 nations, hailing from academia, government and private sector. Each year these experts collaborate on forecasting a consensus view of future trends. Jerome shares with The Futurists a summary of insights from this year's 500-page report, The State of the Future. He describes a range of forecasting tools and techniques invented at the Rand Corporation in the 1970s and tells how they were used to generate the trends analyzed in the report. And he shares findings about General Artificial Intelligence, nuclear weapon proliferation, climate change and global temperature, and pandemics.

Andrew Hessel believes that biology is the first technology because it created all living things, including us. And it’s also the most mysterious technology because we still do not understand exactly how the cells in our bodies convert molecules into new materials at room temperature. In this episode of the Futurists, Andrew explains how the science of synthetic biology enables humans to harness the phenomenal generative power of nature to accomplish incredible goals: curing cancer; devising personalized medicine; growing novel proteins; designing new materials and clean fuels. Biology is technology; synthetic biology confers the immense creative force of nature onto humans. Topics include genome sequencing, genome synthesis, how to write DNA, and the role of AI in reprogramming life.

Michael Clark data scholar and futurist joins The Futurists this week to talk the critical misalignment of our global data infrastructure when it comes to AI and the future of the planet. He argues that data is more valuable than water, more valuable than money but can’t be just an asset used by corporations, that it must be owned but each individual from cradle to grave. How? You will need to listen to find out.

This week on TF we go to the cradle of civilization with Futurist, Economist and Professor Adrian Saville. Adrian, based in South Africa, is the Founder of Boundless World, a Professor of Economics, Finance and Strategy at GIBS (Gordon Institute of Business Science) and the founding director of the Centre for African Management and Markets (CAMM). We discuss how Africa’s nascent economy and infrastructure gives it incredible opportunities to leapfrog the rest of the world in adapting to climate changes in particular.

This week Brett and Robert are joined by Futurist, Founder and Author Terence Mauri as he gets ready to launch his new book, The UPside of DisrUPtion. We talk long term disruptive potential of AI, how it will impact employment, economies and corporations. But we also get into future proofing strategies for businesses and individuals alike. One thing is for sure, you're going to want to be as adaptable as possible for the future that is coming!

Journalist and media pundit Jeff Jarvis returns to The Futurists to discuss the strategies deployed by newspapers and magazines to prevent technology firms from dominating journalism. It’s an uphill battle. Jeff describes the growing rift between independent journalists and big publications controlled by private equity; the role of government and new legislation; and the future of journalism in a media market shaped by artificial intelligence.

In this week's episode we see the return of the philosopher futurist and award-winning science fiction author David Brin. We talk through the Fermi paradox, the ongoing civil war in the US, the geopolitical changes that are coming and how we get humanity to a place of real enlightenment. Brin brings his usual energy and intellect to a wide-ranging conversation that is sure to get you thinking.

In this episode, cybersecurity specialist and advisor to the DoD and former DIA cyber chief, Tyler Cohen Wood, joins us to talk about the recent Microsoft update crash and DDOS attacks. Wood takes us through emerging vectors and the cyberpunk future of our internet. If you think you’re safer online, you might want to skip this one.

In this week’s show we interview the legendary British science fiction author Charlie Stross. From Accelerando through to the Laundry Files we talk through how politics and social dynamics of our day tend to inform science fiction and why science fiction authors should be thought of as hi-brow entertainers rather than particularly gifted seers of the future. And yet, we get into why sci-fi authors tend to be fairly good at forecasting too.

What will happen in the US Presidential election? It’s no exaggeration to say that the fate of the republic hangs in the balance as the United States heads to the national election in November. A series of historic incidents in the month of July 2024 has completely upset the dynamics of the contest: an attempted assassination, a surprise vice president pick and President Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race. This week the Futurists discuss the global consequences of these unprecedented dynamics and speculate about what might happen if Donald Trump returns to the White House, or if he is thwarted by Kamala Harris.

Monica Anderson returns to the Futurists to share a radical concept: future AI models based on Darwinism.  The "AI epistemologist” shares provocative opinions about where the current crop of generative AI systems went wrong, and why generative AI is computationally expensive and energy intensive, and why scaling AI with hardware will not achieve general intelligence. Instead she offers a radical alternative: a design for machine intelligence that is inspired by biology, and in particular by the Darwinian process of selection. Topics include: why generative AI is not a plagiarism machine; syntax versus semantics and why AI needs both;  there is only one algorithm for creativity; and how to construct an AI that consumes a million times less energy.

This week Ross Dawson and Brett King sit down for an unscripted conversation about AI, Energy markets, climate survivability and resilience, mass migration, collaborative intelligence, advanced healthcare and other great topics for a futurists conversation to end out the week. Ross Dawson is one of Asia’s top ranked futurists and advises companies and governments around future-proofing and AI readiness. The future is closer than you think. Bio - https://rossdawson.com

This week we call upon renowned media personality and thought leader Tariq Qureishy. Based between London and Dubai, Tariq has recently helmed a project known as “Voices of the Future”. A chronicling of 110 of the world’s best future thinkers, analysts and researchers and their thoughts about humanity can adapt to the incredible changes being thrust upon society. He tells us why he’s MAD - dedicated to “Making a difference” - and why thinking about the future is a core skill in today and tomorrow’s world  Bio - https://tariq.tv/

The global supply chain is the most complicated thing that humanity has invented with more than 1 million companies in 209 nations trading 90% of manufactured goods via maritime transport. Now, thanks to climate change, extreme weather events and geo-political strife, it’s growing geometrically more complex. Brett King and Rob Tercek discuss the implications for domestic politics, employment and innovation.

David Wood and Calum Chace lead the London Futurists, a group that promotes radical scenarios for the future. In this episode they explain how expectations about the future have evolved in the UK during the past 15 years under Tory leadership, and they identify the trends that will shape the next 15 years.  Brett King and Rob Tercek draw comparisons to economic and political trends in the US, Australia and other regions. Topics include populism, geopolitical conflict, immigration, and the pervasive influence of emerging technology on society.

The future is complicated!  Brett King and Rob Tercek trace the trajectory of several major economic, political, and technology trends, including:  the rising cost of home ownership, price-fixing scams that crank up apartment rent, the rising cost of insurance due to climate change, the dramatic increase in populist movements, the politics of resentment in democracies worldwide, and the advent of  quantum computing.  At the point where these trends intersect, the world becomes more complicated and interesting. It’s not all gloom and doom. Brett and Rob talk about opportunities and the expanding cone of possibility, too.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. In this episode, Rob Tercek shares tools and techniques for team-based collaboration to create innovations that can change the world.  He knows his stuff.  Rob designed and launched digital platforms for games and video that are used by hundreds of millions of people today. In this special edition of the Futurists, Rob shares an easy and fun methodology for inventing new products and services used by dozens of major corporations to shape the future.

Looking to the future, a startup from Iceland innovates to address the opioid epidemic. In today's episode of The Futurists, guest host JP Nicols, co-host of The Futurists' sister podcast Breaking Banks, spotlights a healthtech innovator that he met on a recent trip to Iceland that is doing something to address a growing problem. Dr. Kjartan Thorsson, Prescriby, Co-Founder, acted on concerns noted as an orthopedic doctor -- he was regularly prescribing 30 to 50 opioid prescriptions a week. Rule of thumb, one in 10 patients go on to develop some level of addiction. Rather than contribute to the problem, he and two others decided to do something about it and developed the first data-driven treatment management platform for addictive medication.  In use in Iceland, professionals in the healthcare community are working to provide safer treatments of addictive medicines across the continuum of care. Entrepreneurs and futurists building a better world of tomorrow.