Digital Hope

inside the circle

Crisis invites us to reimagine.

Can you envision the future in 10, 100 or even 1,000 years? The ‘techno-fixes’ we develop now will shape our planet — for better or for worse. How can we face our challenges whilst remaining hopeful and creative about the future worlds we can build?

Introduction

Prepare

Can culture lay the groundwork to help us imagine the next crisis? Art, design, literature and games can help us deal with future disasters, not only by exercising our hopes and fears but also by imagining new possibilities and solutions. How can culture and technology work together to help us try out novel ideas for coping with the future?

Fix

Artificial Intelligence has been billed as the ultimate set of tools for the ultimate set of problems. AI is seen as a technological innovation that promises super-human powers to overcome our greatest existential threats. But how far can our human abilities be ex­­panded and augmented by a technological intelligence? Will AI exceed our own capabilities, or will it eventually remind us of our limitations?

Escape

What draws us to fantasies and grand schemes of escape from our current and future conditions? Technology seems to offer endless and appealing solutions: the chance to build homes in uninhabitable places, to live outside of our current limits, or to exist in a wholly computer-generated world. Will we ever really get away? Or will we only end up taking our problems with us?