Showing titles in Future Studies

Former physicist Andrew Maynard threads together his love of science-fiction movies with his expertise on emerging technologies to engage, entertain, and make you think about the relationship between technology and society. Through the imagination and creativity of science-fiction movies, Maynard introduces listeners to the profound capabilities presented by new and emerging technologies, and the complex personal and societal challenges they present. 

The year is 2393, and the world is almost unrecognizable. Clear warnings of climate catastrophe went ignored for decades, leading to soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, widespread drought, and the disaster now known as the Great Collapse of 2093. Dramatizing science in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, The Collapse of Western Civilization reasserts the importance of scientists and the work they do, providing a welcome moment of clarity amid the cacophony of climate-change literature. 

At important meetings in 2021 and 2022, powerful leaders from government, finance, media, and business who support the World Economic Forum’s plan for a Great Reset of capitalism launched a new “call to action” titled the “Great Narrative.” The Great Narrative campaign seeks to use the decay of traditional values throughout the West and new and future advancements in technology—including in the areas of artificial intelligence, automation, the metaverse, robotics, and more—to seize control of economies and societies in North America and Europe.

Man-made global warming is advancing inexorably. Are there ways to halt it? In this invaluable, one-stop guide Bianca Nogrady analyses the science of climate change and offers a concise overview of the ways in which our carbon emissions might be reduced. She examines the challenges posed by food and energy production and the cutting-edge technologies that could mitigate their polluting effects. She looks at initiatives to create green industry and transport. She explains the economics of emissions trading schemes and the practicalities of geoengineering plans to trap greenhouse gases.

Brought to you by Penguin. A long period of peace and stable relations between the world’s most powerful nations is coming to an end. Major wars have broken out in Europe and the Middle East, tensions are rising in East Asia, world leaders have spoken publicly about the possibility of a third...

In Analogia, technology historian George Dyson presents a startling look back at the analog age and life before the digital revolution - and an unsettling vision of what comes next.

In the 60,000 years since people began colonising the continents, a recurring feature of human civilisation has been mobility - the constant search for resources and stability. Seismic global events - wars and genocides, revolutions and pandemics - have only accelerated the process. The map of humanity isn't settled, not now, not ever. As climate change tips toward full-blown crisis, economies collapse, governments destabilise and technology disrupts, we're entering a new age of mass migrations - one that will scatter not just the dispossessed but all of us. 

In November 2022, a webpage was posted online with a simple text box. It was ChatGPT, and was unlike any app people had used before. It was more human than a customer service agent, more convenient than a Google search. Behind the scenes, battles for control and prestige between the world’s...

Artificial intelligence has long been a mainstay of science fiction, and increasingly it feels as if AI is entering our everyday lives, with technology like Apple’s Siri now prominent and self-driving cars almost upon us. But what do we actually mean when we talk about ‘AI’? What has it done for us so far? And what technologies could it yield in the future? AI expert Yorick Wilks takes a journey through the history of artificial intelligence up to the present day, examining its origins, controversies and achievements, as well as looking into just how it works. 

Zerstört KI die Kunst? Macht sie uns alle arbeitslos? Die Vorbehalte gegen KI sind riesig, die Debatte bewegt sich oft nah am Weltuntergang. Die Chancen sind allerdings ebenso riesig, wenn man sie denn vor lauter Angst sehen kann. KI-Erklärer Andreas O. Loff beantwortet alle Fragen, die ihm immer wieder gestellt werden und zeigt, welche Maßnahmen die Politik jetzt ergreifen muss. Dabei kommen Risiken genauso zur Sprache wie die Möglichkeiten in der Welt von morgen, etwa wie KI-Modelle Menschen helfen, Großartiges zu schaffen, Benachteiligungen abzubauen und sozialen Aufstieg ermöglichen.

In The Day It Finally Happens, Mike Pearl games out many of the 'could it really happen?' scenarios we've all speculated about, assigning a probability rating, and taking us through how it would unfold. He explores what would likely occur in dozens of possible scenarios - the final failure of antibiotics, the loss of the world's marine life, the abolition of the British monarchy, and even the arrival of aliens - and reports back from the future, providing a clear picture on how the world would look, feel, and even smell in each of these instances.   

Starting off at the Church of Perpetual Life in Florida and exploring the feuding subcultures around the cryonics industry, Peter Ward immerses himself into an eccentric world of startups, scam artists, scientific institutions, and tech billionaires to deliver this deeply reported, nuanced, and sometimes very funny exploration of the race for immortality—and the potentially devastating consequences should humanity realize its ultimate dream.

Was sind die großen Herausforderungen, vor denen die Menschheit steht? Wer sind wir und was sollen wir mit unserem Leben anfangen? Seit Jahrtausenden fragt die Menschheit nach dem Sinn des Lebens. Doch jetzt setzen uns die ökologische Krise, die wachsende Bedrohung durch Massenvernichtungswaffen und der Aufstieg neuer disruptiver Technologien unter Zeitdruck. Irgendjemand wird darüber entscheiden müssen, wie wir die Macht nutzen, die künstliche Intelligenz und Biotechnologie bereit halten. Yuval Noah Harari will Menschen dazu anregen, sich an den großen Debatten unserer Zeit zu beteiligen.

What will the world look like in 2020? Paul Cornish and Kingsley Donaldson guide us through a maze of global uncertainty in this fascinating look at the future. With the world already struggling to contain conflicts on several continents, with security and defence expenditure under huge pressure, it's time to think the unthinkable and explore what might happen

Peter Frase argues that increasing automation and a growing scarcity of resources, thanks to climate change, will bring it all tumbling down. In Four Futures, Frase imagines how this postcapitalist world might look, deploying the tools of both social science and speculative fiction to explore what communism, rentism, socialism, and exterminism might actually entail.

From centres of antiquity like Athens or Rome to modern metropolises like New York or Shanghai, cities throughout history have been the engines of human progress and the epicentres of our greatest achievements. Now, for the first time, more than half of humanity lives in cities, a share that continues to rise. In the developing world, cities are growing at a rate never seen before. In this book, Professor Goldin and Tom Lee-Devlin show why making our societies fairer, more cohesive and sustainable must start with our cities.

If you had a trillion dollars and a year to spend it for the good of the world and the advancement of science, what would you do? It's an unimaginably large sum, yet it's only around one per cent of world GDP, and about the valuation of Google, Microsoft or Amazon. It's a much smaller sum than the world found to bail out its banks in 2008 or deal with Covid-19. But what could you achieve with $1 trillion? You could solve the problem of the pandemic, for one, and eradicate malaria, and maybe cure all disease. You could end global poverty.

As we approach a great turning point in history when technology is poised to redefine what it means to be human, The Fourth Age offers fascinating insight into AI, robotics, and their extraordinary implications for our species. “If you only read just one book about the AI revolution, make it...

The world-renowned historian and intellectual Yuval Noah Harari envisions a near future in which we face a new set of challenges. Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the 21st century and beyond—from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: how can we protect this fragile world from our own destructive power? And what does our future hold?

The World in 2050 is a provocative journey into a future already under construction. It’s not just about artificial intelligence — it’s about what happens when society lets systems decide who is visible, valid, and valuable. This book blends speculative storytelling, real-world parallels, and sharp analysis to explore what happens when predictive scoring replaces human judgment — and when machines are authorized to make irreversible decisions. Experience algorithmic ghosting, risk profiling, and digital erasure — all based on real-world systems that are already shaping our present.