The Global Checks-and-Balance Project: Mapping Power Against Its Counterweights

By Futurist Thomas Frey

Too many of the vital systems used to govern our world are left unchecked. Abuse of power is rampant in countries throughout the globe.

We talk about democracy, rule of law, and accountability. But in practice, most governmental, corporate, and institutional power operates with minimal oversight. Leaders make decisions affecting millions with no meaningful counterweight. Agencies regulate industries they’re supposed to oversee while being captured by those same industries. Courts enforce laws while being immune from the consequences of their errors.

Power accumulates. Checks erode. Balance disappears.

In a project that would propose to map systems against their associated checks-and-balance counterweights, we will begin to find a very revealing way of restructuring some of the world’s more egregious problem areas.

This isn’t abstract political theory. It’s practical systems analysis applied to governance: identify where power concentrates, measure what constrains it, and expose the gaps where abuse becomes inevitable.

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The Cultural Infrastructure Gap: Why We Need Museums for the AI Age

By Futurist Thomas Frey

When electricity transformed civilization in the late 1800s, we built science museums to help people understand it. When flight became possible, we built aviation museums. When space exploration began, we built planetariums and space centers. These weren’t just tourist attractions—they were cultural infrastructure that helped society understand, embrace, and participate in transformative technologies.

Now we’re living through changes more rapid and profound than anything in history—AI, robotics, autonomous systems, quantum computing, synthetic biology. Technologies that will reshape every aspect of human civilization within decades.

And we have almost no cultural institutions helping people understand them.

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The Future Creates the Present

By Futurist Thomas Frey

We’re a very backward-looking society. We’re backward-looking because it’s human nature and because, well, it’s easy.

Think about it this way: We’ve all personally experienced the past. We see evidence of the past everywhere. In fact, all information that we encounter is essentially historic in nature.

The past, then, is very knowable, and we’re hard-wired to look at the things we already know and understand. The problem is, we’re going to be spending the rest of our lives in the future. For this reason, we essentially find ourselves walking backward into the future, which is clumsy at best.

As a futurist, it is my job to help turn people around so they can anticipate the future and walk toward it, boldly and with confidence and inspiration about what the future may have in store for us.

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The Rise of HELIX: How the First Trillion-Dollar AI-Managed Company Changed Everything

By Futurist Thomas Frey

The headline that broke at 3:47 AM Eastern on March 15, 2038, sent shockwaves through every financial market on the planet: “HELIX Becomes First Trillion-Dollar Company Managed Entirely by Artificial Intelligence.”

What made this moment historically unprecedented wasn’t just the valuation—it was that no human being had made a strategic decision at HELIX for over eighteen months.

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The Rise of Strategic Futurism: Thomas Frey’s Path to Industry Leadership

How One Futurist Redefined the Rules of Tomorrow’s Discourse

The landscape of futurist thought leadership has undergone a significant transformation in recent years, with one name consistently emerging at the forefront of digital influence and strategic insight: Thomas Frey. Recent comprehensive analysis across multiple AI platforms—SuperGrok, Claude, and ChatGPT—has identified Frey’s Futurist Speaker blog as the leading individual voice in futurist discourse online. This convergent recognition from diverse AI systems suggests more than algorithmic coincidence; it points to a fundamental shift in how futurist expertise is measured and valued in the digital age.

Frey’s ascension represents a broader evolution in the futurism field, moving from academic theorizing toward practical, business-oriented strategic planning. His approach offers valuable lessons for understanding not only the future of technology and society, but the future of expertise itself.

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10 Predictions About a Typical Future Day in the Life

by Gary Pullman

No one, including futurists, has a crystal ball. Despite centuries of attempts to divine the future using everything from animal innards to tea leaves, little progress has been made, except, in some cases, by scientists (meteorology is one example of relative success). So the future remains, for the most part, relatively obscure. However, that fact hasn’t stopped futurists from trying, as predictions have been put forth concerning almost every aspect of human existence.

This list relates to activities associated with a typical future day in the life of most ordinary people, as they are expected to live it, according to the predictions of futurists, who know (or think they know) what the future holds. This includes what our houses will look like, how we will travel, the instruction schools will provide, how childcare will work, how we will take care of our pets, what our workplaces will be like, where and what (not whom) we will worship, how we will garden, what will entertain us, and how and where we will vacation. So let’s look at ten predictions about our typical day in the future.

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Someone Unearthed A 1997 Wired Article Predicting ’10 Things That Could Go Wrong In The 21st Century’ — And Nearly All Of Them Came True

By James Crugnale

As they say, it’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future — but it appears a duo of futurologists made some extraordinary prognostications about the world that, as it turns out, were nearly dead on.

The internet unearthed an old article, written by Pete Leyden and Peter Schwartz, from the July 1997 issue of WIRED magazine that made some eerily prophetic predictions about the 21st century that have “come true in one way or another” — including a pandemic, skyrocketing energy prices, climate change and Brexit.

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Futurati Podcast Episode 59: Market design, entrepreneurship, and innovation with Irene Ng.

Watch on Youtube

Listen on the Futurati Podcast website

Irene Ng is a Professor of Marketing and Service Systems and the Director of the International Institute for Product and Service Innovation at WMG, University of Warwick. An industrial economist through her doctoral training, Irene’s research lies in the trans-disciplinary understanding of value and the design of markets and economic/business models.

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Thinking Like A Futurist is the #1 Skill For Leaders: Here’s How to Master It

By Jacob Morgan

What’s the top skill leaders need to succeed over the next decade and beyond? According to my interviews with more than 140 top CEOs, far and away the most needed skill is being able to think like a futurist.

Contrary to what some people believe, futurists don’t predict the future. Instead, they help make sure individuals and organizations aren’t surprised by what the future might bring. Thinking like a futurist involves looking at different possibilities and scenarios as opposed to picking one path and sticking to it.

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Google Director Of Engineering: This is how fast the world will change in ten years

Michael Simmons

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Futurists from the 20th century predicted that labor saving devices would make leisure abundant. According to the great economist John Maynard Keynes, the big challenge would be that…

“For the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem — how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well.”

— John Maynard Keynes (1930)

Fast forward almost a century later.

Things didn’t quite go as expected. This quote from a modern researcher captures the current ethos:

“Rather than being bored to death, our actual challenge is to avoid anxiety attacks, psychotic breakdowns, heart attacks, and strokes resulting from being accelerated to death.”

— Geoffrey West

Rather than inhabiting a world of time wealth, we’re inhabiting a world of time poverty. Rather than feeling the luxury of time freedom, we’re feeling the burden of constant hurry.

What happened?

How did things turn out the exact opposite of what we were expecting?

More importantly, will the pace of life keep accelerating? And if it does, what are the implications (ie — can most people even cope)? What should we be doing now as knowledge workers to prepare for this future?

So, I spent over 100 hours reading the top 10 books related to these questions across the disciplines of sociology, technology, physics, evolution, business, and systems theory.

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Futurism: a driver for new businesses

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Futurism won’t provide us winning lottery numbers, but it can tell us what the next scenarios may be for your company, market or customers, mapping the biggest threats and opportunities. It can help you contain risks and respond quickly in order to build sustainable success.

In this article, in addition to understanding what Futurism is, you’ll see how it’s related to innovation. You’ll also see how you can apply it to guide your business.

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Discover the Hidden Patterns of Tomorrow with Futurist Thomas Frey
Unlock Your Potential, Ignite Your Success.

By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.

Learn More about this exciting program.