Choosing Our World in 2036
- Rick Bonetti
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
Today, as never before, we need a multiplicity of visions, dreams, and prophecies.
We need sanctuaries for social imagination.” ~ Alvin Toffler, Future Shock
October 20-21, 2026 - The Institute for the Future (IFTF) is presenting its Ten-Year Forecast, in-person at its Palo Alto headquarters. They will share the forecasts ahead of the event, and instead of presentations to sit through, they will immerse participants in experiences, exercises, and conversations so they don't just learn about these futures, they will feel them, test them, and discover what they might demand of us.
Step inside IFTF"s ten forecasts for the year 2036:
The Future of Trust and Knowledge
Three of the ten forecasts examine what it means to know, to learn, and to trust in a decade when AI is embedded in almost every act of judgment. Together they ask:
Discernment. When seeing-is-believing collapses, what becomes the new heuristic for trust — and who is trained to teach it?
The Future of Scientific Knowledge. If generative systems can produce plausible findings and fake citations on demand, how do researchers rebuild knowledge that holds up?
Four Cultures of AI. AI-Free, AI-Augmented, AI-Adjacent, AI-Directed: Which culture will your community, your school, your company choose — and what happens to people left between the?
The Migration of Power and Capital
Four forecasts trace where authority, capital, and risk are migrating as the post–Cold War consensus comes apart:
The Muddle Powers. What replaces that consensus when energy, not ideology, sets the table — and which middle powers learn to play both sides?
China Is Everywhere. Where does Chinese capital, technology, and culture reshape daily life in places that were never expected to be downstream of Beijing?
After Financialization. After financialization has eaten everything, what happens to the real economy of goods and services?
End of the Insurance Bargain. As the old insurance bargain breaks under climate, health, and economic risk, what new forms of mutual aid, public risk-pooling, and resilience-building infrastructure rise to take its place?
The Changing Texture of Everyday Life
The remaining three forecasts describe the texture of everyday life in 2036 — what it feels like to wake up, work, and connect inside the new conditions:
Loneliness and Aloneness. If aloneness becomes the single biggest social force of the next decade, what new forms of community, care, and belonging could thrive in 2036 — and how do we make sure they reach everyone?
Life in Extreme Heat. A world where 1.5 °C is the floor, not the ceiling: what do cities, infrastructure, labor, and routine look like inside the heat?
From Large Language Models to Large World Models. Once AI moves beyond language to model the physical world, what new things can it plan, predict, and decide about — and what should it not?
IFTF's mission is "to help organizations, communities, partners, and leaders become future-ready, so they can sense change and are prepared to face systemic shocks, pursue unexpected opportunities, adapt quickly, and build resiliency to face the future."
Our friend, Rachel Hatch, COO of IFTF, told us about their newest Community Intelligence Lab prototypes at the Every Child Thrives Festival at the opening of the Obama Center in Chicago. Sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and running June 23–25, 2026, the festival invited children, families, and communities to imagine and shape the next decade.
The IFTF Community Intelligence Lab is an interactive, prototyping initiative by the Institute for the Future (IFTF) designed to democratize strategic foresight and put future-thinking tools directly into the hands of local communities. [1]
The lab deploys immersive, public-facing prototypes to help families, children, and civic organizations experience and actively co-create possibilities for the year 2036. [1, 2]
Core Tools and Experiential Prototypes
The lab utilizes AI-driven and experiential interactive stations to help individuals "speedrun" future possibilities and look past short-term thinking: [1, 2, 3, 4]
AI Scenario Explorer: A digital tool built from IFTF's custom foresight map ("Lighting Up the Future for Children"), allowing users to pick a 2036 dilemma, play it forward, and unpack the community-level consequences. [1, 2]
2036 Future Selfie Booth: An experiential installation where users place themselves inside simulated future environments and walk away with a photographic artifact of their "future self" in 2036. [1]
Community AI Prototyping: A foundational effort to build public AI spaces that align technology infrastructure with civic safety, universal access, and economic equity. [1]
Alignment with the 2036 Ten-Year Forecast
The lab’s work serves as a participatory testing ground for the broader IFTF Ten-Year Forecast 2036 research. Led by IFTF Research Director Jane McGonigal, this research guides communities through ten systemic shifts expected over the next decade—such as the booming "loneliness business," climate reorganization around extreme heat, and navigating alternative trust systems for scientific knowledge. [1, 2, 3, 4]
By bringing these heavy strategic concepts into public spaces like the Every Child Thrives Festival at the Obama Center, the Community Intelligence Lab transforms elite research into actionable community power.[1, 2, 3]
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