We all have theories about what the future might look like. But what did the future look like in the past? And how have the advent of new technologies altered how people viewed the future? We talked with curator of modern sciences and historian of Victorian science Dr Johnua Nall, professor of Digital Humanities and director of Cambridge Digital Humanities Professor Caroline Bassett, and Junior Research Fellow in the history of artificial intelligence Dr Jonnie Penn in our attempt to understand how the future was thought of in the past. Along the way we discussed utopias and dystopias, the long history of science fiction, and how the future might come back to haunt us!
This episode was produced by Nick Saffell, James Dolan and Naomi Clements-Brod. Annie Thwaite and Charlotte Zemmel provide crucial research and production support for Series 2.
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Guest bios
Professor Caroline Bassett is Professor of Digital Humanities and Director of Cambridge Digital Humanities (@CamDigHum). Caroline’s research explores digital technologies in relation to questions of knowledge production and epistemology (how does 'the digital' change scholarship, transform understanding, produce new scales or perspectives?) and in relation to cultural forms, practices, and ways of being (how can we understand the stakes of informational capitalism, what are its symptoms, how can we understand its temporalities, the forms of life it enables, and those it forecloses?).
Dr Jonnie Penn @jonniepenn is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, technologist, activist, and public speaker. He writes and speaks widely about youth empowerment, the future of work, data governance, and sustainable digital technologies. He explores the Future of Work for Millennial and Post-Millennials in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. A Research Fellow at St. Edmund’s College and at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, and as an Associate Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence and an Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University.
Dr Joshua Nall Is the curator of Modern Sciences at the Whipple Museum of the History of Science. His research focuses on mass media and material culture of the physical...
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