Uncertain Future

This book explores the past and present of the universe, life, and the human species —with its prodigious brain, culture, and morality— to better understand the complexities of today and project them toward the uncertain future that lies ahead. Through a slightly fictionalized historical essay, the author is accompanied by John, Mary, and Socrates —a personified artificial intelligence— in a conversational investigation that intersects evolution, science, philosophy, religion, economics, politics, demographic and cultural crises, technology, and robotics. In this meticulous investigation, they discover how science and artificial intelligence will generate an era of hyper-abundance and how scientific advances could radically extend human health and lifespan. They also discover that relationships between men and women are severely deteriorated, with the reproductive instinct relegated and, ultimately, the very survival of our species seriously threatened. Uncertain Future offers neither a definitive prophecy nor an inevitable dystopia. Instead, it poses a profound and urgent question: when artificial intelligence, robots, and scientific and technological advances definitively alter work, the economy, family, education, politics, and the very meaning of life, will we still be the same? An ambitious, provocative, and thought-provoking work for those who want to understand where we come from, where we are, and where we might be headed.