Forecast 2050 – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Tyler Cowen believes we are woefully unprepared for the next 25 years.

In the first episode of Forecast 2050 with Nebular General Partner, Finn Murphy, we discuss the real reason behind falling birthrates, what the last human job might be in an AI-dominated economy, how conflict and war could evolve in the next 25 years, whether we will have a "viagra for the mind," why we are experiencing the fastest technological revolution in human history, why humans love stasis and hate change, and why we need faith in long-term thinking.

Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/humans-love-stasis-and-hate-change

Transcript (with helpful links!): https://substack.com/home/post/p-189726563

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:03 The real reason behind low birthrates

04:50 Transitioning to a majority-old society

07:49 The future of worldwide immigration

14:55 The 2050 economy will be healthcare dominated

19:23 Corporations have never been so powerful

26:25 There is life on the moons of Saturn

27:07 Elon is wrong: We won't settle other planets

30:00 AIs Will Take Over Society By Trick

30:58 We need faith for long term thinking

32:47 There will be many, many fake jobs

36:29 The future of the UN and global conflicts

40:56 The AIs will build their own superintelligent institutions

45:18 Tyler's greatest concern

47:50 The last profession standing in the AI era

Tyler Cowen is an economist, author, and professor known for his work on growth, innovation, and the future of technology.

Tyler on X: https://x.com/tylercowen

Tyler's Blog: https://marginalrevolution.com/

Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.

Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12

Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/

Nebular is an early stage venture capital firm based in New York City.

Head to nebular.vc for more info.

Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years, and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what lies ahead. Hosted by Nebular General Partner Finn Murphy.

Scott Aaronson thinks that the time to prepare for a post-quantum world isn’t years away - it was yesterday. In the second episode of Forecast 2050 with Nebular General Partner Finn Murphy and Entrepreneur in Residence Tom McCarthy, we explore whether classical AI might eclipse quantum computing, how post-quantum cryptography will upend global security, and why the rise of superintelligence both excites and deeply unsettles Scott.

We also debate whether a quantum teleporter would actually be a suicide machine, how advanced AI might help us uncover the fundamental nature of reality, and the disturbing possibility that future superintelligences may compete with one another for dominance, treating humans as collateral.

Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/breaking-the-internet-scott-aaronsons

Transcript (with links): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/forecast-2050-episode-ii-transcript

Chapters

00:00 Intro

02:04 How AI & Quantum Computing Interact Today

10:36 Why Scott Thinks Classical Computing Might Outdate Quantum

18:24 The Post-Quantum World of 2050

27:43 Quantum Computing & Biology

35:46 The Quantum Teleporter as a Suicide Machine

38:52 Superintelligence & The Ultimate Nature of Reality

45:00 The Battle Between Superintelligences

Scott Aaronson, the Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin, is widely recognized as a top researcher in the fields of quantum computing and computational complexity.

Thank you to Matt Johnson of Q2B Sillicon Valley and QC Ware for helping us film at the conference!

https://q2b.qcware.com/

Scott’s blog, Shtetl-Optimized: https://scottaaronson.blog/

Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.

Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12

Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/

Tom on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-mccarthy-41144779/

Nebular is an early-stage venture capital firm based in New York City.

Head to nebular.vc for more info.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind served as Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom from 1995 to 1997 and as Defence Secretary before that. He has sat across from Soviet ministers while a KGB double agent secretly briefed both sides, watched the Berlin Wall fall when nobody saw it coming, and has been banished from Russia by Putin personally for his criticism of the invasion of Crimea. I sat down with Sir Malcolm in London this January to talk about the next 25 years of conflict and diplomacy, and how to navigate a world where nobody cares about the old rules anymore.

Extended Show Notes: https://substack.com/home/post/p-192033568

Transcript: https://substack.com/home/post/p-192033862

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:05 Why Politicians Can’t Predict the Future

03:37 The Power of Double Agents in Spycraft

04:38 Social Media Diplomacy Was Inevitable

12:46 Soft Power is Dead

16:25 The Cult of Youth in Global Leadership

18:54 The West Must Think Long-Term to Survive

27:43 Technological Innovation Will Hurt Old People

30:58 The Chinese Will Eat Their Rich

38:11 Meeting Gorbachev and His Philosopher Wife

44:32 There Are No Good Guys and Bad Guys

46:46 Ukraine will Freeze Up like Korea, Kashmir, and Cyprus

47:55 Taiwan is More Important than Iran

53:23 How Smaller Countries Operate without Pax Americana

55:09 “The Chinese and the Russians Cannot Believe Their Luck” - on NATO Collapse

59:59 America May Not Be the Main Character in the Future

Sir Malcolm Rifkind is a British statesman who served as Defence Secretary and then Foreign Secretary under Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and later chaired the UK Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee.

Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.

Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12

Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/

Nebular is venture capital firm based in New York City.

Head to nebular.vc for more info.

Noor Siddiqui is building a future free of inherited disease. As Founder & CEO of Orchid, she has developed embryo screening technology that reads 99% of an embryo's DNA - 100 times more information than legacy tools. In this episode of Forecast 2050, Nebular General Partner Finn Murphy sits down with Noor in San Francisco to discuss why embryo screening and artificial wombs may become the default way humans reproduce, what's really driving falling birth rates, the moonshot nobody is funding, and why a generation of young people with world-changing energy has been left with nowhere to put it.

Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/sex-is-for-fun-orchid-ivf-is-for

Transcript (with links): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/forecast-2050-transcript-episode

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

00:50 Rolling the Dice No More: The Embryo Screening Revolution

05:27 Artificial Wombs Are the Tech Challenge of Our Time

07:47 Why Aren't We Having Kids?

17:03 The Broken Generational Contract

18:56 Nature Beats Out Nurture

21:45 AI & Genetic Technology Could Give Us Superhuman Powers

30:54 Noor’s Plan for 2050

37:10 What We Lose When Old People Run Everything

Noor Siddiqui is the Founder & CEO of Orchid, the world's first whole genome embryo screening company.

Noor on X: https://x.com/noor_siddiqui_

Orchid: https://www.orchidhealth.com/

Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.

Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12

Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/

Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City investing in early-stage companies.

Head to nebular.vc for more info.

Starcloud Founder and CEO Philip Johnston believes data centers in space are the first step to becoming a Kardashev level civilization. I caught up with Philip at Starcloud’s HQ to talk about his vision for the next 25 years. The conversation covers everything from luxury space tourism, whether Tesla’s Optimus robot will become a self-replicating galactic probe, the hard problem of consciousness, whether the world is a simulation, Mars becoming the next America, and Philip’s greatest concern for our long-term future.

Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/data-centers-in-space-moon-resorts

Transcript: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/forecast-2050-episode-iv-transcript

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

00:59 Why the Space GPU Skeptics are Wrong

03:12 Elon Will Bring Launch Costs Down with Starship

06:50 The 2050 Space Economy: Moon Hotels, Asteroid Mining and Manufacturing

16:37 The 2050 Martian Colony: A Stepping Stone for Exploring the Universe

26:32 The Kardashev Scale of Civilization

28:44 We Live in a Simulation: The Fermi Paradox & The Great Filter

34:52 Cracking the Hard Problem of Consciousness

37:46 There is a Calamitous Event Waiting for Us

39:04 Mars is the Next America

Philip Johnston is the co-founder and CEO of Starcloud, a space technology company building orbital data centers powered by solar energy to run AI and compute infrastructure in space.

Philip on X: https://x.com/PhilipJohnston

Philip on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-johnston/

Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.

Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12

Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/

Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City.

Head to nebular.vc for more info.

Matt Clifford and Ian Hogarth believe Europe is roughly a decade behind the United States in building the technology companies that will define the next era. But they also believe that the gap can be closed, and that the UK and Europe could even leapfrog America, if political leaders and the public make fundamentally different choices.

I sat down with Matt, co-founder of Entrepreneurs First and architect of the UK Government's AI strategy, and Ian, co-founder of Plural and Chair of the UK's AI Foundation Model Taskforce, to talk about what Europe needs to do to save itself from stagnation. We get into why Europe's risk aversion is a bigger threat than American superiority, why career politicians won't survive in the new multipolar world, and why the pro-growth movement is losing the culture war — and how to win it back.

Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/2dc713af-826a-43dc-a2ad-91ad00ee6134

Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/00092f0e-3f30-473f-a773-d560724b3dc5

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:01 The Compounding Effect: Why the US Is Winning

03:50 Jumpstarting European Growth

06:48 We Must Risk Failure to Succeed

09:30 Crisis as Catalyst

12:21 The Multipolar Moment

14:31 AI Nationalism

18:41 Career Politicians Won’t Survive the New Global Order

21:32 The Apollo Moonshot for the UK

25:26 The UK Has a De-Growth Cultural Problem

28:32 Growth ≠ Good

33:55 Prediction Markets as Gambling Companies

36:23 Political Leaders Should Not Be Neutral About the Good Life

37:41 UK and Europe: Geography as Destiny

39:33 The Next Pendulum Swings for Europe

Matt Clifford is the co-founder and Chair of Entrepreneurs First, the world's leading talent investor, and Chair of ARIA, the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency. He authored the UK Government's AI Opportunities Action Plan and served as the Prime Minister's Adviser on AI. He was named to the TIME100 list of most influential people in AI and was awarded a CBE for services to AI in 2024.

Ian Hogarth is co-founder and partner at Plural, an early-stage venture capital firm, and served as Chair of the UK Government's AI Foundation Model Taskforce. He co-founded Songkick and was named to the TIME100 list of most influential people in AI in 2023.

Matt on X: https://x.com/matthewclifford

Ian on X: https://x.com/soundboy

Matt's Website: https://www.matthewclifford.com/

Ian's Website: https://www.ianhogarth.com/

Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.

Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12

Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/

Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City.

Head to nebular.vc for more info.

Yanai Yedvab thinks we need to completely overhaul the infrastructure of humanity to avoid a climate disaster, and we can't afford to wait the 70 years it’ll take to wean off fossil fuels. Before founding Stardust, Yanai spent nearly three decades in Israeli nuclear research, ending up as deputy chief scientist at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission.

Stardust is developing reflective particles to disperse into the upper atmosphere that will buy us the several decades we need to transition into a low-carbon economy. We sat down in New York to talk about how the technology works, the dangers at stake if we do nothing, and Yanai's radical optimism in spite of everything.

Stardust Publication on Safety: https://www.stardustsolutions.com/science

Stardust Publication on Ethics: https://www.stardustsolutions.com/guiding-principles

Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/191c8d8c-50a1-42d4-a44e-03e618b9d359

Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/c04e6ebb-d1e8-4cbf-97d3-fee104f21536

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:10 From Nuclear Physics to The Climate Crisis

04:01 The Failure of Climate Activism

05:28 How Solar Reflective Technology Works

09:12 The 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo

12:01 The Montreal Protocol and How to Negotiate in a World at War

16:03 Buying Time: Weaning off Fossil Fuels Will Take 50-70 Years

18:55 Data Centers, Fission, and Fusion

19:59 Preparing for Emergencies the Israeli Way

23:40 Radical Transparency: The Only Way To Gain Trust

27:05 Persuading the Policymakers

33:05 Unlimited Ambition is What Will Save the World

35:10 Stardust Will Unlock Quantum Leaps in Weather Prediction

36:54 Stardust in 2050

40:20 Why Stardust Has to Be a Private Company

45:32 Optimism for the Future is Rational

Yanai Yedvab is a nuclear physicist, former deputy chief scientist at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, and the co-founder and CEO of Stardust, a solar geoengineering company.

Stardust: https://www.stardustsolutions.com/

Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.

Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12

Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/

Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City.

Head to nebular.vc for more info.

Casey Handmer thinks we're living through the most consequential 25 years in human history, and that human civilization is just getting started.

I sat down with Casey in Los Angeles to discuss how China's dominance in solar energy deployment should be a wake-up call for the West, why antimatter is the only rocket fuel that makes interstellar travel possible, and how slowing down aging may be the best solution to plummeting birthrates across the planet. For Casey, the balrog in the deep isn’t demographic decline, but a climate catastrophe that swallows every coastline on Earth.

Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/6c52cb7a-572b-4f5f-8bf9-70fdaf14cf98

Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/17c9604e-f38b-41a3-9068-eaf69d9f5575

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

00:53 The Solar Revolution

03:43 AI is a Supersonic Tsunami

06:00 Civilization Is Just Getting Started

08:46 Intelligent Life in the Universe

12:03 The $40 Trillion Ticket to Space: Antimatter

20:57 Space Exploration by 2050

22:09 Mitigating The Climate Catastrophe

27:53 Terraforming Mars vs Terraforming Venus

35:00 Solving the Birthrate Crisis: Humans Will Become Like The Elves in LOTR and Live Indefinitely

42:07 China Is Losing Sleep Over Their Problems As Much as We Are

44:46 Governments Are Lying About Their Population Sizes

46:11 The 2050 Moonshots That Will Save The World

52:45 Easter Egg :)

Casey Handmer is a physicist, entrepreneur, and the founder of Terraform Industries, working on making cheap natural gas from sunlight and air.

Casey on X: https://x.com/CJHandmer

Casey's Website: https://www.caseyhandmer.com/

Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.

Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12

Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/

Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City.

Head to nebular.vc for more info.