The pictures don’t tell the whole story. The graphic plotlines chosen by Flash Forward podcaster Rose Eveleth concern 12 possible future scenarios for our world—from all-fake news to pop-star avatars, robot pets and the many uses/abuses of AI. But the bright colors and edgy images are preludes to 12 Eveleth essays that remain hopeful while challenging the utopian agendas of futurists who—as she points out—have more than casual affinity with the pro-Fascist movement by that name in last-century Italy.
Eveleth contemplates many perspectives. In “Don’t Lie to Me,” which follows a whimsical cartoon about fib-detecting devices, she reminds us that white lies are the threads that knit human society together. Perhaps the most essential essay, “Welcome to Tomorrowville,” unpacks the assumptions behind “smart cities” with sensors and apps running everything. Smart-tech advocates conceal “their darker sides and their failure to make cities more livable, just, or safe.”
