Our Fall 2017 Recommended Reading And Watching List
Announcing FTI’s 2017 Journalism Futures Survey
August 4, 2017
Speculative Fiction, Philosophy, Memoir
plus Essays, Movies and Shows About the Future of Technology and Science
The Future Today Institute’s Recommended Reading & Watching List For Fall 2017
To map the future, you must start by looking for the present-day fringe. It’s in the fringe where creative thinkers develop innovative ideas that aren’t shackled by research grants or other constraints which would cause them to edit themselves. Much of the fringe is about being in a space where few operate, in order to experiment and allow the mind to wander productively. Finding the fringe is the first step in futures forecasting.
If you want to understand the future, read science and speculative fiction, as well as philosophy, memoir and essays on the implications of technology. The Future Today Institute curates seasonal lists based on current events and emerging trends. Below is our Fall 2017 list of recommended reading and watching. You’ll find familiar titles as well as new works.
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Books We’re Reading
Noumenon by Marina J. Lostetter
The Signals Are Talking by Amy Webb
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland
Amatka by Karin Tidbeck
Dear CEO: 50 Personal Letters from the World’s Leading Business Thinkers by Thinkers50
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
The Accusation: Forbidden Stories From Inside North Korea by Bandi
Without You, There Is No Us by Suki Kim
Maus by Art Spiegelman
The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin
My Rad Life: A Journal by Kate Schatz and Miriam Klein Stahl
Debriefing by Susan Sontag
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Thinking In Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadow
The Master Switch by Tim Wu
Onlyness by Nilofer Merchant
Future Shock by Alvin Toffler
A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni
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Essays We’re Reading
What Are the Ethical Consequences of Immortality Technology by Francesca Minerva and Adrian Rorheim
The Herd Instinct by Sigmund Freud
Skynet began destroying humanity 20 years ago today. It shares a disturbing number of qualities with Trump by Amy Webb
We need to shift the conversation around AI before Elon Musk dooms us all by Chad Steelbert
Is a Cambrian Explosion Coming For Robotics by Gill A. Pratt
A 19th Century Vision For The Year 2000 from various artists in France
A Proposal For The Darmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence by J. McCarthy, Dartmouth College; M. L. Minsky, Harvard University; N. Rochester, I.B.M. Corporation; C.E. Shannon, Bell Telephone Laboratories
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Shows and Movies We’re Watching
Dr. Strangelove – rewatch it, if you saw it long ago
Black Mirror – the new season is out this fall (Netflix)
Westworld – worth revisiting within the context of current AI debates (HBO)
Ascension (Netflix)
Electric Dreams (Channel 4 in the UK – try Amazon if you’re elsewhere)
Metropolis – the original version from 1927
World of Tomorrow (Netflix)
