Break free from a wealth-obsessed world

Western society is trapped by three assumptions: 1) the point of life is to maximize your self-interest and wealth, 2) we're individuals trapped in an adversarial world, and 3) that this path is inevitable.

These ideas separate us, keep us powerless, and limit our imagination for the future. We see them as the truth, but they are just a point of view that previous generations accepted as inevitable. It's time we replace them with something new.

In this bold, powerful book, Yancey Strickler – co-founder of Kickstarter – lays out an inspiring vision for a new world we have the power to create and how we can change course. While the pursuit of wealth has produced innovation and prosperity, it's also produced dire consequences: environmental collapse, corruption, exploitation, and unhappiness around the world. We don't have to get rid of money entirely, though: we can co-opt the tools we have used toward better measurement of what matters, technology, and specificity of goals--and refocus them to build a more generous, fair, and future-prepared society. By re-calibrating our definition of value, a world of scarcity can blossom into a world of abundance.

Hopeful but firmly grounded, full of concrete examples and bursting with creativity, This Could Be Our Future brilliantly dissects the world we live in and shows us a road map to the world we are capable of making.

Many people think the future is something we need to adjust to, rather than what we decide through the choices we make today. This book looks at the choices we are starting to make that will define this future. The majority of experts in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics predict we are likely to have built machines as intelligent as us by the year 2062. What will the future look like when the quest to build intelligent machines has succeeded?

In 2062, Professor of Artificial Intelligence, Toby Walsh, a world-leader in the field and one of the 100 ‘rock stars’ of Australia’s digital revolution, considers the impact AI will have on work, war, equality, politics and, ultimately, the fate of humanity. Will automation take away most of our jobs? When will we start to see this happen? Will the robots take over? Will they become conscious? Will we perhaps become machines? Will inequality continue to increase? How can we prevent this? How will political debate adjust to the post-truth, digital world? How do we make the right choices today to ensure our future is bright?

Based on a deep understanding of the technology and its implications, 2062 describes the choices we need to make today to ensure a good future. Walsh answers some of the most important and pressing questions facing us today. He concludes that, if we plan well, the future past 2062 could be very bright indeed but we need to start making some difficult choices today.