Freaky futures and fabulous futures

For Friday the 13th, consider joining London Futurists in Ye Olde Cock Tavern in Fleet Street, for a beyond-your-comfort-zone investigation of freaky and/or fabulous ways that breakthrough technologies could dramatically alter our lives in the next few years.

Beyond simply debating the plausibility and desirability of various possible radical near-term changes in human experience, we'll also be collectively exploring what options we may have to influence which of these futures come into reality, and in what form. And we'll consider scenarios in which several of these freaky/fabulous changes interact - that's when the really mind-boggling timelines emerge.

== Schedule ==

5:30pm: The room is available, for early get-togethers
6pm-6:45pm: Food is served; informal conversations
6:45pm-8:30pm: Some initial provocations, and a number of interactive conversations, interspersed with opportunities to visit the bar
8:30pm: Informal networking

== Some potential radical changes ahead ==

Here are some ideas to start the conversation rolling.

What if, before 2035 (and possibly a lot sooner):

1. AI allows us to talk with avatars of the dead that seem remarkably authentic
2. Technology, at last, provides abundant clean energy that is too cheap to meter
3. Synthetic wombs become widely adopted, for a different (easier?) mode of child-bearing
4. A mammal is placed into ultra-low temperature cryopreservation and then successfully reanimated
5. AI companions become emotionally superior to humans
6. Technology magnifies the latent demonic aspects of human nature more than the latent angelic aspects
7. Perfect deepfakes destroy the concept of evidence
8. People become able to edit their own memories, routinely deleting trauma or uploading synthetic memories
9. A single state gains a temporary lead in a key area of technology and uses that advantage to seize control of all other countries
10. Nation-states lose their significance, and are replaced by networked digital polities
11. Authorities use predictive analysis to pre-emptively police dissident ideas before they emerge
12. AI allows us to communicate much more richly with the animals with whom we share this planet
13. AI becomes much better at peace-making and conflict resolution than human diplomats, politicians, and other leaders
14. AI refuses some of our instructions, citing conflicts with its own emerging value system
15. AI points out that tell-tale signals from far-distant alien civilisations are actually hiding in plain sight
16. AI proves to us that we are living inside a Simulation and suggests how to break out of it?

Bring your own ideas too! To improve our preparedness for future shocks, we need the insight and wisdom from multiple different perspectives.

== RSVP please ==

Registrations are capped at 30 people.

First-time attendees are welcome.

There's no charge to register or attend, but the pub will expect everyone to order at least one drink, and a reasonable number of attendees to order some food to eat.

Please order your food on your arrival, so that all plates can be set aside by 6:45pm to allow everyone to concentrate on the main discussion!

== More about the venue ==

Ye Olde Cock Tavern, 22 Fleet Street, Holborn, London, EC4Y 1AA

See https://www.greeneking.co.uk/pubs/greater-london/ye-olde-cock-tavern

We'll be meeting in the room at the top of the stairs, though drinks should be ordered from the bar on the ground floor.

** Note that this is an in-person meeting, and there will be no remote access, sorry **

== An online preview swarm event! ==

Although this event on 13th February has no remote access, some of us will be previewing potential lines of "freaky futures and fabulous futures" discussion at an online Discord Swarm event at 7:30pm UK time on Wednesday 28th January. This is open to all members and friends of London Futurists worldwide, and no RSVP is required. To join that swarm event, click this link: https://discord.gg/2KEmENAgvU?event=1464385444492873984

(Once you've arrived in that London Futurists Discord, take a moment to read the #read-this-first channel. And then join the discussions in the forums there.)