A Future So Bright

We have been underselling the future. In fact, the future will be neither dystopia nor utopia (which is an actively harmful dichotomy) — it will be what we do the work to make it. And the best way to the brightest future is to focus on what we CAN do, and make sure we are working to get there. Between climate change, the impact on the future of work by intelligent automation, misinformation, and more, humanity faces several exponential changes and existential threats simultaneously. Yet there are reasons to lean into hope: emerging technology, for example, also brings with it tremendous power and offers the potential to solve human problems at scale. Achieving the best outcomes possible now is largely a matter of collective action and political will. The best way — indeed perhaps the only way — to confront the challenges we face and build a better tomorrow is to allow ourselves to envision the brightest future possible, while at the same time acknowledging the ways the future could go dark and working to prevent them from happening. Kate O'Neill, author of Tech Humanist and Pixels and Place, explores the ways we have already begun to solve human problems at scale, and makes the case for an approach that's both hopeful and strategic as our best chance at a truly bright future.