“Uncertainty, agency, and the future context of internet governance: a foresightful conversation” is an article I co-wrote for the Journal of Internet Technology and Politics with colleagues Lucia Vesnic-Alujevic, Sophie Mitchell, Zoe Hawkins, and Cho Khong.
We explore how the structures, dynamics, and value of internet governance may play out in different scenarios – and the implications for the situations and decisions we face today.
I’m speaking at the UCL Languages of the Future conference on 6th June, presenting a paper titled “Are we even talking about tomorrow? Uncertainty, agency, and the encounter with the sublime”.
The event brings together contributors from across academia and broader society to think through the complex relationships between languages and times to come. We’ve been given a few big questions to chew on, like: How can “languages of the future” encapsulate specific individual disciplines, embrace diverse knowledge systems, convey the urgency of problems that are yet to arise, and honour the voices of the more-than-human world?
I’ll be standing on the shoulders of thinkers like UCL’s Richard Sandford to explore uncertainty, agency, and the “thick present”: an understanding of the here-and-now encompassing remembrance and anticipation. As Rafael Ramírez and Angela Wilkinson have it,
The future is always an aspect of the present. The future has not “taken place,” but the present always “holds” the future, and holds it as potential. Indeed, the future is never “later,” is it always (experienced, imagined) “now.”
I’m pleased to be presenting at the University of Oxford’s Human-Algorithm Interaction Workshop 2025, on “Governing the futures you didn’t see coming: artificial intelligence scenarios“.
Do join us in Oxford, 5-8 July, for an interdisciplinary event delving into the complex and evolving relationship between humans and algorithms.
The annual workshop is a gathering of industry leaders, AI pioneers, and leading researchers who will explore the evolving role of AI in business, governance, and society. This year’s theme is “Shaping the future of AI: innovation, ethics and impact.”
The editorial team at Issues in Science and Technology invited me to submit a response to Ed Finn’s excellent recent article on using science fiction to stage conversations about science and technology policy.
You can read my letter, “Looking Beyond the Ghost Scenario”, at the Issues website.
I’m pleased to be delivering two sessions as part of the University of Oxford’s contribution to the Right Here Right Now Global Youth Climate Summit, a 24-hour virtual event presented by UN Human Rights and the Saïd Business School.
The online gathering brings together students and educators from across the world to share ideas about embedding climate action at the heart of education systems.
Find out more at the Saïd Business School website or register for the 24-hour livestream here.
This Friday, the Foresight Club of the European Parliamentary Research Service hosts a presentation from Sophie Mitchell, Chief Communications Officer of Australia’s domain name regulator auDA.
Do check them out and, if you’re free, join Sophie and the European foresight community this Friday, 11th April, 9.30-10.30am Central European Time, via Webex.
It feels somehow timely that “The Ghosts We See From the Mountains“, a chapter co-written with the University of Galway’s Marie Mahon for the Routledge volume Crisis and Body Politics in Twenty-First Century Production, is now live online and open access.
The chapter explores the useful intersection of Oxford-style scenario planning with issues of spatial justice and Verónica Gago’s concept of the “body-territory”.
Thanks to volume editors Charlotte Spear and Maddie Sinclair for bringing everything together.
My 2023 conference paper “The ghosts we see from the mountains: Scenario planning and the territorial body in time” will be published next year in Routledge’s edited volume Crisis and Body Politics in Twenty-First Century Cultural Production, as a co-authored chapter with Marie Mahon of the University of Galway.
Marie and I collaborated on the foresight elements of the IMAJINE project, a Horizon Europe-funded programme exploring spatial justice and regional inequality across Europe.
We look at how scenario-based thinking can inform strategic conversations and policy decisions around territorial inequality: Do citizens have equal rights and opportunities regardless of wherever they live? Are different places treated fairly? Is your ability to realise your rights compromised by where you live? How will the answers to these questions vary as contemporary uncertainties unfold?
I recently joined the Information Security Forum’s Mark Ward and auDA’s Sophie Mitchell for a short podcast discussion exploring foresight, uncertainty, cybersecurity, and Internet governance.
We looked at these issues through the prism of auDA’s recent scenarios for the future of the Internet and ISF’s own Threat Horizon foresight product.
In an uncertain world, scenario planning equips you with skills and tools to deal effectively with potential opportunities, threats and challenges.
This new video from the team at Oxford’s Saïd Business School showcases the latest cohort from the award-winning Oxford Scenarios Programme, which helps participants learn how to develop robust strategies in the face of numerous plausible futures.
As one graduate of the programme puts it, “I always come to Oxford expecting to have my mind really stretched…the thing that surprised me most this time was that I’ve come away with a feeling of confidence that I can take what I’ve learned and really apply it in my day job.”
(It’s also a tremendous amount of fun).
Enrolment is now open for April and October 2024. Find out more here: https://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/programmes/executive-education/person-programmes/oxford-scenarios-programme
matt finch / mechanical dolphin 