The future is a peculiar place, in that it often seen as uninhabited, like a chessboard, where if a series of strategic moves occur, the responses will predictability be this or that. In other words, if people are involved, we all already know how they will react. Perhaps that mindset arises by the enormous amounts of attitude/motivation-related data now being collected—as Edward Snowden reports in his memoir, Permanent Record—with that outcome in mind. But of course Snowden himself is an example of how the actions of a single person can lead to cultural sea changes.

With the release of a new report, “Will America Embrace National Service?” the Brookings Institution convened a discussion on National Service: Rebuilding America’s Civic Fabric, October 10, 2019. The report and the event were co-sponsored by Brookings’ Future of the Middle Class Initiative and Service Year Alliance.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office’s newly formed (2018) Center for Strategic Foresight held its inaugural conference September 10, 2019, focusing on the policy implications arising from two major trends: increased international activity in space and the weaponization of misinformation, particularly with the use of social media.

If you follow AI, you have probably read about what happened when chess and Go masters were matched against AI using deep learning. To put it politely, AI humbled the mere mortals. Yann LeCun, a professor at NYU and a scientist affiliated with Facebook, recently co-shared the Turing Award (1 million USD) for his role in the development of deep learning.