Topics
Seventeen topics ordered by the scale at which they happen, from atoms to the observable universe. Each one starts from a few questions that guide the research.
Mind and matter
10−10 to 10−1 meters
From the atom to the brain. What happens at this scale decides which machines, cures and minds become possible.
- Technologies yet to be discovered
What materials, machines and physics have we not imagined yet?
- Compute and chips
How much computing power is needed, and who makes it?
- Artificial intelligence
What is general AI, and who controls it?
- Health and disease
Which cures are coming, and what biological risks come with them?
- Mind and neuroscience
What is consciousness, and what happens when we connect the brain to a machine?
Society
10−1 to 106 meters
From one person to a whole country. This is where we decide who rules, who watches and who benefits.
- Meaning and purpose
What makes us human when machines can do almost everything?
- Privacy and control
How much of your life can another person, or a state, see and predict?
- Information and truth
How will we know what is true when anything can be fabricated?
- Work and the economy
Which jobs change, who wins and who loses?
- Ancient knowledge, lost and recovered
What did the first civilizations know, and why did we forget it?
- Power, defense and governments
How is AI changing wars, defenses and the fall of governments?
Planet
106 to 108 meters
The whole Earth. Energy, climate and risks that ignore borders.
- Energy and resources
Can AI help us reach abundant, clean energy?
- Healing the planet
Which technologies can repair the climate and ecosystems?
- AI governance
Who sets the rules for a technology that ignores borders?
- The paths of humanity
Where do we end up, depending on what we decide now?
- Existential risk and resilience
What could end civilization, and how would we recover?
Cosmos
108 to 1027 meters
From the Sun to the observable universe. The science we still have left to do.
- Science and space
How is AI changing the way we do science and explore the universe?