future of predictions

Is the future over? To some, it has been for some time. Ten years ago, the late critic Mark Fisher wrote of “the slow cancellation of the future” in his…

We do this in our homes, hospitals, backyards, farm fields, and even, in some cases, forests when we use antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, and any other…

All the astrologers I spoke with emphasized confounding factors as one key reason astrological prediction is never, ever 100 percent certain. “People have…

Humans have tried to anticipate the climate’s turns for millennia, using early lore—“red skies at night” is an optimistic sigil for weather-weary sailors…

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that “the algorithm” knows you better than you know yourself. A computer can supposedly predict whether you’ll quit…

One of the most remarkable examples of the use of predictive technology is the story of Robert McDaniel, detailed by journalist Matt Stroud in the Verge in…

Future predictions always proliferate at the end of the year, but in 2021 something different is joining the usual speculations about gadgets and lifestyles:…

If you could predict your death, would you want to? For most of human history, the answer has been a qualified yes. In Neolithic China, seers practiced…

As you read these words, there are likely dozens of algorithms making predictions about you. It was probably an algorithm that determined that you would be…

The future has a history. The good news is that it’s one from which we can learn; the bad news is that we very rarely do. That’s because the clearest lesson…