We are living in times where it has become possible for some players to see basically what is happening on earth, in any spot of the world and at any time. That has created hopes that he would be able to predict the future and control it. But there is randomness, and there is something that people call freedom of will. And basically, that messes up, basically with the predictions of the future, right? So creativity, innovation, that is somethin that suddenly introduces novelty and er surprise, and that physically makes even the best forecasts sometimes useless.
The future. It’s all there, in front of us. It could go wonderfully. Or it could go badly wrong. It will inevitably require our passions and our ingenuity. So how do we see the challenges early on, find solutions and help make the world a better place? For ourselves, for our families, for everyone. Welcome to The Futureverse, a new series brought to you by Intelligence Squared and in partnership with Y TREE.
In the first episode of The Futureverse podcast, From the Ancients to AI, host Kamal Ahmed and a panel of experts explore the history of the future as an idea. Dr Aleks Krotoski, social psychologist, researcher and science communicator, explains why planning for the future is at the heart of being human. Dr Amanda Rees, a historian of science based at the University of York, and Alexander Boxer, author of A Scheme of Heaven, look back at the history of the future as a concept; how have we juggled planning and prediction from ancient times through to modernity? And Dirk Helbing, Professor of Computational Social Science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, reveals how we might be able to stream data into a giant simulator that could help us predict – and prepare for – events in the future.
Come with us into The Futureverse: http://intelligencesquared.com/futureverse
For more information and to register to watch an event featuring Sir Antony Gormley, Mo Gawdat and Clover Hogan, please visit: y-tree.com/futureverse
Find out more about Dirk’s latest project - how to build a “digital twin” of the Earth, here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358571489
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