From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
We don't trust human beings to do things without being audited, and we're now getting AI to do those very same things without the same checks and balances.
We are living longer and measuring GDP growth is not the way to decide whether a society or an economy are flourishing.
We're up against corporate, almost criminal behaviour. We are up against corporations who are manipulating young, vulnerable people.
Our disconnection from nature has led to such irreverence towards the earth, a kind of murderous environmental rampage, a collective matricide. We destroy the forests, we pollute the waters, we violate the earth to the point where environmental damage now threatens the long-term survival of our species.
We didn't just make technology, it made us. In the modern context, this phenomenon terrifies some people and excites others- but it's going to happen. We have to understand how humans and their tools and technologies blend at scale – it's going to be an absolutely fascinating journey.
Unless women have the chance to take up an active role in our economies and fulfil their potential, our ambitions for a fairer and more prosperous world simply won't be realised.
Our story, our fight, the story of President Zelenskyy… these all come together in the story of how everyone is capable of more than the world expects of them.
All you have to do is walk through an airport, for example, and notice that it is very difficult to navigate through it. You will encounter humans (almost statue like) who are glued – looking at their mobile phones, unaware of what is happening around them, because they are addicted to their technology. That is by design that people are addicted to technology.
World leaders have promised everything to everyone. But they are failing. The UN's Sustainable Development Goals are supposed to be delivered by 2030. The goals literally promise everything, like eradicating poverty, hunger and disease; stopping war and climate change, ending corruption, fixing education along with countless other promises. This year, the world is at halftime for its promises, but nowhere near halfway.
We have made money, capital, materialism and consumption into our God, it's a disease – you could call it affluenza. It is perhaps because of this context that humanity has lost its way, and the consideration of human rights has been subordinated to the interests of a handful of powerful people who sit at the top of the pyramid.
The world of celebrity offers an escape from the real world, and offers different things to different people. To many, the celebrity world is aspirational, they imagine themselves living that lifestyle and dream of how it would be to go to that premiere, have that fancy house, or that expensive vacation. For others, the world of celebrity is like watching a car-wreck.
The process of problem definition is a discipline that we rarely teach or learn. It is one of the most important things that we can invest our time in. What are the true underlying causes of a problem? How are people really affected?