In keeping with our desire for each report to embody its theme, the live version of this report got all kinds of weird with machine intelligence (and let's just say, November 2023 was a different world in that regard). We've done our best to capture what we could in this archive, but just like each new moment we share with artificial intelligence before the next new thing hits, there's a 'you had to be there' quality that we simply can't replicate.

In the sections that follow, we’ll deep dive into the three themes that most captured our collective anxiety and imagination. Across The Human Premium, More-than-Human Cooperation, and Decentralized Reality, we’ll look back so we can look forward; we’ll journey into the binary, imagining what might unfold if the world tips this way or that; and we’ll step beyond, into what we’re calling ‘Protopic Portals’ — exploratory spaces that start to inform the trajectory forward and form the blueprint for our vision of a better centaur future. 

In these pages, you won’t find yourself wading through technological complexities, but rather, sitting with the truths and tensions of our world that beg a shift in focus from how we’ll shape our tools to how they’ll shape us.

As Ari Melenciano, a recent guest speaker at RADAR’s Into: A Centaur Future, has written: “We’re currently unaware of many aspects of our own psyches yet are automating its design through technologies. The better we know ourselves, the better we’re able to design systems, technologies, lenses that intentionally empower our lights vs. blindly perpetuate our shadows.” 

We’d better dig in, then. 

What makes humanity, uniquely human? What separates us? Makes us special?

It’s the fundamental question philosophers have pursued for centuries. ‘Cogito ergo sum’ felt good for a while, but the more we learn about octopi, and dolphins, and aspen trees, and how can we forget our friends the fungi…the less stable that ground feels.

This latest technological wave is turning what felt like cracks into much deeper fissures.

The emergence of a post-individual world has been one of our most well-explored topics since the start of RADAR — whether it was through our first collective report, A Future In Sync, or our community thesis, Multiplayer Futures: Toward an Emergence Economy. So it’s no surprise that we’re particularly interested in evolving ideas of cooperation and collaboration. It’s a conversation that’s interesting enough when it’s squarely in the domain of humans — but non-human agents take it to another level, forcing us to reconsider the nature of how we treat and relate to one another, the world around us, and our more-than-human counterparts. 

In A Future In Sync, we explored the out-of-synchronizing driver of atomization, and the resulting discomfort of navigating a post-narrative world. Little did we realize that not much more than a year later, we’d be talking about yet another splosh of fuel on the fire. But here we are.

Now that we’ve explored what hangs in the balance, and peeked into the Protopic Portals that present potentially positive paths forward, we wanted to put a ‘blueprint for a better future’ together in earnest. After all, that’s always the intent of RADAR’s research: to be a beacon that draws believers and builders (and, as a participant pointed out in our Into: A Centaur Future event last week, builders who believe) toward collective action. 

Armed with 10 weeks of collective research and the emerging narratives that surrounded our existential themes, we embarked as a community on our process of futures mapping. A sort of hybrid in and of itself, it’s a mix of worldbuilding based on what we know, manifesting based on what we believe in, and backcasting based on the intersection of both. 

The result blew us away: a visceral vision that brought us right back to where we started, exploring themes of synchrony and the rippling ramifications of a world that could find itself whole once more if only it chose to pursue better. 

Before we go any further, maybe it’s best to hop into our Time Machine and look through the machine’s eyes once more.

What you’ve just read is something like a long-form version of what we’d call our ‘Center of Gravity’ — the vision of the world we’re aiming for. In short, it’s a world of more-than-human mutualism that helps us achieve wholeness at every scale. 

As we’ve envisioned it, this world is guided by 5 North Stars — think of these as the fundamental truths that we’ve achieved on our journey here, the truths of the world that we’d be stepping into in a 2053 where this future has come to fruition. 

Human Potential: Every individual has access to tools that amplify their inherent qualities, with education systems that prioritize these attributes in conjunction with technological fluency. Innovation prioritizes enhancing and complementing human capacities, amplifying human potential and redefining the parameters of what's possible.  

Mutual Curiosity: Cultural and educational infrastructure & philosophy align to bridge the understanding gap between humans and their non-human counterparts, machines included — promoting an environment where all parties grow from shared insights and experiences.

Regenerative Renaissance: Technological advancements are geared toward regeneration — be it environmental rejuvenation, societal repair, or cultural revitalization. Machine learning is used to preserve and repair our stories, ourselves, and our world.

Interconnected Realities: Virtual and augmented realities, and other technologically-enhanced experiences, serve as bridges that connect different cultures, species, realms and realities, ensuring they are tools for unity, mutual curiosity, and shared growth.

Flourishing Ecosystems: Technological endeavors work alongside nature to ensure interventions are harmonious, sustainable, and beneficial to all living entities and don't just benefit human convenience, pleasure, or otherwise. The symbiotic perspective of mutualism drives how we think about operating in a more-than-human system. 

With our Center of Gravity and North Stars in place, we know what we’re dreaming toward and are able to plot a path of possibilities that might draw us closer to the future we’ve envisioned. 

What follows is the result of our collective dreaming: a protopian blueprint for a Centaur Future that is indeed, in our eyes, a better future. 

Before you dive in, we’ll leave you with two quotes that guided our thinking: 

“I spoke at a conference a while ago in Switzerland. The guy who spoke before me was from the biggest supermarket chain in Switzerland, and in his talk four times, he said, “and I urge you to be pragmatic.” When it was my time to speak, I said, “Please don't be pragmatic. The last thing we need is for you to be pragmatic. We need you to be more ridiculous in the work that you do.”  Any solution that is put forward to [the challenges we face] that doesn't initially seem at least a bit ridiculous is nowhere near ambitious enough.” 

– Rob Hopkins

Before we go, we wanted to play you a clip of the talk Amelia Winger-Bearskin gave at our Into: A Centaur Future event. It’s 5 minutes, but we promise, it’s important. 

You see, everyone’s rushing around like we’re already deep into the AI story. But the truth is, in the grand scheme of things, we’re barely minutes in. And critically, its creation story hasn’t been set in stone. In fact, it’s barely been penciled in. 

So now’s the time for us to get to it — because the future belongs to those who think about it. 

This ‘better future’ wasn’t as straightforward as A Future In Sync or A More Play-Full Future, but we’re leaving this cycle energized and full of belief that there’s a better future in the making here — and a protopian blueprint that we can start to follow. 

So we’re calling on you to join us: builders, believers, partners, brands, curious humans of all stripes.

At RADAR, we believe that better futures aren’t built in bubbles. And that the more committed and thoughtful brains, hands, and resources we can put behind a vision of a better future, the more likely we’ll all be to manifest — and benefit from — its fruition. 

Ready to accelerate this better future in multiplayer mode? 

We believe that the future is community-owned.

We believe that better futures aren’t built in bubbles. 

We believe the future isn’t something that happens to you, it's something you — and me, and all of us, individuals, communities, and brands alike — can actively participate and invest in.

That’s why we aim for each of our reports to be brought to you in partnership with an organization that shares our values and our vision for the particular better future that we’re pursuing. 

This time, we did things a bit differently, working with BottoDAO to embed one of our members in the community to learn everything they could about Botto’s artistic process and its relationship to the DAO. The results of Aaren’s time spent in BottoDAO are embodied in the piece below.