Asstronaut

The weekly Throwback Thursday thread! A place to discuss past predictions of the future and their outcomes.

Let’s start a new thing! Throwback Thursday, a pinned weekly post where we can discuss past predictions and how accurate they were now that we are living in the future!

What happened to the Moller Sky Car? Are our Jetsons video watches available sooner than we thought they’d be? Where’s my domestic household nuclear reactor?

Cobot: Coworker Robot. How do you think we will fare when the ‘new guy’ at work is a machine? As these machines become increasingly intelligent and closer to sentience, how will we share the spoils of our labour? Will we have the same rights in the workplace?

As the field of implantable brain devices moves in leaps and bounds, there will come a time in the future when we will need to consider obsolescence of these devices, and as the implants grow in complexity and scope, will we eventually have to redefine our idea of what it is to be human?

This article proffers a fascinating matrix by which we can categorise and stratify the risk of suffering as a community in the future. Could this be the root of a new real-life Asimovian Psychohistory?

An interesting article describing the first very real steps towards a linguistic exchange of ideas with an animal; perhaps the non-human intelligence we have been seeking was right beside us the whole time

In the future it may be commonplace to genetically test an embryo for the likelihood of certain diseases, but the technology can do so much more; where do we draw the line?

Should insect protein become the dietary norm of the future, how will our descendants feel about our reactions to the first insect aisle in the local supermarket? Could we perhaps be the last generation to be seen as true meat eaters?

Lithium extraction from batteries has so far proven to be notoriously difficult; this recently published paper outlines a novel method of extraction which may have a great impacts on how we manage lithium resources as the demand for power storage continues to surge.

While we are locked once again in a heated debate about the future of our professions in the wake of ChatGPT, this article digs deep in to our past to reveal similar discussions surrounding of advancements in computer programming throughout history