A Survey of
the Future

As 2020 demonstrated, our ability to look even a year beyond the present moment is limited. Expand that timeline to half a century, and the shape of the world is anybody’s guess. For the Future Issue, we eschewed a single oracle and instead asked for the predictions of five people in very different industries: a sci-fi writer, a neuroscientist, two futurists and a cyborg anthropologist. Their answers, which oscillate between saccharine utopianism and cynical pessimism, are a telling reminder of just how little we can foresee. The survey also reveals an interesting dichotomy in how we think about the future: Is it better to predict the future we actually think will come to pass, or the one we wish to see?

— How will we communicate? 

AC: The medium by which we communicate may change,...