Manchester Futurists is run by CDE Research Engineer Rosie Campbell (@RosieCampbell) and Ahmed Razek (@arazek1). Here, Rosie gives us an insight into the group and its aims and objectives.
We wanted a place where we could discuss the impact of technology on society, and how we might nudge things towards utopia and away from dystopia! You can expect us to cover topics such as:
- Artificial Intelligence
- Universal Basic Income
- Techno-progressivism
- Bio-hacking
- The technological singularity
- Transhumanism
- AR and VR
- Machine Learning
- Utopian and Dystopian scenarios
- Speculative fiction
- Anything featured in Black Mirror!
Pretty much the kinds of things you might find here https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/wiki/glossary
Rosie Campbell and Ahmed Razek – Founders of Manchester Futurists
We aim to take an evidence-based approach and avoid pseudoscience. We believe social justice is important to a utopian future, and where appropriate will discuss intersections with feminism, racism, etc.
Last week we held our inaugural meetup, where we discussed the âtechnological singularityâ, 97 members attended the meetup.
I gave a short presentation introducing the technological singularity, just in case some people werenât familiar with the term.
We then broke into groups to discuss things in more detail.
The themes were:
- Human Psychology
- Technical Possibilities
- Immediate Action
Each came with sub-questions as starting points for discussion.
Congratulations Rosie and Ahmed on setting up a fantastic discussion group. If you have found news on this group interesting and you would like to get involved dicussing how technological advancement will shape the future, and the social, ethical and economic challenges humanity will face, you can join Manchester Futurists at meetup.com/Manchester-Futurists.
