Future Tense
By ABC
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Category: Society & Culture
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Subscribers: 873
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Episodes: 244
Description
A critical look at new technologies, new approaches and new ways of thinking, from politics to media to environmental sustainability.
| Episode | Date |
|---|---|
|
The danger of generational labelling
|
Jan 15, 2026 |
|
Civility, trash talking and more sociable cities
|
Jan 08, 2026 |
|
Frozen frogs, tissues and cells — the health and environmental benefits of keeping it chill
|
Jan 01, 2026 |
|
Building a new social contract
|
Dec 25, 2025 |
|
Whatever happened to...?
|
Dec 18, 2025 |
|
A Future Tense retrospective
|
Dec 11, 2025 |
|
Is AI really taking over the internet?
|
Dec 04, 2025 |
|
A tale of two futuristic cities
|
Nov 27, 2025 |
|
Ancient viruses, new threats
|
Nov 20, 2025 |
|
Microplastic removal and decarbonising cement
|
Nov 13, 2025 |
|
Learning how to learn in the age of generative AI
|
Nov 06, 2025 |
|
Disinformation, digital tech and democracy
|
Oct 30, 2025 |
|
Getting up to speed with autonomous vehicles
|
Oct 23, 2025 |
|
Technology and language — a dynamic relationship
|
Oct 16, 2025 |
|
Are we turning the housing crisis into a living crisis?
|
Oct 09, 2025 |
|
Reviving the past and digital mapping for the future
|
Oct 02, 2025 |
|
Are we kidding ourselves about decarbonisation?
|
Sep 25, 2025 |
|
Is globalisation dying?
|
Sep 19, 2025 |
|
Taxing carbon on the border and at sea
|
Sep 11, 2025 |
|
Existential hope vs Existential Fear
|
Sep 04, 2025 |
|
Cooperation, not conflict on the High Seas
|
Aug 28, 2025 |
|
Convenience culture's inconvenient truth
|
Aug 21, 2025 |
|
Perspectives on the potential of AI-powered policing
|
Aug 14, 2025 |
|
The truth about AI and productivity
|
Aug 07, 2025 |
|
Sinking Cities
|
Jul 31, 2025 |
|
How to balance the population needs on our planet
|
Jul 24, 2025 |
|
Lessons from South Korea's security dilemma
|
Jul 17, 2025 |
|
A turning point for the United Nations
|
Jul 10, 2025 |
|
The potential benefits and risks of developing "mirror life"
|
Jul 03, 2025 |
|
The world after us!
|
Jun 26, 2025 |
|
How to start your own golden age
|
Jun 19, 2025 |
|
Australia and Canada — Strategic partners, but near total strangers?
|
Jun 12, 2025 |
|
Reassessing the laws of war; and why progress isn't always a straight line
|
Jun 05, 2025 |
|
Beyond the cloud — storing data in space
|
May 29, 2025 |
|
Forgetting, not memory, moves us forward
|
May 22, 2025 |
|
Bitcoin boom or digital deception?
|
May 15, 2025 |
|
Can the oceans solve our carbon removal problems?
|
May 08, 2025 |
|
YouTube turns 20; and the interesting side of boredom
|
May 01, 2025 |
|
Remember the Jevons Paradox!
|
Apr 24, 2025 |
|
The power and peril of the optimistic mind
|
Apr 17, 2025 |
|
AI's "hidden labour" and the move toward a linkless internet
|
Apr 10, 2025 |
|
The roots of techno-authoritarianism
|
Apr 03, 2025 |
|
Some challenges to conventional economic thinking
|
Mar 27, 2025 |
|
Civility, trash talking and more sociable cities
|
Mar 20, 2025 |
|
Limitarianism — could a cap on wealth reduce inequality?
|
Mar 13, 2025 |
|
Understanding attention and a craving for certainty
|
Mar 07, 2025 |
|
Flow Batteries, windships, and a new approach to off-grid solar
|
Feb 27, 2025 |
|
Modern museums, accountability, and openness
|
Feb 20, 2025 |
|
Nuclear tombs and the distant discourse of danger
|
Feb 13, 2025 |
|
The danger of generational labelling
|
Feb 06, 2025 |
|
Could Utopian thinking save democracy?
|
Jan 30, 2025 |
|
How to ensure privatisation serves the public good
|
Jan 23, 2025 |
|
The vicious cycle of fear and anger — and how it traps society
|
Jan 16, 2025 |
|
Algorithms create a dull conformity — off and online
|
Jan 09, 2025 |
|
The must-have skill for the future: Untangling unintended consequences
|
Jan 02, 2025 |
|
Nostalgia can make you vulnerable to manipulation
|
Dec 26, 2024 |
|
The artificial secret behind "natural food"
|
Dec 19, 2024 |
|
The role genetics could play in bringing down Methane levels
|
Dec 12, 2024 |
|
The cities that create rain; AI in warfare; and do carbon offsets really work?
|
Dec 05, 2024 |
|
Do we need new rules of war as conflict takes on a cyber dimension?
|
Nov 28, 2024 |
|
Whatever happened to...?
|
Nov 21, 2024 |
|
A declaration on future generations
|
Nov 17, 2024 |
|
Robots in the home – friend or foe?
|
Nov 07, 2024 |
|
Melting brains and climate anxiety
|
Oct 31, 2024 |
|
Frozen frogs, tissues and cells — the health and environmental benefits of keeping it chill
|
Oct 24, 2024 |
|
Sex tech, AI and the centrality of consent
|
Oct 17, 2024 |
|
Wolf Warrior diplomacy — Have we finally seen an end to undiplomatic diplomacy?
|
Oct 10, 2024 |
|
Why China has tightened its belt and road
|
Oct 03, 2024 |
|
The year of the poll — democracy's mega test
|
Sep 26, 2024 |
|
Saying goodbye to ageism — the last “acceptable” prejudice
|
Sep 19, 2024 |
|
AI snake oil — its limits, risks, and its thirst for resources
|
Sep 12, 2024 |
|
The "disruption nexus" and the power of a good crisis
|
Sep 05, 2024 |
|
Rediscovering the essence of Liberalism could help in the battle against authoritarianism
|
Aug 29, 2024 |
|
Why in the 21st century are we still talking about the political Left and Right?
|
Aug 22, 2024 |
|
"Anthropocene" — why the fight about a name has real world consequences
|
Aug 15, 2024 |
|
We're losing the dark sky and you can already feel the consequences
|
Aug 08, 2024 |
|
Can we afford to continue to keep pets — environmentally and financially?
|
Aug 01, 2024 |
|
Technology is revolutionising sport performance
|
Jul 25, 2024 |
|
Are the big US media platforms swallowing our culture?
|
Jul 18, 2024 |
|
A new push in the search for alien life
|
Jul 11, 2024 |
|
Technology and language — a dynamic relationship
|
Jul 04, 2024 |
|
Rethinking productivity and the pushback to shareholder capitalism
|
Jun 27, 2024 |
|
Limitarianism — could a cap on wealth reduce inequality?
|
Jun 20, 2024 |
|
Sucking CO2 from the air — a "Mammoth task"
|
Jun 13, 2024 |
|
The truth about AI – garbage in, garbage out
|
Jun 06, 2024 |
|
The best response to disasters: centralised strength or community mitigation?
|
May 30, 2024 |
|
The greatest demographic shift in a century is being ignored: single living
|
May 23, 2024 |
|
It's time to take the Influencer economy seriously
|
May 16, 2024 |
|
When good intentions fuel further environmental problems
|
May 09, 2024 |
|
Big corporations are taking over as landlords and it's further fuelling the global housing crisis
|
May 02, 2024 |
|
The great distribution dilemma – can public interest journalism survive?
|
Apr 25, 2024 |
|
Dark sky at night, everyone's delight
|
Apr 18, 2024 |
|
Nobel-Prize laureate Abhijit Banerjee on the world's largest UBI experiment
|
Apr 11, 2024 |
|
The manufacturing of "natural food" and how tech can demystify what we eat
|
Apr 04, 2024 |
|
Self-destructive behaviour — the enemy within
|
Mar 28, 2024 |
|
Fear and anger – the complicated emotions that govern our world
|
Mar 21, 2024 |
|
Algorithmic homogeny – why everything looks and feels the same
|
Mar 17, 2024 |
|
The weaponisation of nostalgia; and has culture come to a standstill?
|
Mar 10, 2024 |
|
Are we really becoming more isolated and less community minded?
|
Mar 03, 2024 |
|
TikTok's superstar economy – how live-streaming is turning social media into a game played for money
|
Feb 25, 2024 |
|
Conversing with aliens and 'decentering' the human
|
Feb 18, 2024 |
|
Does AI show we overestimate our human creativity? And what does creativity mean anyway?
|
Feb 11, 2024 |
|
Growing houses and running computers with help from bacteria — the future of synthetic biology
|
Feb 04, 2024 |
|
Building a new social contract
|
Jan 28, 2024 |
|
The Great Regression and the "kidification" of adulthood
|
Jan 21, 2024 |
|
Research productivity and innovation is declining
|
Jan 14, 2024 |
|
Managerialism ... and what it means for work
|
Jan 07, 2024 |
|
Turning our back on alcohol
|
Dec 31, 2023 |
|
Who are the beneficiaries of climate change?
|
Dec 24, 2023 |
|
The Great Plunder – curbing human creativity through mass theft
|
Dec 17, 2023 |
|
Sweltering Cities – the cost of exponential urbanisation
|
Dec 10, 2023 |
|
Technology churn versus digital Inclusion
|
Dec 03, 2023 |
|
How ancient trees could help in the fight against climate change
|
Nov 26, 2023 |
|
Why knowing when to finish is as important as getting started
|
Nov 19, 2023 |
|
The great scan — mapping below Earth's surface
|
Nov 12, 2023 |
|
Giving old technology a future-focussed twist
|
Nov 05, 2023 |
|
Cory Doctorow: Platform capitalism and the curse of "enshittification"
|
Oct 29, 2023 |
|
Architecture's AI crossroads
|
Oct 22, 2023 |
|
People have to solve the climate crisis — technology alone is not the answer
|
Oct 15, 2023 |
|
China's plan for a digital currency will have global implications
|
Oct 08, 2023 |
|
Worshipping a divine AI and turning outer space into an art gallery
|
Oct 01, 2023 |
|
The normalisation of economic warfare
|
Sep 24, 2023 |
|
Considering unintended consequences is the new crucial skill for the 21th century
|
Sep 17, 2023 |
|
The complexities of oversimplification
|
Sep 10, 2023 |
|
The Circular Economy approach – thinking systemically about the environment
|
Sep 03, 2023 |
|
Should you pay to drive into your city centre — for the sake of the climate?
|
Aug 27, 2023 |
|
Rethinking productivity and the pushback to shareholder capitalism
|
Aug 20, 2023 |
|
Acoustic restoration of ecosystems — how the sound of love helps animals return to old habitats
|
Aug 13, 2023 |
|
Air conditioning: keeping us cool but making the planet hotter
|
Aug 06, 2023 |
|
Algorithmic Intimacy – self-love, liability and babies as click bait
|
Jul 30, 2023 |
|
Self-destructive behaviour — the enemy within
|
Jul 23, 2023 |
|
The first ever drop in global energy sector emissions; and the battle for our brains
|
Jul 16, 2023 |
|
Should individuals bear the largest burden for climate action?
|
Jul 09, 2023 |
|
Cory Doctorow: Platform capitalism and the curse of "enshittification"
|
Jul 02, 2023 |
|
A new lifeline for local news
|
Jun 25, 2023 |
|
How Japan is redefining its military defence
|
Jun 18, 2023 |
|
Can mining the ocean floor go ahead without regulations?
|
Jun 11, 2023 |
|
Designing buildings for disasters
|
Jun 04, 2023 |
|
Robots + bees = pollination
|
May 28, 2023 |
|
Advanced AI – are we repeating the mistakes of the past?
|
May 21, 2023 |
|
Falling in love with an app! When Anthropomorphism, making things too human like, goes wrong
|
May 14, 2023 |
|
How the world could end – take two
|
May 07, 2023 |
|
We're all responsible for plastic pollution ─ and for cleaning it up
|
Apr 30, 2023 |
|
Correcting the record on China's economy
|
Apr 23, 2023 |
|
The sound of the stars
|
Apr 16, 2023 |
|
Food security in a precarious world
|
Apr 09, 2023 |
|
Will future generations turn away from alcohol?
|
Apr 02, 2023 |
|
The future threat from ancient viruses
|
Mar 26, 2023 |
|
Introducing "brubery" — bribery's other half
|
Mar 19, 2023 |
|
Some home truths about declining research productivity, innovation and disruption
|
Mar 12, 2023 |
|
Embracing serendipity and breaking free of algorithmic shackles
|
Mar 05, 2023 |
|
ChatGPT — the hype, the limitations and the potential
|
Feb 26, 2023 |
|
Deep Fakes and moral panic
|
Feb 19, 2023 |
|
Managerialism and our obsession with hierarchy
|
Feb 12, 2023 |
|
A global pandemic treaty; communication vulnerabilities; and talking to the animals
|
Feb 05, 2023 |
|
The climate change "winners"
|
Jan 29, 2023 |
|
Coming to terms with noise
|
Jan 22, 2023 |
|
Should we really aim for sustainable development?
|
Jan 15, 2023 |
|
Fashion’s fast future
|
Jan 08, 2023 |
|
The future of satire is no laughing matter
|
Jan 01, 2023 |
|
Forgetting, not memory, moves us forward
|
Dec 25, 2022 |
|
A Right to Disconnect ... from work
|
Dec 18, 2022 |
|
The cultural impact of streaming; and the "digital horder" within
|
Dec 11, 2022 |
|
The trouble with tech-driven farming
|
Dec 04, 2022 |
|
Noise: the invisible ocean pollutant
|
Nov 27, 2022 |
|
Should individuals bear the largest burden for climate action?
|
Nov 20, 2022 |
|
Why corporations need to think more about society and less about profit
|
Nov 13, 2022 |
|
The positive side of monitoring
|
Nov 06, 2022 |
|
The complexities of oversimplification
|
Oct 30, 2022 |
|
Community electricity grids and building better batteries
|
Oct 23, 2022 |
|
The Great Regression and the "kidification" of adulthood
|
Oct 16, 2022 |
|
New ways to move about cities
|
Oct 09, 2022 |
|
Understanding tech-facilitated abuse; and problems in space
|
Oct 02, 2022 |
|
Food security in a precarious world
|
Sep 25, 2022 |
|
Have data breaches become just another cost of business?
|
Sep 18, 2022 |
|
Air conditioning: keeping us cool but making the planet hotter
|
Sep 10, 2022 |
|
The opportunity costs of corporate welfare
|
Sep 03, 2022 |
|
Xenobots - the tiny robots with enormous potential
|
Aug 28, 2022 |
|
How ancient trees could help in the fight against climate change
|
Aug 21, 2022 |
|
Airships return to the skies and a serious problem that could cripple long-range space travel
|
Aug 14, 2022 |
|
The strange case of the trees that grow metal and how to harvest them
|
Aug 07, 2022 |
|
eDNA monitoring; 'telehealth' for animals; and using animals as early warning system for disasters
|
Jul 31, 2022 |
|
The Digital Self, Web3 and reclaiming your online identity
|
Jul 24, 2022 |
|
The real worth of net zero is debateable
|
Jul 17, 2022 |
|
Emotional Intelligence and the promise of a better workplace
|
Jul 10, 2022 |
|
Algorithmic audiencing, bioluminescent lighting and the virtues of a circular city
|
Jul 03, 2022 |
|
A non-proliferation treaty for fossil fuels
|
Jun 26, 2022 |
|
Reembracing the spirit of public service
|
Jun 19, 2022 |
|
Cities – the hot beds of evolution
|
Jun 12, 2022 |
|
Disinformation and propaganda in a time of conflict
|
Jun 05, 2022 |
|
The Earth BioGenome Project; the church of women; and what do we really think about facial recognition technology?
|
May 29, 2022 |
|
The population conundrum
|
May 22, 2022 |
|
Does data science need a Hippocratic oath?
|
May 15, 2022 |
|
Cliodynamics, the Hinge of History and why all history is revisionist
|
May 08, 2022 |
|
Big data and farming – the promise and the fear
|
May 01, 2022 |
|
A slow move towards a plastic free future
|
Apr 24, 2022 |
|
Are Sovereign Wealth Funds the best way of safeguarding the future?
|
Apr 17, 2022 |
|
Space-based Solar: energy above the clouds
|
Apr 10, 2022 |
|
The future of satire is no laughing matter
|
Apr 03, 2022 |
|
Forgetting, not memory, moves us forward
|
Mar 27, 2022 |
|
When development aid goes wrong - propping up bad regimes
|
Mar 20, 2022 |
|
The fall of cash & the rise of central bank digital currencies
|
Mar 13, 2022 |
|
Drones, witnessing and the view from above
|
Mar 06, 2022 |
|
Banning books and floating suburbs
|
Feb 27, 2022 |
|
Fashion’s fast future
|
Feb 20, 2022 |
|
Space pollution, stunted high-rise and the joy of missing out
|
Feb 13, 2022 |
|
The opportunity costs of global pollution
|
Feb 06, 2022 |
|
Rare Earths and the difficulties of supply
|
Jan 30, 2022 |
|
Is dumbness our destiny?
|
Jan 23, 2022 |
|
Litigating our way out of climate change
|
Jan 16, 2022 |
|
The power of storytelling – a cautionary tale
|
Jan 09, 2022 |
|
Is the process of ageing inevitable?
|
Jan 02, 2022 |
|
Rewilding to safeguard biodiversity
|
Dec 26, 2021 |
|
Social media: harm and transformative justice
|
Dec 19, 2021 |
|
Coming to terms with noise
|
Dec 12, 2021 |
|
Geopolitics in a post fossil-fuel world
|
Dec 05, 2021 |
|
Our adolescent future and reassessing human rights
|
Nov 28, 2021 |
|
The new globalisation
|
Nov 21, 2021 |
|
Technology: Questions of ethics and fairness
|
Nov 14, 2021 |
|
An international approach to regulating AI
|
Nov 07, 2021 |
|
An update on nuclear energy
|
Oct 31, 2021 |
|
The positive side of monitoring
|
Oct 24, 2021 |
|
Disappearing cookies and a shortage of chips
|
Oct 17, 2021 |
|
Planning for a problematic future
|
Oct 10, 2021 |
|
The atomisation of religious belief
|
Oct 03, 2021 |
|
Should we really aim for sustainable development?
|
Sep 26, 2021 |
|
The Metaverse – turning life into one big online experience
|
Sep 19, 2021 |
|
Big tech’s big challenge
|
Sep 12, 2021 |
|
Our long-term battle with short-term thinking
|
Sep 05, 2021 |
|
Link rot, pay walls and the perils of preservation
|
Aug 29, 2021 |
|
AI inventors; “Affectivism” and the problem with Virtual Reality
|
Aug 22, 2021 |
|
Bitcoin: silly speculation or the future of finance?
|
Aug 15, 2021 |
|
A new alliance of democracies
|
Aug 08, 2021 |
|
Outsourcing, automation and the messiness of global labour
|
Aug 01, 2021 |
|
The trouble with Tech-driven farming
|
Jul 25, 2021 |
|
Ransomware – a very 21st century crime
|
Jul 18, 2021 |
|
A non-proliferation treaty for fossil fuels
|
Jul 11, 2021 |
|
Litigating our way out of climate change
|
Jul 04, 2021 |
|
Some foresight about the future of foresight
|
Jun 27, 2021 |
|
What role will hydrogen play in our future?
|
Jun 20, 2021 |
|
Rewilding: part two
|
Jun 13, 2021 |
|
Rewilding to safeguard biodiversity
|
Jun 06, 2021 |
|
Is the process of ageing inevitable?
|
May 30, 2021 |
|
Is dumbness our destiny?
|
May 23, 2021 |