Berättat av Yutong

Om du tänker på hur du lever i dag, vad tycker du fungerar bra och vad skulle du vilja förändra?

Being a researcher in 2023 certainly has its struggles and challenges, many of which are probably due to the limited funds available and the way they are distributed. I’m not sure if there’s any clear and systematic way of improving the current academia yet, but the discussion is on and it’s a good first step.

Overall, however, doing research in 2023 is exciting, fun, and certainly beats the experience in any previous centuries. People from different parts of the world with different backgrounds meet and collaborate. New ideas and breakthroughs are made in these exchanges.

However, with the increasing specialisation of each field, the communication across the fields, as well as between the scientists and the public, is insufficient. The public distrust in science is partially because of such gaps, which hopefully can be narrowed and not widened in the years to come.

När du funderar på hur livet i Sverige, Norden och världen ser ut i dag, vad tycker du fungerar bra och vad skulle du vilja förändra?

The Nordic region is doing well on multiple fronts — work-life balance, inclusiveness, emphasis on mental health, efforts to tackle climate change, and others. I hope the momentum driving all these important aspects is carried on in the future in a world of increasing complexity.

Among the many challenges to come, AI is arguably the most significant one. It could potentially cure all diseases, promote the civilisation from planetary to interstellar and beyond, spell the doom of all humanity, or all/none of it. There is little to nothing that anyone can do, the moment AI reaches/surpasses human intelligence, becomes fully autonomous and/or conscious. But between now and then, the trajectory of AI development can and should be entirely determined by how we design the rules. I hope the Nordic region and the world will come together to better prepare for the initial condition of AI’s “awakening”.

Hur vill du att Sverige, Norden och världen ser ut om 30 år? Och hur vill du att ditt eget liv eller efterkommande generationers ser ut?

It’s 2053. A few recent breakthroughs finally made nuclear fusion a viable source of energy. The era of fossil fuels is near its very end, with airplanes and space vehicles being the only two exceptions that might still run on fossil fuels in the near future.

A new generation of scientific instruments in space is being readied for launch, which will give us the sight and sound of deep space, all the way to a fraction of a second after the birth of the universe itself.

The rapid advancement of AI for the past few decades has brought it close to the level of human intelligence. The global economy sees significant boost due to AI’s unmatched productivity. But more and more people, mostly those whose jobs have been replaced by AI, express their frustration and fear by taking it to the streets and demanding a halt to all AI research.

Although humans now have limitless clean energy and boosted productivity at hand, the future looks no more certain than in the previous decades.

Hur vill och tror du att livet i Sverige, Norden och världen ser ut om 150 år?

It’s 2173. Viable nuclear fusion has been providing every corner of the world with clean, cheap, and essentially limitless energy for over a century. Power outage, CO2 emission, and industrial pollution completely faded into the pages of history books and museums.

Numerous probes roam the space across the solar system, with a few flying far and away into the interstellar space. Ultra-light probes have reached a few nearby systems and sent back high-resolution images of stars and exoplanets. The debate of whether aliens exist goes on. The Moon has been completely industrialised and settlements on Mars have become self-sufficient. New cultures and identities are being forged by the long-term human presence away from Earth.

Fully-conscious AI has been granted citizenship, enjoying full rights as any human beings, on the settlements on Mars. But the societal acceptance of AI on Earth and Moon remain low. The fear of AI and the ever growing power of Mars finally erased national borders on Earth and Moon, granting the United Nations the right to rule over two worlds.

It seems the future of the solar civilisation will be determined by the interplay of humans on three worlds and AI.