In 2024, fusion technology will finally make the transition from basic research to commercial application. The reason for that will be the construction and completion of the first commercial fusion demonstrators. These cutting-edge facilities are smaller than fusion power plants. For instance, a laser-based fusion demonstrator might use five to …
Read More »Greener Is Getting Going
From wildfires in Canada to flooding in India, people across the world are dealing with the realities of climate change. The world recorded its highest temperatures ever this summer and the climate models for 2100 make sobering reading. To tackle climate change we need a data-driven approach, using technology to …
Read More »The AI-Fueled Future of Work Needs Humans More Than Ever
Much like the internet did in the 1990s, AI is going to change the very definition of work. While change can be scary, if the last three years taught us anything, it can also be an opportunity to reinvent how we do things. I believe the best way to manage …
Read More »A Dangerous New Home for Online Extremism
Can you imagine what a digital white ethnostate or a cyber caliphate might look like? Having spent most of my career on the inside of online extremist movements, I certainly can. The year 2024 might be the one in which neo-Nazis, jihadists, and conspiracy theorists turn their utopian visions of …
Read More »Social Media Is Getting Smaller—and More Treacherous
In 2024, social media will get small. Not small in influence, of course. As the US weathers an election likely to be both divisive and often divorced from reality, social media will again be a battleground for public opinion and perception. But the platforms on which these conversations will take …
Read More »AI-Generated Fake News Is Coming to an Election Near You
Many years before ChatGPT was released, my research group, the University of Cambridge Social Decision-Making Laboratory, wondered whether it was possible to have neural networks generate misinformation. To achieve this, we trained ChatGPT’s predecessor, GPT-2, on examples of popular conspiracy theories and then asked it to generate fake news for …
Read More »A New Way to See Your Climate Anxiety
A recent global study, which surveyed 10,000 young people from 10 countries, showed that nearly 60 percent of them were extremely worried about the future state of the planet. The report, which was published in the medical journal The Lancet, also showed that nearly half of the respondents said that …
Read More »Inequality Is a Health Risk—and It’s Getting Worse
In 2024, the maternal mortality rate (MMR) in the United States and the United Kingdom will grow, although postmortem reviews conclude that 80 percent of maternal deaths in high-income countries are preventable. Rates in high-income countries across Western Europe and Asia did decrease between 1990 and 2010, yet in some …
Read More »To Keep Gen Z, Companies Need to Level Up
In 2024, there will be a paradigm shift in employee-employer power and trust dynamics. It’s part of a generational redesign of work from being like a game of Tetris to becoming like a game of Roblox. Growing up, I spent countless hours playing Tetris on my Nintendo Game Boy. There …
Read More »Big Tech Won’t Let You Leave. Here’s a Way Out
The platform is the canonical form of internet business: a two-sided market that facilitates connections between end-users and business customers. Uber connects drivers with riders; Amazon and eBay connect sellers with buyers; TikTok and YouTube connect performers with audiences; social media connects people with something to say with people who …
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