ANTH1915: Futuristics: Bio-cultural Futures of our Species

The Futuristics seminar is organized around a single unifying question: what is the bio-cultural future of humanity? We will seek answers to that question by focusing on major technological, biological, and social domains, and speculating about how these areas will change in the next 20-50 years, and how those changes will impact our species. Major themes will include future biological evolution, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence and computer-human interfaces, climate change, the global and digital economy, education, and space. Students will explore the generative tension between creative and rigorous prediction, and learn basic methods researchers use to model the future. The seminar culminates in discussion and writing of speculative fiction that imagines possible futures of our species based on current evidence and forecasts.

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