Scenarios

As AI systems gallop into the mainstream, humanity is left staggering somewhere behind, still deciding whether it is riding a horse or being trampled by one. The outcomes are not fixed. But the trajectories are becoming harder to ignore. We explored some speculative futures within the box—Human-AI symbiosis, Turbulent coexistence, and Dystopian displacement—as thought experiments and cautionary tales. Each story reflects plausible developments rooted in today’s technological, political, and economic fault lines. None are entirely fiction. And none are inevitable. ...

It is fashionable to believe that technological progress is inevitable, and that artificial intelligence will, barring catastrophe, continue its relentless march forward. But there is a future—quietly lurking just beyond the smug grins of Silicon Valley keynote speeches—where AI does not progress much further at all. Not because of some singularity, nor because we all upload our brains into the cloud, but because we collectively decide: “That is quite enough, thank you.” ...

Elena remembered when the world still made some sort of sense. Not much, admittedly—it had always teetered somewhere between absurd and unbearable—but at least back then, she could lie to herself about having a job, a future, or a say in how things turned out. Now, her morning routine involved checking two things: whether the universal basic income had landed in her bank account (it had not), and whether the nearest AI surveillance drone was watching (it was). ...

Elijah never quite knew how to answer the question, “So, what do you do?” He could say AI liaison, but that sounded pompous and vaguely sinister. He could say digital compliance coordinator, but even his mother snorted at that one. In truth, he spent most of his days arguing with regulatory software about whether the hospital’s cancer diagnostics model violated EU data transparency directives or merely flirted with them. It was 2028, and Elijah worked at a hospital that could diagnose rare cancers with 99% accuracy. The machine—he refused to call it a colleague—could parse blood data, family history, and MRI scans in seconds. It was not always right, but it was close enough that human oversight had become more symbolic than necessary. ...

Pau was late, again, thanks to the AI-run tram that insisted on pausing for precisely 12.4 seconds at each station “for optimal urban harmony.” “Urban harmony my arse,” he muttered, stepping out into Barcelona’s midday sun, which was now neatly moderated by micro-reflective paint and smart algae rooftops. Somewhere, a city-wide AI had just nudged the temperature down a degree using a predictive cloud-seeding protocol. It was not magic. It just felt that way. ...

Premise: Functional by design By 2040, BRICS+ emerges as the world’s most effective climate alliance—not through luck, but through shrewd strategy, sovereign solidarity, and an uncanny ability to turn adversity into opportunity. What begins as a pushback against western hypocrisy evolves into a multipolar green order, driven by energy pragmatism, diplomatic agility, and some rather bold infrastructure experiments. How it happens The west’s green hypocrisy backfires (2025–2030) The European Union launches its much-touted carbon border tax with great fanfare—and little diplomacy. In the Global South, it is promptly dubbed “eco-colonialism in spreadsheets”. Meanwhile, the United States fails to pass its second Green New Deal, after a series of fiscal deadlocks and an unexpected banking crisis send climate funding into retreat. ...

Premise: Dysfunctional by design By 2035, BRICS+ doesn’t collapse under its own contradictions, nor does it morph into a cohesive challenger to the G7. Instead, it stumbles into superpower status by a series of messy accidents, economic disasters, and geopolitical farces. Less deliberate empire, more Frankenstein with a membership card. As the West self-harms through sanctions, debt cliffs, and diplomatic hubris, BRICS+ rises—not through coordination, but sheer entropy. They didn’t build an empire. They inherited the scrapyard and accidentally started selling tickets. — Anonymous EU diplomat, 2034 ...

The BRICS alliance began life as something between a Goldman Sachs marketing gimmick and a drunken bet among emerging market traders. “I’ll wager you a case of champagne these four economies will dominate by 2050!” Fast-forward two decades, and what started as an investment banker’s acronym has somehow morphed into a geopolitical bloc with expansionist ambitions. The recent addition of new members under the “BRICS+” banner suggests this is no longer just about economics. This is about building an alternative world order where the rules are made by autocrats and petrostates. ...

The received wisdom—trotted out at Davos panels, EU Commission summits, and in the more sentimental columns of the Financial Times—is that Europe, having learned its lessons from two world wars, has spent the past eight decades basking in a glow of enlightened tranquillity. No more trenches, no more blitzes. Just a polite consensus of democratic cooperation, cross-border trade, and the occasional fracas over mackerel quotas. How charming. And how utterly wrong. ...

Scenario Planning, 2013. Observable Misery, 2022. Obliviousness and congruence Let’s start with the obvious: all scenario planning is fantasy. Dressed up, data-driven fantasy, but fantasy nonetheless. No crystal balls involved—just a lot of graphs, jargon, and people nodding solemnly in conference rooms. And what most digital scenarios consistently overlook is the actual state of the world. You know—finite planet, finite resources, that sort of inconvenient reality. Likely effects Economic development might slow down, unless you’re a transnational behemoth with a flair for tax evasion and a fondness for shareholder value. Employees are already being told to “make do with less”—which in practice means being set up to fail and then blamed for it. Burnout, frustration, and plunging performance are the inevitable side effects of pretending scarcity isn’t a thing. ...