Dear Readers:

I know I said I was retiring from my work as a corporate futurist but, as one friend wrote to me after my announcement, “Once a futurist, always a futurist.”

I write to you not to walk back my “retirement,” but to share a few “post-scripts on the future” as well as explain the future direction of my work.

The world is in the midst of historic and seismic change, and things will only accelerate from this point forward.

Last week, Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google and a long-time proponent of artificial intelligence, made a stunning announcement that drew little attention. He said we need to “pull the plug on AI.”

Unfortunately, what Schmidt doesn’t tell you is that there is no plug. Nor is there a “switch” that can be magically flipped to turn off AI.

This means that society must prepare itself for both the best and the worst AI has to offer.

My advice to individuals, corporations, communities and countries alike is the same: Work on building resilience. Ask yourself: Are you prepared to weather sizable political, economic, technological and environmental disruption? If not, get to work.

As one example of the coming political and economic disruption, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthrophic, publicly stated in his remarks at Davos this week that there is a good chance within the next 5 years AI might simultaneously usher in a world where GDP grows between 10 to 20 percent (which is good) alongside unemployment which grows in the neighborhood of 10 to 20 percent (which is bad).

Put another way, the uber-rich will grow richer and the bottom 20 percent of the population will grow poorer. This is a recipe for political revolution. Are you prepared for such political chaos?

The broader geopolitical situation also continues to be fraught. A few weeks ago, Blaise Metrweli, the new head of MI6–Britain’s most powerful and secretive intelligence–gave a public speech warning the people of Great Britain that her country now exists “between a state of peace and war.”

As a former naval intelligence officer and Defense Department official, I will tell you this: When I hear the head of MI6 say something like this, she is not offering us her opinion. She is sending us a stark warning, and she is using a giant megaphone to do so.

When the Prime Minister of Canada announces a new “strategic partnership” with China and publicly states that the reason is because his country can no longer rely on the United States, it is another flashing sign that the old world order is crumbling.

And when the President of the United States threatens to invade the land of a long-time NATO ally, it is yet another sign that the old geopolitical order is disintegrating before our eyes.

Last–and although it receives little attention–the environmental degradation of the planet continues apace. The glaciers at both poles are now melting at a historic rate. This is a documented fact. We can now measure the size of these glaciers using high-resolution satellites from space as well as sophisticated sensors on the ground.

Elsewhere, did you know that entire rivers have dried up in Iran due to mismanagement? The current political revolt in that country is complex and is the result of a number of factors but one large reason the middle-class is rising up is because the economy is faltering and the economy is faltering because they are running out of water.

In the midst of all of this change, I want to be clear that I am not so much retiring from my work as a futurist as I am redirecting the focus of my attention and my work.

We, as a society, are about to be tested, challenged, and pushed in unimaginable ways and our old ways of thinking, doing, and being are not sufficient.

We must understand that we are all God’s children, we are “Children of the Light,” and we are spiritual beings (in human form). 

The direction of the future is neither backwards nor forwards–it is Spiritward.

Our challenge is to reunite our souls with Spirit. (I don’t care if you call “Spirit” by the name of God, Yahyew, Allah, Buddha, Divide Consciousness or a thousand other names. My point is that we have one Common Creator).

And, in order to reunite with “The Great Mystery” (yet another name for God), we must move in the direction of Spirit–or what I call “Spiritward.”  It is the direction of the future.

P.S. If you’re interested, you can follow my new thoughts here: JackUldrich/Substack.com