Future

We are now living with a great deal of uncertainty, which will increase. As a society, we have to be prepared for threats we cannot conceive, we must build resilience not just in developed countries, but particularly in conflict areas.

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From about 2000, Africa has come into an economic renaissance: Between 2000 and 2008, we saw a marked improvement in macro-economic stability, with inflation falling and interest rates hitting single digits even in areas like Nigeria. We have seen robust GDP growth, 17% in Angola and 5.5% in Ghana and Nigeria in 2008 for example, combined with increases in FDI, which was up 25% year on year between 2000 and 2005.

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When you look at the numbers, over half the sub-Saharan African population is under 18 years old, versus Latin America, where over half the population is under 25 years old and Asia, where it is under 35 years old. In short, these EM populations are young, expansive and dynamic, not like the stable, more risk-averse populations of the world's developed economies.

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At some point, if this kind of technological progress continues, it would seem that our descendants will become entirely digital: uploads or artificial intellects implemented on computers. At that point, it is possible that evolutionary selection will again become an important driver of change—but not necessarily of change for the better.

Philosopher & Director of Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford

Super intelligence would be the last invention biological man would ever need to make, since, by definition, it would be much better at inventing than we are. All sorts of theoretically possible technologies could be developed quickly by super intelligence — advanced molecular manufacturing, medical nanotechnology, human enhancement technologies, uploading, weapons of all kinds.

Philosopher & Director of Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford

In my view, all the big existential risks are anthropogenic, arising out of human activity. More specifically, the biggest existential risks in this century arise out of anticipated future technological advances. Humanity has survived all kinds of natural hazards over a period of over one hundred thousand years; it seems unlikely, then, that any natural hazard would do us in within the next hundred.

Philosopher & Director of Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford

This is a race to the future, a future powered by renewable energy sources and underpinned by efficient energy use. The winning nations, corporation and citizens will reap enormous benefits in terms of jobs, sustainable economic development, energy security and vastly improved local environments.

Environmental activist & former Executive Director of Greenpeace International

The world is changing now faster than you and I change our socks! It's constantly changing, and that constantly changing world is going to induce more movie-making. If you go on YouTube, you can see the most talented young people all over the world who take a camera and start to film ideas they have and put them online.

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China for example, aims to increase their buying by 400,000 barrels a day in the last quarter of 2012, and will be adding over 750,000 barrels of new refining capacity. That economic engine is still turning, but what people want is to be able to price that trade-flow.

If you mean magnitude of crisis in the literal sense of comparing it against the one which occurred? I think it's very, very unlikely. This was the hundred-year flood. If you stopped before that phrase and just asked whether we would face another crisis in the financial markets within our generation? Then I'd bet the ranch on that. Markets have an incredible capacity to forget.

Prominent Economist & Former Vice Chair of Federal Reserve Board

Our mission is to expand the economic sphere of influence of humanity off the surface of the planet and into the solar system. Currently we have a vibrant economy in space that goes out to the geostationary belt- where the communication satellites are- and it stops.

Sometimes people view disability as something permanent when, in fact, our bodies are malleable with technology. One could be disabled for a portion of one's life, and then not be for another; the body is malleable and transformable with technology. Disability is not a fixed condition, it's fluid. This is good news- it means that we can ultimately eliminate disability

Bioengineer and amputee who pioneered advanced prosthetic limb technology

The first trillionaires are going to be created through space exploration. Imagine the mineral wealth on planet Earth, and then realise that Earth is just a tiny blue dot in our whole galaxy… which is just one galaxy in a universe, which could be part of many universes. Everything we think is rare on Earth, is abundant in space.

Entrepreneur & Founder of Moon Express, Infosys Technologies Co-Founder

Stay undefined and stay curious. Our world is changing so rapidly that the only way to survive, thrive and adjust is to have a deep and constant level of curiosity.

Music executive and manager, founder of Meadows and Q&A platform

Climate change isn't just warming the planet - it's fundamentally rewiring the hydrological cycle. Wet places are getting wetter, dry places drier, and the timing of water availability is becoming increasingly unpredictable.

Hydrologist & water security expert; founded Pacific Institute

We've entered the age of Peak Water - where the easy sources are already being used and future supplies will be harder to find, more expensive to develop, and come with greater environmental and social costs.

Hydrologist & water security expert; founded Pacific Institute