A Brief History of a Perfect Future

What if, instead of trying to predict the future, we could just pick the one we want—and then invent it? Well, we can.

Think of the wealth of technological resources already available to us. The computing power in that smartphone in your pocket could have guided 120 million Apollo-era spacecraft to the moon and back. A gigabyte of memory cost $300,000 in the 1980s—today, it costs a fraction of a penny. Now, try to imagine 2050, when your computing devices will be a million times more powerful or available at one-millionth of today’s prices.

In this deeply researched and compelling book, the authors do the imagining for you, describing seven so-incredible-as- to-be-almost-magical capabilities that will be available by 2050 in computing, communication, information, genomics, energy, water, and transportation. You may finally get that flying car, have ample water even in a desert, and be treated for disease through microscopic robots in your bloodstream.

Drawing on their decades of experience helping major organizations formulate strategies for innovation, the authors demonstrate how to use combinations of those seven capabilities to imagine “perfect” futures, whether that means reversing climate change, resolving today’s disinformation crisis, or living 20 years longer. This book paints visions of how the world could—and should—look as we pass the planet on to future generations.

We can use those visions to start inventing a perfect future—today.

Paul Carroll