The Futurists

Best selling author M.P. “Mike” Woodward joins the Futurists to share scenarios for the future of the next major naval war in the Pacific. How might a war between the United States and China happen? According to Woodward, it begins with a struggle to control the chips that govern artificial intelligence, then rapidly escalates to a massive ocean-spanning clash between two navies bristling with high tech gear. Woodward exposes critical weaknesses in US military preparedness and he speculates about innovations in weaponry and tactics.  Woodward’s new book RED TIDE provides the basis for a lively discussion about the politics, economics and strategy that will determine the course of the next world war.

This week The Futurists welcomes celebrated experimental astrophysicist Prof Brian Cox. Prof Cox dives into why our understanding of black holes and what it means for quantum information theory could change our fundamental understanding of the universe and usher in a new era of scientific advancement. Cox is one of the most articulate scientists in the world today and this interview proves once again that in an age where science faces ongoing attacks from political forces and media that our future lies in embracing knowledge and applied intelligence. It could be said that we are at the event horizon of something new and extraordinary.

In this week’s episode Steve Suarez from Horizon X Quantum and one of the speakers at the Futurists Summit discusses the reality of the famed Q-Day or Quantum Day - a date sometime in the near future when Quantum computers can break our existing RSA encryption technologies exposing banks, government and military to significant cyber security risk. How real is it and how can we prepare our institutions for this change? Suarez and Brett get into it.

Think about the place where you live. Every inch of every city and suburb has been designed by other humans. For better or worse, their choices determine how the world around you works, and how you live and navigate through it.  Jeff Speck is the world’s leading exponent of the concept of the “walkable city”, human-centered urban centers.  In this episode of the Futurists, Jeff shares his inspiring vision of the city of the future. Topics include; the New Urbanism, how cities foster society, the impact of the automobile on the organization of society, the goals of city planning and urban design, organic neighborhood evolution versus top-down zoning, the consequences of the 1969 World’s Fair, how lifespans increased when factories were separated from living quarters, how mass transit systems shape the growth of cities, and how automation and robotics will shape the city of the future.

What happens when lazy humans outsource their thought process to machines?  You get a society that vibes its way into a blurry, sub-optimal future. The surge of slop means that AI is creating more work for humans instead of stealing our jobs.  Mark Pesce returns to The Futurists to cut through the hype and the skepticism about modern tech. He calls out AI mediocrity and reminds us why human learning remains painful. Topics include: Chat GPT psychosis, why we need a generation of PhDs to revisit eternal questions about Truth, the perpetual dawn of AGI,  what happens to the political economy when the populace is siloed into bubbles, why Kremlin propagandists produce propaganda for machines instead of people, why experience cannot be generated, why autocracies need accurate data, and the real reason why people get lost in untruth.

This week Brett interview he founder of the world’s first data savings account and data wallet ecosystem, Andre Vellozo of Drumwave. Vellozo makes a compelling case that GDPR and data privacy regulations won’t work in the age of AI, that we need data ownership structures and the ability to monetize our data, especially related to digital twin models like AI-based healthcare. Drumwave maintains that owning your own data and deploying it in the emerging autonomous world might eliminate the need for UBI and other such proposals. Do you know where your data is?

Zoltan István holds the distinction of being the first Transhumanist to run for President of the United States.  Now Zoltan has set his sights on the Governor’s office in California, a $4 trillion economy that ranks as the fourth-largest in the world, and the leader in global innovation. Zoltan joins the Futurists this week to discuss his plan to replace Gavin Newsom. He answers some pressing questions about the future risks and opportunities faced by the biggest US state.

Dan Schwarz is the CEO and co-founder of FutureSearch.ai, a startup venture that intends to become the leader in AI-powered forecasting.  Dan points out that hybrid systems that combine human forecasting with machine intelligence have already surpassed human-only prognostication, but the AI-only approaches still fall short. FutureSearch has begun to benchmark several leading AI systems on their ability to provide accurate deep research. Dan tells TheFuturists about the weaknesses in human forecasting and the areas where he sees opportunity for AI to outperform.  Topics include the anticipated trajectory of AI prediction, including the near term pitfalls and risks, and some surprising long term implications.

Jon Snoddy is the CEO and founder of Operative Games, where he fuses gameplay with generative AI to create stories that permit the audience to interact with and engage with virtual characters. To create immersive story worlds, Jon draws on his long experience as a theme park designer, an R&D expert for movie studios, and a technologist at National Public Radio.

This week Lisa Bodell, Top-50 ranked futurist, author, speaker and founder of FutureThink joins the Futurists. Bodell shares how she teaches structured scenario planning and why “real futurists use models, not guesses”. We discuss scenario planning at Pfizer, that eliminated thousands of hours through their “kill a stupid rule” initiative, and how AI will lead to more meaningful work and less of it. Brett hosts this one solo from Dubai with Lisa in Westchester, NY.

Peter Hinssen is a best selling author and industry strategist focused on leadership and change management during turbulent times. His newest book is “The Uncertainty Principle”, arriving at the precise moment when business leaders must confront both massive geopolitical turmoil and runaway technological change. Don’t miss this lively discussion about the trends and management strategies that will shape the enterprise of the future.

What happens when we pass the point of technological change so profound that we can no longer predict or comprehend the future? Pay attention because it’s coming soon. For decades, futurists have theorized that the compound impact of converging, accelerating technologies will result in a singularity: that liminal moment when society is irreversibly transformed. This week David S Rose, New York City’s greatest angel investor and a prolific entrepreneur, joins The Futurists to share his perspectives about the experience of living through the knee of exponential change. Brace yourself.

This week Brett and Rob take a check on the latest in AI news diving into the growing requirements for AI infrastructure, and the advances being made in Agentic-AI. We dive into Anthropic and Open AI’s latest announcements including the $6.5Bn acquisition by Open AI of Jony Ive’s revenue-less and customer-less startup, and we look at investments in the UAE in the world’s largest AI data center.

Doug Shapiro, one of the leading analysts of trends in the media and entertainment industry, explains how Hollywood now faces a second phase of digital transformation. First, the Internet unbundled media distribution, and now AI is reshaping the creative process. No one will be spared: impact will be felt by major media companies, independents and the full range of professionals from screenwriters to directors, cast and crew.  Shaprio provides a summary of the changes that occurred in the past 20 years and his bold forecast of the AI-defined future that will lead to infinite content.  Topics covered in this episode: how the definition of quality is shifting;  how value is migrating to new control points in the media supply chain;  how YouTube and TikTok paved the way for GenAI; the demise of middlemen; the fragmentation of attention; the extreme power law of popularity;  the rise of new gatekeepers.

Colin Megill joins the Futurists to describe a new model for finding consensus in a time of political chaos and intense partisan division. He is the inventor of Pol.is, a powerful open-source platform for coordinating the feedback, opinions, and preferences of large dispersed groups. Polis has been successfully deployed by governments in Asia and Europe to find pockets of agreement amid partisan rancor.  If you crave an alternative to political division and polarization, don’t miss this interview.

In this week's episode of THE FUTURISTS, host Brett King sits down one on one with Dave Birch to talk about the future of AI based payments, money and the concepts around Agentic AI such as KYA (Know-your-Agent instead of KYC Know Your Customer) or how we'll tell if specific agents have the authority to make payments, etc. And we get into the utility problem of money in a highly autonomous world. This is future of money, identity and payments all wrapped into one with two of the most future thinking people in the finance space today.

This week, frequent guest and friend of The Futurists, Ross Dawson, takes over the hosting chair to speak with Joanna Lepore about Foresight and Vision(s) of the Future. Ross, founder of AHT Group (Advanced Human Technologies Group) and the futures think tank Future Exploration Network, introduces us to Joanna Lepore. In 2024, Joanna founded and now co-leads Foresight Inside Group (FIG), an invite-only network for corporate futurists. Previously, she established and led Foresight at McDonald’s global HQ and Mars Wrigley, helping to push the strategies of some of the world’s best-known brands into the future. Motivated by the power of diverse perspectives, she also created and hosts Looking Outside, a podcast to share those perspectives. This episode is packed with powerful and practical insights into the future, offering inspiration on how to seize today’s opportunities and drive change in a transforming world.

In this week’s show Brett and Rob discuss why the Administration were happy to bring the world’s markets to the brink of global recession and why it’s happening now? Is this a massive, economy scale Pump and Dump or is it an existential threat of China surpassing the U.S. as the world’s largest economy? Will these tariffs put any dent in China’s meteoric rise? Let’s find out.

Lauren Ducrey is a poet who developed an authentic persona for Google’s automated assistant in France, Senegal and other Francophone nations. In the process she discovered insights about the intersection of art, linguistics, and human cognition in the age of AI.  She tells the Futurists about artistic integrity, what humans can do that machines cannot, and the benefits of collaborative creativity in the enterprise.

This week on The Futurists retired-NASA astronaut and pilot of the Space Shuttle, is a former F14 fighter pilot, a test pilot, an engineer, and a veteran of four space flights. Kelly commanded the International Space Station (ISS) on three expeditions and was a member of the year long mission to the ISS. In October 2015, he set the record for the total accumulated number of days spent in space, the single longest space mission by an American astronaut at that time. Host Brett King gets into what he misses about life on station and what Mars crews are likely to face when they land on Mars, along with why we should go to Mars. This is one of our best episodes yet!