Nick Pope – The World in 2045

The Global Strategic Trends program was a UK Ministry of Defense initiative aimed at looking around 30 years into the future, in an attempt to help the British government develop long-term plans, policies and capabilities. Surprisingly, its most shocking report wasn’t classified, yet generated little media coverage, partly because it was hidden in plain sight, and partly because defense journalists who were aware of it didn’t quite know what to make of it. It reads like science fiction, but it isn’t. From robots and Artificial Intelligence, through to quantum computing and human augmentation, the world is changing – fundamentally – in a way and at a speed that has never happened before.

Retired UK Ministry of Defense official Nick Pope will give symposium attendees an overview of the Global Strategic Trends program, and an insight into some of its most staggering and controversial conclusions. These will include not just new technologies, but the ways in which these technologies will fundamentally change us, perhaps even redefining what it means to be human. In our endless speculation about extraterrestrial life and the implications of First Contact, we tend not to give much thought to the human side of the equation. However, if some of the British government’s predictions are correct, humanity is on the threshold of changes that will have profound implications for any interactions with extraterrestrials.