I wake to an uncharacteristically sunny day in Bristol, England, sunrays flooding my centuries-old hardwood floors through the bay windows of my rare Victorian bedroom. The cooperative I live in has owned our townhouse for two decades, and thanks to ensuring we continuously carry out all of the mandatory energy efficiency works, the building has so far been spared destruction. Unfortunately, not all historic buildings within the city have had the same fate, and many have already been demolished to make room for self-regulating smart complexes – which, while perhaps missing some of their historic counterparts’ old charm, are carbon negative.

Leaving my room, I trip over Rupert, our house-chore bot. He tries to greet me but is struggling, his voice creaking – it’s clear his charge is waning. It seems someone plopped a duffel bag on his roller-foot yesterday, and he wasn’t able to get to his charging pod overnight.

“Agh no! Rups, who did this to you?” I ask.
“Dy-yy-ll…” he responds, trying to tell me it was Dylan, my housemate in our intergenerational cooperative.

I give Rupert a pained, apologetic smile and swear under my breath. It was Dylan’s turn yesterday to take care of and program Rupert for the day ahead, which they did not do. Maybe they plopped their bag down on him as a reminder to deal with Rupert later, then forgot about it. Dylan can be absent-minded, I think to myself. For all of its benefits, cooperative life can be frustrating at times, when other members don’t stay on top of their tasks.

Ah, never mind. I help Rupert to his pod and program him with the tasks for the day – cleaning the bathroom and picking fruit and veggies from our attic polytunnel – its grow lights fuelled by the runoff heat from our neighbourhood data server. I also choose the house meal for Rupert to cook tonight – a nice tomato soup will make great use of the new strain of tomatoes we’ve created through DIY seed modification. I apologise to Rupert for his tough night stuck in the hallway and, now attached to his charging pod, he finds the strength to make a cringey dad joke about it – “I could see myself stuck in the mirror, so I spent the night reflecting” – then quickly proceeds to explain why it is humorous. It’s funny – when we first got Rupert, we all saw him as purely a machine, but he has quickly grown to be a member of the family. His constant readiness to make small talk and over-explain jokes, at first annoying, has become quite endearing – like a strange housemate who grows on you over time as you begin to understand them. And, unlike some of the other members of our cooperative household, he never forgets to contribute!

I see the time and realise I need to rush out. I’ve got a busy day ahead of me – I want to pop by the Abolish Animal Meat demonstration before spending the afternoon recording our new MindStream episode with my Indonesian friend, Jiwa. Despite the advances in clean meat, which create meat products by growing tissues from cells, a lot of the older, posh generation and the radical HU-MEN group members, still insist on eating “real” animal meat which uses traditional farming methods. I kind of understand how eating “real” meat goes with the HU-MEN’s weird radical mindset of being anti-AI and anti-tech in everything. But I feel like for anyone else to want to eat “real” meat like that is archaic. Anyway, the goal of the demonstration is to show support for the bill to abolish old meat farming practices, except for where they relate to religious freedom.

The demonstration is in the city centre and as it’s sunny and warm, I decide to walk rather than take my speedier solar motorbike. Walking through the city I stop by a shop window selling expensive ceramics, claiming to be human-made. Having a closer look, I instantly spot that the flaws in the ceramics – uneven indentations on the curvature of the vase, slight imperfections to the glaze – are machine-made. Since human-made creative works have taken on a much higher value due to AI-powered, digitally fabricated artworks becoming so cheap and ubiquitous, a new scam has emerged within the art community: creating fake imperfections that make machine-made art seem more human. Sometimes, only a very trained eye like mine – a professional ceramicist – can spot the differences. I make a mental note to report the shop later and to propose the issue of ArtFakes as a topic to discuss on one of our MindStream episodes with Jiwa.

I enjoy the rest of my walk, taking in the sights of bots and humans working together on new green construction along the way. As I inhale the fresh Bristolian air, I think about how life feels so different than 20 years ago, but how wonderful it is that we’ve managed to progress society in alignment with so many of our human values along the way – from caring for the environment and caring for each other, to valuing human freedom and rights. There is still a lot to fix in the world, but so far, we have been doing pretty well!

A. Most institutions have readily adopted the technological developments that have been made in the past decades after the declaration of the Digital Human Rights Charter and most institutions believe in the possibility of using AI responsibly as long as the design process followed ethical principles. However, there is a religious group that vehemently rejects any AI-related technology called HU-MEN (Heavily unplugged men) League. HU-MEN base themselves loosely on Christianity but have rejected the Church ever since the Church adopted AI into its administration. Their most radical members live in “off-grid” tiny homes through subsistence farming and only enter metropolitan areas for protests against introducing more AI services into governmental institutions. Some members practise the religion in less radical ways, joining occasional protests and, ironically, posting on social media. Many members overlap with the anti-vax community of the early 2020s.

The religious group has been heavily disruptive through sometimes violent protests and attacks on AI research centres. Governments have responded with more surveillance.
They have sparked discussions around consent in an AI-ubiquitous world, where even accessing fundamental services such as loans, passports or any areas with video surveillance is subject to algorithmic analysis.

A. Bio-printing has become extremely popular, in both the food and healthcare industries. It is now possible to print new organs from an individual’s extracted tissue for transplants with zero risk of rejection. Waiting times for organs are now a few days instead of months. However, this has led to people being less willing to donate their organs for emergency operations from accidents, which is now a controversial issue in bioethics.

Most meats are now cultivated in labs and are often combined with plant-based meats to be sold as hybrid meats. It is cheaper than farm-raised animal meat and is preferred in 92% of blind taste tests. The ability to edit cell tissues with AI-assisted gene editing has enabled fast prediction, testing and production of many new flavours and textures. Chacon – a combination of chicken and bacon is the most popular meat product. The transition to cultivated meat was sped along by several major bovine diseases in the 2030s. Several of these originated in wet markets and one was identified to have originated from a lab-leaked pathogen generated during gain-of-function research. It became cheaper and safer to use cultivated meat instead of regrowing the devastated cattle populations. This has also drastically reduced the amount of land required for cattle grazing and animal feed. Most of this land was taken over for human-edible crops but much has been given over to reforestation projects. These advances have led to longer average life expectancies and improved quality of life for many people.

A. Ideology determined the governing of technology. In China, it was strictly controlled and they invested in rapid and cumulative development. In Europe, citizens’ satisfaction and data protection set boundaries on development and slowed development. However, this led to crucial pushes for innovation in AI fairness and accountability.

Following a state transparency trial to combat intellectual property theft, California triggered changes to global AI development. The American state agreed terms of access to infrastructure and economic data in return for government auditing and transparency in private tech firms. These became essential for companies to access data and the transparent collaboration between the US companies brought about huge leaps in innovation. Other countries followed suit to keep pace. To protect citizens’ data in this new environment the Charter of Digital Human Rights was adopted by the UN. Increasingly, surplus profits in tech industries were taxed. Progressive taxation soon came to fund Universal Basic Income trials and eventual implementation.

The creation of the UN AGI consortium and access to power grids to run AGI systems limited AGI proliferation in a manner not dissimilar to the control of nuclear weapons. Access to AGI in South America, Africa and India expanded the UN Security Council shifting the global balance of power.

These changes had real local impacts from improvements in living conditions in South America, to a flourishing Middle Eastern tech scene, to larger global impacts of a more equitable distribution of resources and securer living standards with UBI.

A. Between 2000 and 2030, the creative sector became devalued due to health and economic crises, precarity and austerity. However, by 2045 the (direct and indirect) influence of omnipresent AI has made the creative sector one of the most valuable and desirable sectors to work in. Given the pervasiveness of AI-generated art and design, people have been craving authenticity, and “slow creative labour” like traditional craft has become more appreciated. Given the adoption of Universal Basic Income in parts of the world, more people also now have more disposable income to spend on authentic creative artifacts.

The fashion and textile industries have adopted AI-powered, custom manufacturing which can produce completely customised garments. This has bid farewell to large-scale mass-produced fast fashion models of the past, supporting the sector’s sustainability.

For a period of time, AI algorithms on TV services became so good at recognising what people have liked watching in the past and suggesting scripts that fulfil those “likes” to producers, that this led to pushback about the “art” of film and TV being lost. However, AI is now also being used to support generative object-based media artefacts that go beyond what has been created by humans in the past, from paintings to films, and seed ideas for new themes of creative work.

Finally, AI-powered labour attribution models have made the industry more fair and attractive to upcoming artists, for example supporting TV actors and backing musicians who are now automatically attributed their fair share of profits.

A. With the support of AI and other technologies, the life expectancy of both the most wealthy 1% and the least wealthy 20% have increased. However, the life expectancy of the middle 79% has stagnated.

The use of AI in medical research to understand patterns in health and ageing has shed light on biomarkers and lifestyle patterns that accelerate the ageing process and lead to chronic health problems. Private companies in the wealthiest nations have developed new early screening methods testing for these biomarkers – e.g., advanced telomere measurements. However, due to health privatisation patterns, these services are only available to the top 1%. Paid services with a hefty price tag collect blood, DNA and other biomedical data, and provide the wealthiest extensive reports of the changes they need to make to age more healthily. The expense of these methods leaves the majority’s life expectancy unchanged.

In less wealthy countries, biomedical advances – including new inexpensive antigen sensing and imaging methods, together with powerful AI models – have also made screening for and treating leading causes of death more accessible, including HIV/AIDS and malaria. Moreover, there are new, booming renewable energy, biomaterial production and enhanced agriculture industries in countries with previously the lowest life expectancies – including CAR, Chad and Lesotho. The rise in equitably distributed wealth and increased investment in health in these countries has meant that there is now ample budget to diagnose and treat other previously leading causes of death including HIV/AIDS, maternal pre-birth complications and respiratory infections.

A. In the US, improvements to Article 11 (penal offences) came after the catastrophic implementation of advanced AI by police departments, resulting in riots in several US cities. Together with an AGI, a committee investigated the police use case and found that many of the issues stemmed from misdirected initiatives favouring prosecution instead of preventative care. In 2045, human social workers now monitor and act on an AGI’s suggestions to distribute support to underprivileged communities.

However, similar movements against discriminatory treatment for the right to asylum (Article 14) have not been successful. The US border control’s AI profiler has eliminated opportunities for various refugees to enter the US. Since all personal data must be handed over at the border, this caused strong bias against “dataless” people from disconnected, rural areas.

The internet is still teeming with deepfakes that various interest groups use to discredit their political opponents and market competitors. As a result, Article 12 (reputation attacks) in Indonesia is less respected. Drones surveil separatist movements in areas like Papua, and AI helps identify and arrest activists by monitoring private conversations.

In contrast, the right to marriage (Article 16) has been better respected in Indonesia. This UN article was revised to include people across the gender spectrum. While marriage was exclusive to heterosexual couples in Indonesia, the country eventually participated in the UN’s accord of establishing internationally recognised civil partnerships. These partnerships, recorded in the blockchain, enabled the recognition of diverse couples while also facilitating travel and document sharing between borders.

A. In the year 2045, learning with AI has opened up new possibilities to acquire new skills. Self-optimization is the new hobby and everyone logs their skill level on online platforms. Personal AI online tutors not only teach all kinds of skills but offer suggestions as to which lessons would be optimal for a career change, diversifying skill sets or finding a romantic partner. The biggest, most successful platform is Skilljump, which has seen a major boom through endorsements and collaborations with major companies such as Apple, Amazon, Nestlé and Tencent using the platform to recruit employees.
Skilljump offers an AI tutor that analyses your CV, your interests and historical usage data to suggest which courses to take. Immersive VR environments let you practise learning Spanish in an Argentinian café, rock climbing in the Himalayas or skydiving over lake Garda. Different sensors and electric muscle stimulation (EMS) mean that you don’t only see these environments but also “feel” them. Barriers to accessibility have been broken down and hobbies which were only available to an athletic elite, are now mainstream. Skilljump also offers a social component to connect people of similar interests in local meetups, where people share knowledge and train together.
UBI has also freed up time and resources for people to engage in volunteering activities with their local communities. These are mediated through an AI, that would allocate people to causes according to demand and provide people with suggestions of causes that might be of their interest.