Culture and Society
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A survey from think tank Atlantic Council has asked over 450 "experts" various questions about what they think the world will be like in 10 years time. Whilst we would take the survey with a generous pinch of salt, the individuals involved in this survey are certainly worried about a wide range of topics, from the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.Let's start with war, and work our way up from there. The "experts", from nonprofits, government, academic institutions, and the private sector, were asked what they believed to be the biggest threat to prosperity over the next 10 years, with nearly 30 percent opting for "war between major powers". The old climate crisis, still ever-present, scored significantly lower, at 19 percent.
Asked more directly whether there will be another world war within the next 10 years, the majority (58.8 percent) said no, but 41.2 percent responded that World War III is on the cards.
The majority of those (43 percent) had this global conflict starting in the Taiwan area, followed by Eastern Europe (25 percent), and the Middle East (13 percent). However, it should be pointed out that the experts skew heavily towards "being American" (nearly half of all respondents), and so this may be more reflective of an American viewpoint, than "experts" in general.
The survey respondents were similarly pessimistic about nuclear weapons, with 85 percent believing that additional countries would secure themselves these arms within the decade. However, there was a little more optimism surrounding their use, with 78 percent believing that they will not be used in a conflict during that same time period.
"These numbers likely reflect continuing concerns about a threat environment that includes China’s regional ambitions and the growing nuclear arsenals of both China and North Korea," Amy F. Woolf, a former specialist in nuclear weapons policy at the Congressional Research Service of the US Library of Congress, explained in a statement.
"They may also reflect concerns about the reliability of US extended nuclear deterrence and credibility of the US commitment to come to the defense of allies. In Europe, this concern has led to occasional discussions among US allies about developing an independent nuclear deterrent."
On the more "wacky" war front, over half of respondents agreed that there will be a direct military conflict fought at least partly in space, whilst a whopping 73 percent believe that AI will be making lethal decisions on battlefields, without including a human in the decision-making process.
The "leading geostrategists and foresight practitioners from around the world" surveyed were ever so slightly more optimistic about AI in general. Whilst believing they would be killing us without keeping us in the loop on the decision-making process, 58 percent believed we would achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI) by 2036, and 56 percent believed that AI's impact will be somewhat or very positive over that time.
"These results suggest that the polled experts generally are more optimistic about the technology’s future impact than, for example, the general public in the United States is," the Atlantic Council adds. "But notably, expectations of AI’s negative impact are increasing, rising three percentage points relative to the previous year’s results."
Overall, the respondents were pessimistic for the future, with 63 percent stating that the world will be worse off 10 years from now. While bleak predictions, we wouldn't get too upset about it all, nor place too much stock in it.
For a start, it certainly isn't a global view of "experts", and for sure skews towards the "US male" side of experts, with half of respondents living in the US, and 76 percent identifying as male. It is also a self-selecting group of respondents, and there may be inherent biases in who chooses to respond to a survey asking for their predictions, etc etc.
Nevertheless, it looks like a group of survey respondents, chosen from a self-selecting pool of "experts" and "geostrategists", are about as optimistic as the rest of us about the future right now. If you're looking for reassurance, maybe try some Nostradamus?
