Journal of Socialomics

Abstract

2015-16 State of the Future

Jerome C Glenn, Elizabeth Florescu and Millennium Project Team

Another 2.3 billion people are expected to be added to the planet in just 35 years. By 2050, new systems for food, water, energy, education, health, economics, and global governance will be needed to prevent massive and complex human and environmental disasters. The Millennium Project’s futures research shows that most of these problems are preventable and that a far better future than today is possible. Brilliant insights, policy and social innovations, scientific and technological breakthroughs, and new kinds of leadership are emerging around the world. The interactions among future artificial intelligences, countless new lifeforms from synthetic biology, proliferation of nanomolecular assemblies, and robotics could produce a future barely recognizable to science fiction today.