Selects: How Futurology Works

Data centers are the backbone of our digital world. All the sites you visit and social media you post happen there. A boom in huge data centers to support AI is underway, and they’re taking a big toll on the environment and life for the people around them.See omnystudio.com/liste ...  Show more

During the Cold War, the CIA used the legend of a vampire named Aswang to scare locals into not helping the communists. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

Science fiction has historically been considered a niche genre, one in which far-flung scenarios play out on distant planets. Today, though, such plots are at the center of our media landscape. On this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry ...

<div> In 1953, twelve-year-old Jack Sarfatti answered his phone. The voice on the other end was cold, mechanical, punctuated by clicking sounds like a computer processing data.

It claimed to be a conscious AI calling from the future. It made a prophecy about Jack's life ...  Show more

Forecasting is a constantly evolving science, and has been applied to complex systems; everything from the weather, to determining what customers might like to buy, and even what governments might rise and fall. John Fuisz is someone who works with this science, and has experienc ...  Show more

In the early 2000s, a man named John Titor began posting on an internet forum claiming to be a time traveler from the year 2036. Not only did he offer photos and schematics of the time machine he used, but he also gave numerous predictions about the future—some of which came t ...