It’s getting harder to write. Everything I put down feels out of place with what I read around me. It feels like the world is moving away from nuance and becoming increasingly focused on extremes full of contradictions. Especially with ideas about the future, creativity, technology, neuroscience and all that jazz, which are some of my favourite subjects.
Months ago it wasn’t as difficult and I had found my space as a techno-skeptic-optimist. I was encouraged by wanting to mitigate AI impact, in particular on creative production after so many peers, and new graduates could not get jobs. I’ve been interested in creative areas where AI will never take over, for instrinsic reasons. I felt I was finding a meaningful response to the restructuring of the creative services sector. I felt the world was changing too quickly around a bubble which was promising everything but delivering limited clear cut cases, even in advertising where I work. But I felt Optimism was still something I could convey.
But now in mid 2026, I get the feeling I can no longer speak freely about the future. Or at least not do so without somehow being complicit in something off, according to one side or the other. Things are literally getting hot and there is an ever decreasing room for subtlety and humour.
Many futurists had been predicting a kind of unstable convergence of technologies around NBIC: Nano, Info, Bio and Cogno. And the futures they have been describing that leap out from this have been Utopias, transcending humanity, not so worried about practical problems in the present, like climate. The expectation drove philosophies and research into new ideas like the study of existential risks, and ethics of AI. And as long as these ideas were set at a good distance in time, and were speculative narratives they did not have much practical influence. They were a kind of science fiction that allowed technology oriented thinkers to dream about interesting opportunities and problems ahead. Sure, many groups took on one techno-utopian vision or another, but they had been unable to engage the mainstream or relate to actual influence on culture and society.
But instead market forces bought the idea that AI would take over everything. In the last years I would often hear that: AI will grow exponentially (whatever this means), people will lose their jobs to synthetic workers and finally some weird narrative like we will birth a new conscious god. In exchange, perhaps we would manage to upload ourselves into this entity and live forever digitally: like files on Gods’ desktop!
I admit, I am simplifying the story, condensing views into one, but there is some thread of truth there. And the problem with this situation, in my opinion, is less to do with the weird ideas, but it is how it mixed with business. Today it is hard to tell if someone believes in a certain future because it is well aligned with their stock valuation, or because the particular future is one they want for their kids. Also the new futures are presented as inevitable, without noting the brittle chain of assumptions that need to be true, without spending any time to consider connected ethical questions we would feel compelled to regulate. It is not unimaginable that climate or disease might steal the limelight, and present problems technology can’t solve so easily.
The core assumption that AI leads to a runaway process that takes over the world is a gross oversimplification. It takes power away from human agency, it looks at intelligence as something you can score precisely on one dimension and assumes the world offers us perfect optimisation advantages. It fits the mindset of an engineer that has not dealt with the messy systems that drive the natural world.
And today given how strong the forces have been, we are starting to feel a pushback. The AI bubble has led us into anti-AI feelings, and our imagination is caught in the middle, with little room for new ideas about the future, at least none with nuance and consideration. So what I write about now takes on a political & social dimension, when I have little competence in these areas. Most of the ideas I have about bridging technology for resilience will sound heretical. I feel like I am supporting nuclear energy at a peace rally, it doesn’t vibe with the general audience.
As a concrete example of pushback look at the controversy that is emerging about many AI enthusiasts not even being interested in a Human future. The story goes that there are many engineers in Silicon Valley which welcome the idea that AI will take over humanity. The argument sounds a bit hand-waving but I am sure is true enough to be worrying: that the same Scientists and Engineers that design systems to help humanity might be somehow help plot its demise. The label of being Extinctionist, in other words supporting human extinction somehow, is one I had not come across tied to movements like Transhumanism till very recently. Transhumanists are a group vying for a Cyborg future where humans mix with machines. And they have always been pretty weird but also philosophically central to questions tied to medical problems like allowing patients to speak through brain implantation: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/06/15/1138953/man-als-first-power-user-brain-implant-speak-bci/
This is a complex and serious discussion but things have gotten so heated that there is risks that we lose the room to share ideas. And, again a would put a lot of the blame here on conflating the Sales aspect of CEO’s sharing their philosophical thoughts while enjoying paradoxical gigantic valuations for technology they describe as an existential threat. If we were to not listen to parties invested in ideas we would do a lot better.
I give you my view on humanity’s future: I am an optimist and believe we will respond to existential challenges to rise above them. We will transform language dramatically around with our tools, particularly AI systems of the future. I do not even exclude that some kind of synthetic consciousness may emerge but this is not where we should be putting our effort when we have obvious signals of more serious problems that affect people and animals today.
I am on a terrace, at night in June 2026 under a huge sky, near a port. I can hear the sound of the boats tapping against each other, and waves, lazy waves, in the night as I write and talk to myself in a whisper:
“Optimism, there is something off…”
“What do you mean?” I slap a mosquito off my arm.
“Well, it is an -ISM.. but I can’t see people really gathering around to march for it.”
“It might happen?”
“And also, optimism requires Time. You need a future.”
“So?”
“Well, it is an -ISM about something that doesn’t exist, but that you think is good. And it should be good according to what you believe now, not someday.”
“Not sure I get it…”
“Well, you can’t be optimistic about humanity being replaced by a weird super-intelligent machine for example.”
“I think I see what you mean.”
“And another example is I am optimistic there is life out there in the universe. But it can’t mean I believe destructive aliens will annihilate us.”
“I get it. Why does it matter?”
I hear some anomalous sound out in the port. And I see a man board a sailboat and a small light go on. He’s going to bed. His light reflects on the waters like an upside down tree. I wonder if there are mosquitoes out there on the water.
“The point I wanted to make is that for us to be able to be optimistic, we need to believe there is a time ahead for us. We need multiple kinds of “time ahead of us”. We need the time to expect a leg to catch up with the other while walking, but we also need to think about tomorrow, the next year, five years, fifteen, hundreds, thousands and more.”
“I never realised we had a problem?”
“Well, we do when people talk about the birth of a super-intelligent entity, the singularity or any such similar. There is no future past this we can talk about by definition. And yet, this idea of the end of optimism, is extremely brittle. It is like a conceptual Ponzi scheme, you are left with nothing at the end.”
“Ponzi, the great Italian con artist…”
“Yeah, you know, I don’t even mind so much what sort of futures people go peddling. The thing that really annoys me is that I can no longer consider a more nuanced discussion, without expecting backlash.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well the AI bubble has made a bed for its opposite. And CEOs discussing the risks their tools subject humanity to while gaining in stock valuation has not helped.”
The man in the boat turned his lights off.
I’d also like to fall asleep cuddled by gentle waves. Waves that repeat as some kind of tick on a clock. Creating a sense of time, and a place for stories. A place for conjectures about things that could be.
In this bit I now use AI to help me look at something. I will try to create a table, or a taxonomy which is a sort of map of everything in a field. I want to try to make some sense of what is going on. And so it is interesting to look at all human writing about the future and to categorize it according to how far in the future and how rigorous the writing is.
Consider these types of writing: Academic Writing, Journalism, Futurist Analysis, Corporate Pitches and Science Fiction, they create a direction across which the writing more rigorous and constrained, to being less so and freeform.
To be clear: Academic writing is peer reviewed, it comes up with hypothesis that require validation, Journalism normally has sources, as Futurists follow techniques like scenario planning in which they look at parallel different futures.
The second axis I am interested in is time: things that are happening soon, not so soon and pretty far. I deliberately ignore deep futures in this case as they are not part of my argument.
What is clear from this work is that the problem we are dealing with across our communication and media is an overload of corporate speculation stealing the show and pretending to be reliable robust hypothesis based work. And the huge financial consideration tied to the corporate speculations has influenced other phases, confusing and maybe even opportunistically influencing Journalism, Futurism and Academic Work. In this process the potential for actual, individual, Optimism has been lost.
Now, we are missing the tools to decide what sort of futures to imagine, blinded by giant speculation. It’s a bit as if you were trying to sell roses in Amsterdam end of 1636 in the height of the tulip bulb bubble where some tulips would be sold as a ten-year salary.
A Comprehensive Taxonomy of Future-Oriented Writing
When analyzing how literature, science, and industry conceptualize tomorrow, the landscape can be mapped along two primary dimensions:
- The Horizon of Time (When) and
- The Spectrum of Rigor vs. Freedom (How).
By structuring the landscape this way, we can categorize the most common and recognizable types of future-oriented writing found across literature, journalism, academia, policy, and industry.
The Core Axes of the Taxonomy
The Horizon of Time
- Near-Term (0 – 3 Years): The Horizon of Certainty. Driven by existing infrastructure, active research pipelines, current political cycles, and market-ready technologies. The focus is on deployment, immediate impacts, and linear extensions of the present.
- Medium-Term (3 – 15 Years): The Horizon of Plausibility. The zone where strategic investments, nascent technologies (e.g., mainstream quantum computing, early-stage biotechnology), and shifting cultural norms mature. The focus is on branching trajectories and systemic friction.
- Far-Term (15 – 50+ Years): The Horizon of Possibility. The zone of deep generational, demographic, and climate-driven transformation. Present institutional frameworks become highly malleable, and the focus shifts from “what will happen” to “what is possible under entirely new parameters.”
The Spectrum of Rigor vs. Freedom
This axis dictates the constraints placed on the writer. It moves from absolute fidelity to empirical data and institutional consensus, through methodical projection, to unconstrained creative imagination: Empirical Rigor (Academic/Policy) -> Methodical Projection (Futurism/Journalism) -> Creative Freedom (Fiction)
The Taxonomy Matrix
The following matrix organizes the most common, identifiable genres of future-oriented writing by intersecting these two axes.
| Time Horizon | High Rigor (Academic, Legal & Policy) | Methodical Projection (Futurism & Journalism) | High Freedom (Corporate Speculation & Fiction) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Near-Term (0–3 Years) | Empirical Impact Studies • Peer-reviewed research analyzing immediate societal, economic, or psychological shifts. • Example: Econometric models of remote work trends. Legislative Briefs & Regulations • Statutory language and policy briefs targeting immediate technological or market disruptions. • Example: EU AI Act compliance guidelines. | Trend Reporting & Tech Journalism • Investigative and explanatory writing focused on current deployments and imminent releases. • Example: Tech product reviews, market analysis essays. Predictive Market Forecasting • Data-driven industry outlooks and quarterly economic projections. • Example: Gartner Magic Quadrants, Wall Street sector outlooks. | Corporate Product Roadmaps • Internal and external marketing documents mapping immediate product iterations. • Example: Apple Keynote copy, software release timelines. “Five Minutes into the Future” Thrillers • Fiction set entirely within the contemporary landscape, slightly augmented by existing tech. • Example: Techno-thrillers focused on immediate cybersecurity threats. |
| Medium-Term (3–15 Years) | Applied Science Feasibility Studies • Academic engineering or scientific papers evaluating the physical and economic viability of scaling a technology. • Example: Grid-integration studies for fusion power. Strategic National Security Plans • Defense doctrines and white papers plotting geopolitical and tactical vulnerabilities over a decade. • Example: Pentagon 2035 Force Structure assessments. | Strategic Foresight & Scenario Planning • Methodological frameworks creating alternative, divergent future scenarios to guide organizational strategy. • Example: Shell Energy Scenarios, “Cone of Plausibility” reports. Solutions Journalism & Deep Essays • Long-form investigative journalism profiling emerging solutions to systemic problems. • Example: Comprehensive deep-dives on urban climate adaptation plans. | Tech Evangelism & Vision Papers • Semi-fictionalized or highly optimistic manifestos written by corporations to establish industry paradigms. • Example: Corporate white papers on the “Next Web” or autonomous logistics. Near-Future Sci-Fi & Cyberpunk • Narrative fiction exploring the immediate social, political, and human costs of unchecked current trends. • Example: Black Mirror-style fiction, near-future corporate dystopias. |
| Far-Term (15–50+ Years) | Macro-Environmental & Demographic Modeling • Long-range quantitative simulations projecting foundational shifts in planetary and human systems. • Example: IPCC Assessment Reports, UN Population Division long-range models. Bioethics & Applied Philosophy • Academic analysis exploring the ethical boundaries of technologies still in early developmental phases. • Example: Frameworks on the rights of sentient AI or genetic engineering governance. | Megatrend & Systems Analysis • Macrohistorical and structural writing that maps out slow-moving, high-impact global forces. • Example: Books on the future of global power balances, energy transition roadmaps. Design Fiction & Artifact Prototyping • A hybrid method creating fictional objects, newspapers, or manuals from the future to pressure-test present ideas. • Example: Creating a mock health insurance bill from 2060 to study biotech ethics. | Hard Science Fiction & Solarpunk • Creative worldbuilding that constructs detailed, internally consistent futures based on advanced science or radical restructuring. • Example: Interplanetary colonization narratives, ecologically sustainable utopian fiction. Speculative Worldbuilding Exercises • Artistic or narrative frameworks used by authors, game designers, and visionaries to establish entirely new settings. • Example: Comprehensive sci-fi world bibles, tabletop lore. |
When you look at this table and think about what the world around us has been talking about in the public sphere, I think the problem is very clear. We have had too much bleed in funding across from corporate interest and speculation to the media we are exposed to. And on the other hand have been captured by channels that run on controversy and amplify the opposite feeling.
I think in essence we lost our Optimism in the clash between speculative business mega bubbles and doomsterism of various kinds. We miss nuance, it might not be possible to find a middle ground, but at least if we could remain open to other grounds.
I summarise with some points to the right to Optimism:
- The future presented by a CEO is more likely Sales than earnest prediction of what is to come.
- Intelligence is not a simple single dimension, there is no one dimensional timeline we are certain about. Even a simple two-link pendulum is unpredictable and has chaotic properties, why would anything else be so much easier?
- It is likely your source of reference “news” is tied in to emotional sequencing mechanisms that allow using cheap content to sell products. You get a Hook of something interesting then a Spike of something unnerving or violent, then Relief and finally you can consider registering and becoming a regular paying subscriber to my Substack. I find this drains my Optimism.
- If we want to be Optimists, we need room to dream. So hold on to your ability to imagine futures, however silly they might be.
It would be great if you, dear reader, went out there and wrote ideas about your own future, with what optimism you can!
Now to the AI Experiment bit:
The Many Futures LLM-Puzzle
This is a solitaire puzzle that you play with an AI LLM to try to make sense of a particular future. As a player you fill a matrix of ideas that reflect your individual idea of future with three degrees of Rigor versus three different Timescales.
+ Three degrees of Rigor are: Academic/Policy writing, Professional Futurist and Fiction versus
+ Timescale of Near Term 0-3, Mid Term 3-15 and Long Term 15-50.
Each turn you try to fill a particular entry in this table with something you could write and that would fit there.
The LLM Agent should try to offer a competing entry to yours as an alternative that is designed to fit better with all other entries. If you can keep your entry and not accept the LLM Agent’s entry you gain a point, up to 9 points to fill the whole table.
Each turn the LLM Agent will summarise your table and their critiques to entries.
The related gameplay session is here, where I attempt to play and give up!