Our perspective of the future, of what lies ahead of us, has historically been shaped by an array of actors. For millennia, religious thinkers have offered vivid descriptions of an afterlife while certain Christian leaders have imagined that the end of the world is imminent. Marxist philosophers also, through their analysis of history and class struggle, have argued that the future was inevitable: revolution and socialism.
Yet, over the past few decades, alongside our preachers and philosophers, it is our technological leaders who have radically shaped what we anticipate as ahead of us. For many, the future does not appear to lie in revolution, let alone heaven or hell, but in some sort of science fiction. Whether it is the promise of artificial general intelligence (AGI), Elon Musk’s vision of colonising Mars, or the radical extension of human life spans, we are continuously confronted with visions of radically transformed techno-futures.
My work interrogates these contemporary visions of the future and asks what social and political norms are embedded within them, and how might they be influenced by past futures.
Read more:
Katachie, S. & Kessler, A. (2024). Imagining identity in Meta’s metaverse: a genealogy of imagined future realms in computer culture. Communication, Culture and Critique. 00, 1-10, https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcae015
Big Tech wants us to believe in their vision of the future
(LSE Business Review – May 2024)
AI, Augmented Reality, The Metaverse: How to challenge Big Tech’s visions of the future.
(LSE Media – July 2023)
Asher Kessler 