future

Rather than talking about what the internet ‘can’ do, we can reflect on what it has done and use evidence to anticipate the future and adapt our policies. But doing so requires more sophisticated and holistic ways of measuring its impact.

Last week I wrote about how we define the internet. This week, some thoughts about its history and its trajectory. The internet has been around now long enough for its history to be written.

What can AI do that humans can’t? What can humans do that AI can’t?

The last blog post of the year. Last week I reflected on the (digital) year gone by; this week some thoughts – and hopes – for the (digital) year to come.

As part of the WOW Global 24 Festival, award-winning Brazilian journalist Eliane Brum gave a powerful account on the current situation in Brazil and what she describes as a "government-driven genocide of Brazil's indigenous people."

Yes, we’ve been able to substitute digital ways of doing things for the ways we’ve previously done them across much of our lives – or, at least, some of us have. But it’s proved more partial and less universal than some expected, which poses questions for the future.

Predicting the future’s hard but there are two global trends that seem fairly certain. Digitalisation and climate change are likely to shape our future more than anything else that we can see at present. How are they linked? Or, to put it another way, why aren’t they linked more?

This week, I’ll comment on a new view of long-term employment and unemployment in the digital age, from Oxford economist Daniel Susskind. A World Without Work, he calls it. I’ll agree with his core arguments but challenge the optimism of his conclusion.