I believe that Europe must urgently 'Take back tomorrow" in 2026 by - among many other things - disengaging from the longstanding US domination and resisting The Don's path of #thebadfuture, by building human-centered AI as a strategic advantage, by bolstering technological sovereignty without isolation, by investing in uniquely human capacities (what I call the #androrithms), by leading a new global alliance of trust with partners beyond US politics, and by redefining success beyond GDP through “5P” economics: people, planet, purpose, peace, and prosperity.
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In this powerful and thought-provoking talk, we explore the defining battle of our time: shaping a future where technology serves humanity, not the other way around. From artificial intelligence and digital power to ethics, responsibility, and human values, this is a call to action for governments, politicians, leaders, creators, and citizens alike.
The future isn’t something that just happens. It’s something we design. This talk challenges us to rethink progress, question blind optimism and blind fear alike, and focus on building a world where innovation amplifies what makes us human — creativity, empathy, dignity, and purpose.
The real question isn’t whether the future will be driven by technology. It’s whether it will STILL BE HUMAN.

00:53
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The Bad Future or The Good Future? A short set of animations. Time to take back tomorrow!
Read more: https://takingbacktomorrow.com/ https://thebadfuture.com/ https://goodfuture.live/ https://thehumanresistance.net/ https://lookupnowthefilm.com/ https://www.peopleplanetpurposeprosperity.com/ https://fightforthegoodfuture.com/ Watch more: https://youtu.be/DJLxntgYukU?si=r5FlCSWbn54-TnVa https://youtu.be/0SYSDTcj6oU?si=IOSwPN9Sh9KNDrzf https://youtu.be/GjvE-HC_JKU?si=iVQbIJJ1gcIwoKuB https://youtu.be/NKULqRQj1UY?si=mL0xo1ycOdncnUpu Ask my AIs anything you want: https://futuris

03:35
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Sorry Elon: AI & Humanoid Robots are NOT going to solve every problem. Questioning Techno-Optimism.
My message: Techno-Optimism isn’t a useful strategy for creating #thegoodfuture of Humanity #elonmusk In his recent appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos 2026 (see below for link) Elon Musk presented a grand vision where AI and robotics pave the path to global abundance and solve poverty. He predicts that AI could be smarter than any individual human by the end of the year, and smarter than all of humanity collectively by 2030 or 2031. But is this seductive "techno-optimism" really

37:03
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Protopia: Building The Good Future: Yes we can! Futurist Gerd Leonhard's powerful online keynote
The future is not written—it’s a choice. In this talk, I explore why #thegoodfuture is entirely possible and how we can build it—step by step, painfully, but surely. #protopia not dystopia @KevinKelly From solving climate change to wrestling with the rise of artificial intelligence, the next ten years will bring more change than the last 100 years. Will we let technology dictate our destiny, or will we use wisdom, ethics, Telos, and collaboration to shape a future worth living in? We’re standi

01:27:04
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Geopolitics, AI and The Good Future: Why Europe must Take Back Tomorrow (complete event recording)
This is an edited version of my recent guest appearance on the @LondonFuturists video podcast, see https://youtu.be/0WgaL3QKCDo?si=4GI5spqAoTKGKQVI, with @David_W_Wood and @liselottelyngsofuturist TL;DR? Here is the Gerd-talk only cut: https://youtu.be/GjvE-HC_JKU?si=KtlkGd1umt5fOqbJ (only my presentation) Take Back Tomorrow: Addressing Existential Risks and Building a Better Future In this enlightening episode, David Wood chairs a thought-provoking discussion with renowned futurists Ger

20:16
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How the U.S. has lost the plot on The Good Future, and why Europe needs to #takebacktomorrow today
This presentation is an excerpt from a recent online event I did with @LondonFuturists see https://youtu.be/0WgaL3QKCDo?si=0P6D_SwWYIm4QEDv for the entire show (a must watch!) In this hard-hitting presentation I reflect on the shifts in global futures over the 2 years, emphasizing the emergence of what I call 'the bad future' see www.thebadfuture.com for more details - it's the antidote to my core theme of #thegoodfuture :) I speak about key challenges such as the rapid and painful degradat

33:11
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Why Smart People Keep Getting AI Wrong
Twenty years ago, climate denial was a problem of the right. Today, AI denial is a problem of the left. And the consequences could be even more disastrous. I don’t say this often, but I think this is the most important thing I’ve published in quite some time. Watch it as a video essay or read it on my Substack (https://rutgerbregman.substack.com). I think we're sleepwalking through the most important shift of our lifetimes, and the people who should be sounding the alarm are in denial. CHAPT

38:30
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I Told Harvard Students They're Wasting Their Lives
Every year, the smartest students graduate from the world's best universities. They're talented, driven, and full of potential. They've spent two decades being told they're going to change the world. And then many of them go to work for McKinsey. Or Goldman Sachs. Or a corporate law firm where they'll spend their twenties writing memos for clients they'll never meet, making rich people even richer. Meanwhile, the biggest problems of our time — climate change, pandemics, factory farming, extreme

15:00
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The Liar Running the Most Dangerous Company on Earth
In November 2023, Sam Altman was fired by OpenAI’s board. Five days later, he was back – and the board was gone. This is the story of the most important leadership question of our time: who should be steering the development of artificial general intelligence? New video dropping in a few weeks. Subscribe so you don't miss it! KEY SOURCES & FURTHER READING → Karen Hao, Empire of AI (2025). → Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz, “Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted?”, The New Yorker:

11:41
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How Ai Slop will Spark the Next Human Renaissance
Head to http://squarespace.com/afterskool to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code afterskool. This episode of After Skool focuses on the hidden tradeoffs of adopting new technology. Each time we gain something with a new invention, we also lose something, and what we lose is often hard to see until much later. We can all sense that Ai will be the single biggest driver of change in the next decade and may very well be our last invention. There’s no denying that it’s

15:56
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You're Not Overreacting. This Is Actually Fascism.
Historians are now using the f-word to describe what's happening in America. In this video, I explain why, why it matters, and what you can do. KEY SOURCES & FURTHER READING → Robert Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (2004) → Robert Paxton, "The Five Stages of Fascism," Journal of Modern History (1998) → Umberto Eco, "Ur-Fascism," The New York Review of Books (1995) → Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works (2018) → Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny (2017) ESSENTIAL RECENT ESSAYS → Rosan Smits, "This Is Fasc
In this hard-hitting new video, I start with the assertion that #thegoodfuture will no longer come from the United States. It is heart-wrenching to observe that the U.S. is rapidly shifting toward what can only be called “the bad future”: power and might over purpose and collective benefit, reckless techno-optimism and greed fuelling a dangerous AI arms-race, and transactional, brute-force diplomacy over trust and collaboration. I see a strong connection between America's political decline into autocracy and the systematic weakening of important global institutions such as the U.N., on the one hand, and the rise of unaccountable AI empires and the reckless acceleration toward superintelligence i.e. #artificialgeneralintelligence, on the other hand.